Definition
Demote in Salesforce Knowledge refers to reverting a published article back to draft status. This action removes the article from public visibility and allows authors to make revisions before republishing, useful for correcting errors or updating outdated information.
Real-World Example
When a business analyst at Clearwater Inc. needs to streamline operations, they turn to Demote to improve how the organization tracks relationships and interactions. By setting up Demote properly, the team gains better visibility into their customer base, which leads to more informed decisions and stronger customer relationships across the board.
Why Demote Matters
Demote in Salesforce Knowledge is the action of reverting a published article from Published status back to Draft. Once demoted, the article is no longer visible to readers, and the author can edit it before publishing the corrected version. Demoting is the standard pattern for correcting errors or making substantive updates to a published article: the change is made in draft, the draft is reviewed and approved, and then the article is republished.
Knowledge supports two main approaches to article updates: small corrections can be made through 'Edit as Draft' (which creates a draft version while the published article stays live), or substantive corrections can be made through Demote (which removes the published version while you fix it). The right choice depends on whether the published content is so incorrect that it should not be visible during the fix, or whether it's better to keep the existing version available until the new one is ready. Many organizations use 'Edit as Draft' for routine updates and reserve Demote for content that's actively misleading or harmful and needs to come down immediately.
How Organizations Use Demote
- •CloudNine Solutions — Demotes Knowledge articles when a product change makes published content inaccurate. The article comes down immediately so customers don't see wrong information, then is republished with updated content.
- •ShieldGuard Security — Built a workflow that auto-demotes any article that hasn't been reviewed in two years. Old, unreviewed content disappears from public visibility until an author refreshes it.
- •Oceanic Corp — Uses 'Edit as Draft' for routine updates and Demote for urgent corrections, treating each as the right tool for the right situation.