Solution Manager
A Solution Manager in Salesforce is the user role in the legacy Solutions feature responsible for reviewing, editing, publishing, and curating Solutions before they become visible to support agents and customers.
Definition
A Solution Manager in Salesforce is the user role in the legacy Solutions feature responsible for reviewing, editing, publishing, and curating Solutions before they become visible to support agents and customers. Solutions are the older predecessor to Salesforce Knowledge: short articles that document the resolution to a recurring customer issue, linked to Cases for reuse across the support team. The Solution Manager owns the quality of the Solutions catalog, deciding which solutions get published, which need rewriting, and which should be retired.
The Solutions feature was the dominant Salesforce knowledge management tool through the early 2010s, before Salesforce Knowledge replaced it as the strategic direction. Solutions remain available in Salesforce Classic for backward compatibility, but the feature is deprecated and receives no new investment. Most orgs that still use Solutions are either small Service Cloud customers who never migrated or large orgs in mid-migration to Salesforce Knowledge. The Solution Manager role survives in legacy contexts but is rarely set up in new orgs.
Solution Manager in 2026: legacy role, ongoing duties, and the migration to Knowledge
The Solutions feature and its place in Salesforce history
Solutions was the original Salesforce knowledge management feature, introduced in the mid-2000s as part of Service Cloud. Solutions were lightweight records: a Title, a Description (the problem statement), the actual Solution Detail (the resolution steps), and a Status (Draft, Reviewed, Published). They linked to Cases through a Related Solutions list. Agents working a Case could search the Solutions database, find a matching record, and attach it to the Case for reuse. The Solution Manager role coordinated the lifecycle, ensuring that only quality-reviewed Solutions reached the published state. Salesforce Knowledge superseded Solutions as a more capable feature (richer article types, multi-language support, data category visibility, AI integration). Solutions remain in the platform for backward compatibility, but new Service Cloud implementations use Knowledge.
What the Solution Manager actually does
The Solution Manager has four core responsibilities. First, review: agents submit draft Solutions when they resolve a novel Case; the Solution Manager reviews each one for accuracy, clarity, and completeness. Second, edit: the Solution Manager rewrites Solutions for consistency, tags them with the right categories, and adds links to related Cases or external documentation. Third, publish: the Solution Manager promotes reviewed Solutions to the Published status, which makes them visible to other agents and (optionally) to customers through Solutions categories on a public Knowledge Base. Fourth, retire: stale Solutions get archived through a Status change. The Solution Manager runs this workflow continuously, treating the Solutions catalog as a living knowledge base rather than a one-time content drop.
Solution Categories and the taxonomy that drives findability
Solutions are organized through Solution Categories, a hierarchical taxonomy similar to the Data Categories that came later with Knowledge. Categories control which agents (and which customers, if customers can access Solutions) see which Solutions. A multi-product company might have top-level categories for each product line, with subcategories for common issue types under each. The Solution Manager assigns categories to each Solution during the publishing step. The taxonomy is a critical curation decision; a Solutions database without categories is effectively unfindable at scale. Mature Solution Manager teams maintain the taxonomy as carefully as the Solutions themselves, retiring categories that no longer reflect the product structure and adding new ones as the business grows.
The Solution Manager permission and assignment model
Salesforce ships a Solution Manager profile (and the equivalent permission set) that grants the right to edit and publish Solutions, in addition to the standard Service Cloud permissions for working Cases. Designating a user as Solution Manager is a profile or permission set assignment. Mature Service Cloud implementations had a small team of Solution Managers (two to five users in a 100-agent org) rather than every agent being able to publish. The model worked because Solutions quality matters more than Solutions quantity; a few curated Solutions outperform hundreds of contributor-submitted ones. The Solution Manager role often combined with the Knowledge Manager role when an org started its Knowledge migration, since the curation skill is similar.
Migrating from Solutions to Salesforce Knowledge
Salesforce documents a migration path from Solutions to Knowledge, but it is not an automated one. The Solutions records have to be exported, transformed to match the Knowledge article schema, and imported as Knowledge Articles. The categorization taxonomy translates from Solution Categories to Data Categories with some semantic differences. The Solution Manager role maps to the Knowledge Manager role, with similar permissions and similar workflow but on a different data model. Most migrations also take the opportunity to clean the catalog: stale Solutions get retired rather than migrated, duplicate Solutions get merged, and the categorization gets refreshed. Plan a Solutions-to-Knowledge migration as a quarter-long content project, not just a technical data move.
