Question
A Question in Salesforce is a feed post type used in Chatter and Experience Cloud sites where a person asks for help or information and other users reply with answers.
Definition
A Question in Salesforce is a feed post type used in Chatter and Experience Cloud sites where a person asks for help or information and other users reply with answers. It behaves differently from a plain status update. A Question supports answer-thread semantics, which means it can collect many answers, surface one Best Answer at the top, and let people follow the thread for updates.
Under the hood a Question is a FeedItem record whose Type is QuestionPost. Each answer is a FeedComment tied to that item, and the chosen best answer is referenced by the BestCommentId field. Questions can stand on their own in a community or, when nobody resolves them, be escalated into a Case through the Question-to-Case feature so a support agent can pick them up.
How a Question works across Chatter and communities
Where a Question lives in the feed
A Question starts when someone picks the Question action from the Chatter publisher or the Question tab. You give it a title and optional details, then post it to your followers, to a specific group, or to a record feed. The title is the part that makes a Question searchable, so a clear, specific title pulls in better answers and helps future visitors find the thread. Internally the post is a FeedItem with a Type of QuestionPost, available since API version 21.0. The title maps to the Title field, and the body holds the detail. Because it is a real Chatter object, a Question inherits the things you expect from any feed post. People can like it, comment on individual answers, mention colleagues, and attach files. It also respects feed tracking and sharing rules, so a Question posted to a private group stays inside that group. This is what people mean when they call a Question a first-class Chatter object rather than a bolt-on widget. It is the same plumbing as a normal post, with extra answer-thread behavior layered on top.
Answers and the Best Answer
Once a Question is live, other members reply. Each reply is a FeedComment record tied to the parent Question, so an answer is technically a comment with special meaning. The person who asked, plus moderators, can mark one reply as the Best Answer. Moderators here means Chatter moderators, Experience Cloud site moderators, or Salesforce admins. When a Best Answer is set, a check mark appears next to it and a copy is pinned to the top of the answer list. Only one answer can hold that status at a time. The Best Answer is not locked in forever. Anyone with the right to select it can also remove the status, then move it to a better reply if a stronger answer arrives later. The platform stores the pointer in the BestCommentId field on the FeedItem, which is how the front end knows which comment to highlight. This single-best-answer model is what separates a Question from a generic discussion thread. It gives readers one obvious place to look instead of forcing them to scroll the whole conversation.
Questions in Experience Cloud sites
Questions really earn their keep inside Experience Cloud sites, where customers and partners ask each other for help. In a community built on a self-service template, members post Questions against topics, and the same Best Answer mechanics apply. When you ask a Question in a community, the site can show similar questions and Knowledge articles before you finish, which often resolves the issue without a new thread. That deflection is the whole point of community Q&A. Every answered Question becomes searchable content. A customer who solves one problem helps the next visitor who hits the same wall, which scales support past what your agents could ever handle one ticket at a time. To turn this on for a site, an admin enables Chatter Questions in the Experience Cloud workspace settings. Note one limit worth planning around. The mobile Salesforce app does not fully support every Question feature. Mobile users may not see similar questions and Knowledge suggestions while typing, and selecting a best answer is restricted there, so heavy answer curation usually happens on desktop.
Question-to-Case escalation
Not every Question gets a good community answer. Some need a real support agent, an entitlement check, or a tracked resolution. Question-to-Case handles that handoff. It lets moderators and admins turn an unresolved Question into a Case directly from the feed, in Lightning Experience, the Salesforce app, and Experience Cloud sites. The new Case keeps the link back to the originating Question, so the conversation context travels with it. Once a Case exists, the issue enters your normal service machinery. It can route through Omni-Channel, sit under an SLA from an Entitlement, and get worked in the Service Console like any other ticket. When the agent posts a resolution on the Case, that answer can flow back to the community thread so the original asker and future searchers both benefit. This is the bridge between peer-to-peer help and formal case management. Community members handle the easy and common questions, while genuinely hard or account-specific problems graduate into Cases with full tracking, ownership, and reporting. You configure the trigger that creates the Case, so escalation can be manual or rule-driven depending on how much control you want.
