Knowledge article access: channels and data categories
Every check an external user or guest must pass to see a Lightning Knowledge article on a site: Read on Knowledge, the channel that matches the license, data category visibility by role, permission set or profile (or standard sharing instead), the Public Knowledge Base for guests, and topics so articles appear in Aura site search.
Given a scenario, make articles visible or accessible in an Experience.
~8 min read · 11 practice questions ·
What the exam expects
- Diagnose why an external user or guest can't see an article: object Read, publication, channel, data category visibility.
- Pick the channel that matches the license (Customer, Partner, Public Knowledge Base) and expose the channel fields on the page layout.
- Grant data category visibility through roles for role-based users and through permission sets or profiles for high-volume users, and narrow it per portal role.
- Predict visibility from category hierarchies and multiple category groups.
- Switch to standard Salesforce sharing when needed, and make articles findable in Aura site search with topics.
Key terms: channel (the article fields Visible in Internal App, Visible to Customer, Visible to Partner and Visible in Public Knowledge Base); category group (a hierarchy of data categories used to classify articles); data category visibility (All, None or Custom, set by role, permission set, permission set group or profile); high-volume user (an external user without a role); standard Salesforce sharing (Knowledge access by org-wide defaults and sharing rules instead of data categories).
Key facts
- Detail
- Channel, Read on the article type, category visibility
- Detail
- Customer Community and Customer Community Plus
- Detail
- Partner Community
- Detail
- Not on the Knowledge layout by default
- Detail
- Inherit account manager visibility; change per portal role
- Detail
- Need permission set or profile visibility
- Detail
- Visible category brings its whole direct family line, not siblings
- Detail
- At least one visible category per group on the article
- Detail
- Knowledge OWD Private for external access by default
- Detail
- Only Public Knowledge Base articles
- Detail
- Guests go to login; members see Invalid Page
- Detail
- Up to eight levels of data categories
Sources for this section (7)
- Knowledge article visibility issueshelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Health Cloud Articleshelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Channels Field on Page Layoutshelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Data Category Visibilityhelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Sharing Model for Lightning Knowledgehelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- View Articles on a Sitehelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Enable Knowledge in Your Sitehelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Why can't Customer Community users see categorized articles when visibility is set only on roles?
- When does selecting only Spain in a Geography group show an article classified with Europe?
- What does a guest see when following a link to an archived article?
- Why might an admin not find the Visible to Partner checkbox on a Lightning Knowledge article?
- Which articles can guests read on a public site?
The questions are free to read. Answers with their sources and self-grading are included with the pack.
Keep reading with the Experience Cloud Consultant pack
- Core concepts
- Exam traps
- Worked scenario
The pack includes:
- All 37 lessons of the Experience Cloud Consultant guide, with reading progress
- Interactive decision walks and step-by-step sequence steppers
- Inline practice questions and one-click topic practice (11 questions for this lesson)
- An official source cited for every claim
- An AI tutor that answers from the guide
- Unlimited timed practice exams