When Solution Manager knowledge still matters in 2026
In 2026, Solution Manager knowledge appears in three contexts. First, certification exams: the Service Cloud Consultant exam still includes Solutions questions for historical context, even though the strategic direction is Knowledge. Second, legacy orgs: small Service Cloud customers who adopted Solutions in the 2010s and never migrated still operate the role. Third, archival projects: when an org finally migrates from Solutions to Knowledge, the Solution Manager runs the content cleanup as part of the migration. Beyond these three contexts, the role is increasingly historical. New Service Cloud implementations should use Salesforce Knowledge with the Knowledge Manager role, not Solutions with Solution Manager. Document any legacy Solutions usage and plan migration in your Service Cloud modernization roadmap.
Operating Solutions and planning the migration to Knowledge
Standing up a Solution Manager role in 2026 is rarely the right answer; the feature is legacy and new investment goes into Salesforce Knowledge. For orgs that still operate Solutions, the four-step routine covers: assign the Solution Manager permission to designated users, define and maintain the Solution Category taxonomy, run the review-and-publish workflow continuously, and plan migration to Salesforce Knowledge as part of the Service Cloud modernization roadmap. This guide covers both the legacy operation and the migration path; treat the legacy operation as a temporary state while the migration is planned.
- Assign Solution Manager permission to designated users
From Setup, search Profiles. The Solution Manager profile grants the Manage Published Solutions permission plus standard Service Cloud access. Assign the profile (or the equivalent permission set) to two to five users who will own Solutions curation. Resist the temptation to grant the permission broadly; Solution quality requires a small dedicated team rather than every agent self-publishing. Document the Solution Manager team in the Service Cloud runbook so future admins know who owns Solutions curation. Train the assigned users on the review-and-publish workflow before activating their access.
- Define and maintain the Solution Category taxonomy
Open Setup, search Solution Categories, and design the category hierarchy. Top-level categories typically map to product lines or major issue types. Subcategories drill into specific feature areas or scenario types. Each category controls Solution visibility for agents and (if customer access is enabled) for customers. Apply categories to every published Solution; uncategorized Solutions are effectively unfindable. Schedule a quarterly review where the Solution Manager team prunes stale categories and adds new ones to match the evolving product. Document the taxonomy decisions in the Service Cloud runbook.
- Run the review-and-publish workflow continuously
Train support agents to submit a Solution whenever they resolve a novel Case. Submitted Solutions arrive in the Solution Manager queue in Draft status. The Solution Manager reviews each one: confirms accuracy with the submitting agent, edits for clarity, assigns categories, adds links to related documentation. Once ready, the Solution Manager promotes the Solution to Published. Track the publishing throughput as a KPI; a healthy Solutions database publishes 5 to 20 Solutions per month depending on the org size. Below that, the catalog grows stale; above it, the curation team may need help.
- Plan migration to Salesforce Knowledge
Identify the migration target Knowledge license (Salesforce Knowledge is included in many Service Cloud SKUs). Map Solution Categories to Data Categories. Export Solutions through Data Loader. Clean the data: retire stale Solutions, merge duplicates, refresh categorization. Import into Knowledge as Articles with the right Data Category assignments. Migrate the Solution Manager team to Knowledge Manager roles. Test the migrated content in a sandbox before going live. Plan the migration as a quarter-long project, not a weekend cutover. Document the cutover plan in the Service Cloud modernization roadmap and communicate the change to the support team well in advance.
- Solutions is in maintenance mode. New Service Cloud features (Einstein Article Recommendations, Knowledge-based deflection bots, multi-language support) require Knowledge, not Solutions. Plan migration on a defined timeline.
- Uncategorized Solutions are effectively unfindable. Agents search by category; Solutions without categories never appear in search results. Make category assignment a mandatory step in the publish workflow.
- Solution Manager quality matters more than quantity. A few curated Solutions outperform hundreds of contributor-submitted ones. Resist the temptation to grant the role broadly across the agent team.
- Migration from Solutions to Knowledge is a content project, not just a data move. The category taxonomy, the article quality, and the agent training all need rework; budget a full quarter.
- Solutions does not support multi-language content. If your org needs to publish in multiple languages, migration to Knowledge is the only path; Solutions has no investment plan for that gap.
Trust & references
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Solution Manager.
- Solutions OverviewSalesforce Help
- Solution Manager RoleSalesforce Help
- Salesforce Knowledge OverviewSalesforce Help
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.
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