Enabling and configuring Questions
Turning Questions on is an admin task done in Setup, and the exact path depends on where you want them. For internal Chatter, you enable Chatter Questions so the Question action appears in the publisher across feeds, groups, and records. For a community, you flip the Chatter Questions setting inside that site in the Experience workspace, which adds the Question experience for members. Question-to-Case is a separate switch. You enable it in Setup, then add the action that creates a Case from a Question so moderators actually have a button to press. Because Questions ride on standard feed infrastructure, the usual feed settings still matter. Feed tracking, group access, sharing, and moderation rules all shape who can ask, who can answer, and what stays visible. Plan permissions before launch. Decide which profiles can post Questions, who acts as moderator with best-answer and escalation rights, and whether escalation is manual or automated. Getting those decisions right early avoids a community full of Questions that nobody is empowered to answer, mark, or escalate, which is the most common way a Q&A program stalls.
How Questions differ from older Q&A features
Salesforce has shipped a few question-and-answer tools over the years, and the names get confused. Chatter Answers and the standalone Answers feature were earlier public Q&A products that have since been retired in favor of newer community Q&A built on Chatter Questions and Experience Cloud. If you are building something today, Chatter Questions is the current path, not those legacy products. The practical difference is integration. Modern Questions live inside the same feed, search, topics, and Knowledge stack as the rest of your Experience Cloud site, so an answer is discoverable next to articles and other posts. Older tools were more siloed. Knowing the lineage matters when you read documentation or inherit an org. A reference to Answers or Chatter Answers usually points at older or migrated functionality, while Chatter Questions and Question-to-Case describe what Salesforce supports now. When you design a Q&A program, lean on the current building blocks. Pair Questions with well-tended Knowledge articles, clear topics, and a moderation team, and you get a self-service loop that deflects routine tickets and feeds the hard ones into Cases.
Set up Questions and Question-to-Case
Questions show up once an admin enables Chatter Questions, and optionally Question-to-Case so unresolved threads can become support tickets. Here is the high-level setup for an internal org or an Experience Cloud site.
- Enable Chatter Questions
In Setup, turn on Chatter Questions so the Question action appears in the publisher across feeds, groups, and records. For a community, enable Chatter Questions inside that site in the Experience workspace settings instead.
- Confirm the Question action and feed tracking
Check that the Question action is present in the relevant publisher layouts, and review feed tracking and group access so the right people can ask and answer in the right places.
- Enable Question-to-Case
In Setup, turn on Question-to-Case, then add the action that creates a Case from a Question. This gives moderators a button to escalate an unanswered thread into the service queue.
- Set moderation and best-answer rights
Decide which profiles can post Questions and who acts as moderator. Moderators and the asker can mark and remove the Best Answer, so confirm those people have the access they need.
Adds the Question post type to internal Chatter feeds, groups, and record feeds for employees.
Enables the Question experience for members inside a specific community site.
Lets moderators and admins create a Case from a Question and keeps the link back to the original thread.
Lets the asker and moderators highlight one reply, pinning it to the top via the BestCommentId reference.
- The mobile Salesforce app does not fully support every Question feature; similar-question and Knowledge suggestions and best-answer selection are limited there.
- Question-to-Case is a separate toggle from Chatter Questions, and you must add the create-Case action before moderators can escalate.
- Only one Best Answer can be set at a time; selecting a new one or removing the status is how you change it.
- Questions follow standard sharing and group access, so a Question in a private group is not visible to people outside that group.
Prefer this walkthrough as its own page? How to Question in Salesforce, step by step
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
- Chatter Questions OverviewSalesforce
- Question-to-CaseSalesforce
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Question.
Hands-on resources to go deeper on Question.
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
Test your knowledge
Q1. What distinguishes a Question post in Chatter or Experience Cloud from a standard Chatter post?
Q2. Why would a community team mark a Best Answer on a Question?
Q3. What can happen to a Question that needs service-agent attention?
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