Knowledge Base for Salesforce

Clove integrates through Salesforce using a REST API. You can read more about how to connect to Salesforce here.

The Salesforce REST API is used to continuously sync your knowledge base content. We sync the articles as well as data categories. The process for each is below.

Sync Intervals

You can customize the sync intervals based on your needs. Choose between every 1 minute, 5 minutes, and 15 minutes to keep your articles up to date. We will sync data categories at the same time as articles.

We use the minimum amount of API credits to sync your knowledge content into Clove. Typically, you will see less than 3 credits used for each interval.

Knowledge Articles

Clove uses the standard Salesforce knowledge object, identified as Knowledge__kav. We sync the standard fields down and place them into a format usable by Clove. The following fields are non-standard and should be setup as specified:

  • Content__c — By default, Salesforce does not ship with a body for knowledge articles. We require that a field identified as Content__c, be created to hold the article contents. We suggest that you create this as a rich text field, so that you can format the article.

Clove will only sync the published or archived version for an article. This means that you can use the standard approval / staging flow in order to keep drafts of upcoming articles without publishing them immediately.

Archival of Knowledge Articles

It’s easy to take an article offline. You can unpublish the article, mark it not visible to the customer, or archive it. Clove will pick up the change on the next data sync and remove the article from your hub.

Localization

Clove supports the localization of Salesforce articles via the standard Salesforce approach.

Article Linking

You can embed links to other knowledge articles in Salesforce's rich text editor. Clove will intercept these links and rewrite them to the correct Clove URL. When an article is linked in this manner, the linked page will consist of the 18 character Knowledge__kav ID and not the typical URL slug.

You should use the "Smart Link" feature in Salesforce's rich text editor to easily enable article linking.

Data Categories

Clove uses Salesforce Data Categories to organize your articles into a categorized hierarchy. You can follow the standard best practices for data categories, but there are minor differences to consider.

Salesforce allows you to assign multiple categories to a single article, but Clove works by having a single category per article. We'll take the first category present for that article if there are multiple. We advise assigning a single category per article to avoid confusion.

Data categories are not localizable on Salesforce today. If you have a need for localized data categories, we can work with you to embed this localization in Clove itself. Reach out to us if this is the case.

Public Images

Salesforce will only make an image available to the user that uploaded it. This can be changed through a fairly complex setup involving Visualforce pages, but it's best to avoid this issue altogether.

Instead of embedded images, we recommend that images are attached as files to the Knowledge Article and then you create a public URL for that file. As an alternative, you can upload images to a image hosting provider and then embed those images in Salesforce.

While we cannot setup public images through Salesforce for you, we are happy to assist you in discovering the public URL feature for file uploads. Reach out and we'll be happy to help.

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