Knowledge Sidebar
The Knowledge Sidebar is the older name for the panel that shows Salesforce Knowledge articles beside an open case in the service console.
Definition
The Knowledge Sidebar is the older name for the panel that shows Salesforce Knowledge articles beside an open case in the service console. Salesforce does not use that label any more. The current name is the Knowledge component, and it is a standard component you place on a Lightning record page.
The wording is a holdover from Salesforce Classic, where the console had fixed sidebar regions and Knowledge was one of the things you could dock in one of them. Classic Knowledge has since been superseded by Lightning Knowledge, and that Classic console layout went with it.
The behavior survived the rename. The panel still matches articles against the case a rep is working, still lets them search and filter by hand, and still attaches an article to the case in a single action.
In plain English
“Picture a support agent with a customer's problem open on screen. Off to one side, the software keeps showing help articles that might answer it. That side panel used to be called the Knowledge Sidebar. It is still there, doing the same job, under a different name.”
Worked example
A rep at a home security company opens Case 00104382, subject "Doorbell camera drops Wi-Fi after firmware 4.2.1". The Knowledge component sits in the page's right region and has already run a suggested-article search. It works because an admin turned on Suggest related articles on cases in Knowledge Settings and spent one of the five field slots on Case Reason, on top of the preselected Subject. Three ranked articles come back. The rep opens the dropdown next to "Reconnecting a Doorbell Camera After a Firmware Update", attaches it, then inserts it into the email reply. The attach is recorded, so the next rep on the case sees which article was already tried.
From a Classic console region to a Lightning component
Why searching Setup for the old name comes up empty
Nothing in Lightning Experience carries the label Knowledge Sidebar. Type it into Setup search and you get nothing, which is how admins end up deciding the feature was dropped. Lightning App Builder lists the item as plain Knowledge, under Standard Components. Salesforce Help muddies it further: the guidance still sits at a URL ending knowledge_lightning_sidebar, while the page itself is titled Guidelines for Using the Lightning Knowledge Component. The old phrase survives in runbooks, in that URL, and in old forum answers. Not in the product.
What the component does once it is on the page
On a case, it runs a search as the record loads and shows ranked article results. A rep can type a query in the search box instead, and use Advanced Search to pre-filter before searching. Every result carries a dropdown for attaching the article to the case, removing it later, or inserting it into an email reply. It can sit on objects other than Case, but automatic suggestions and case-specific actions only appear on cases. Salesforce's own guidelines flag one quirk: an action taken in the component refreshes the other components in the console workspace, not only this one.
Where the configuration actually lives
Three places, and admins routinely check the wrong one. Placement is Lightning App Builder: open the case record page and drag Knowledge from Standard Components into a region. Matching is Setup, then Knowledge Settings, where you enable Suggest related articles on cases and choose which case fields feed the search. Description is always used whether you pick it or not, Subject arrives preselected, and you can select up to five short text fields; Case Reason and Case Type are the usual additions. Console access is App Manager, where you edit the console app and move Knowledge into the selected navigation items.
Two suggestion engines, and which one should be running
Suggested Articles is keyword matching and switches on with Lightning Knowledge. Einstein Article Recommendations is the model-driven alternative, learning from past cases and the articles reps attached. Keyword matching works on day one, wanting only case text and published articles. The model wants a back catalogue of cases with the right article attached, so an org that never used the attach action has nothing to train on. Salesforce recommends retiring the keyword engine once Einstein is live, since two ranked lists in one panel leave a rep nothing to go on.
How organizations use Knowledge Sidebar
Pins the Knowledge component to the right region of every case page so reps see ranked articles before they finish reading the description.
Adds Case Reason and a product family field in Knowledge Settings, which lifts match quality on cases whose subject line is just a serial number.
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Knowledge Sidebar.
Hands-on resources to go deeper on Knowledge Sidebar.
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He writes and edits salesforcedictionary.com, published by KineticBit Inc., to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
Test your knowledge
+5 pts / dayQ1. In a current Salesforce org, what does the phrase "Knowledge Sidebar" refer to?
Q2. Which setting controls whether articles are suggested automatically as a rep opens a case?
Q3. An org has adopted Einstein Article Recommendations. What does Salesforce recommend doing with keyword-based Suggested Articles?
Discussion
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