Solution
A Salesforce Knowledge-predecessor object (primarily used in Classic) that stores answers to common customer questions, searchable by agents and customers, largely replaced by Salesforce Knowledge articles in Lightning.
Definition
A Salesforce Knowledge-predecessor object (primarily used in Classic) that stores answers to common customer questions, searchable by agents and customers, largely replaced by Salesforce Knowledge articles in Lightning.
In plain English
“A Solution in Salesforce is a Knowledge-predecessor object (primarily used in Classic) that stores answers to common customer questions. It's been largely replaced by Salesforce Knowledge, which provides much richer article management. Solutions are legacy; use Knowledge for new work.”
Worked example
Brackenwell Software ran the legacy Solutions feature in Salesforce Classic from 2008 - a database of structured FAQs the support team built manually. Each Solution record had a title, problem description, and answer, all searchable from Cases. Solutions has been deprecated for years in favor of Salesforce Knowledge, which provides much richer article management (article types, page layouts, multi-language translation, validation workflows). Brackenwell's IT team is migrating their 600 Solutions to Knowledge articles. Solutions is now an archaeological feature; new orgs use Knowledge from day one.
Why Solution matters
A Solution is a Salesforce Knowledge-predecessor object (primarily used in Classic) that stores answers to common customer questions, searchable by agents and customers. Solutions have been largely replaced by Salesforce Knowledge, which provides much richer article management, versioning, multiple article types, and multi-channel publishing.
Solutions are legacy. Any new knowledge management work should use Salesforce Knowledge. Organizations still using Solutions should plan migration to Knowledge for the richer feature set. The migration involves recreating solution content as Knowledge articles and reconfiguring search and access to use the Knowledge framework.
How to create Solution
Solutions are the legacy Service Cloud knowledge mechanism — they're the predecessor to Lightning Knowledge. New orgs ship without Solutions; existing orgs keep them around for backward compatibility but Salesforce strongly recommends migrating to Knowledge for any net-new content.
- Make sure Solutions are enabled
Setup → Solution Settings → Enable Solution Browsing. Off by default in newer orgs.
- Open the Solutions tab
App Launcher → Solutions. May not be on the standard nav — admin can enable the tab.
- Click New
Top-right of the list view.
- Enter Solution Title and Solution Details
Title is the headline; Details is the body (rich text in HTML solutions, plain text otherwise).
- Pick Solution Status
Draft / Reviewed / Duplicate. Only Reviewed solutions appear in standard solution searches.
- (Optional) Categorize via Solution Categories
Setup → Solution Categories → assign this Solution to the right tree branch. Drives filtering in the Solution Browser.
- Submit for Review or just Save
Save keeps it as Draft. The Solution Manager profile permission is what flips Status to Reviewed.
Required. The headline.
Required. Draft is the default.
- Solutions are deprecated. Salesforce hasn't released new functionality on this object in years and recommends Lightning Knowledge for all new orgs. Migration is one-way and requires careful planning.
- Solutions show in search results only when Status = Reviewed. Drafts are invisible to the Solution Browser even if your profile has Read access — the Status filter is enforced.
- Solution Categories are a separate hierarchy from Knowledge Data Categories. Don't confuse the two — Solutions use their own categorization scheme that doesn't transfer to Knowledge during migration.
How organizations use Solution
Migrates legacy Solutions to Salesforce Knowledge articles for modern knowledge management.
Treats Solution references as legacy migration triggers.
Uses Salesforce Knowledge for all knowledge management work.
Trust & references
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Solution.
- Solutions OverviewSalesforce Help
Test your knowledge
Q1. What is a Solution?
Q2. What replaces Solutions?
Q3. Should you create new Solutions?
Discussion
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