Step By Step Guide To Getting Started with Salesforce CMS

Salesforce CMS is a hybrid Content Management System. It was announced in Dreamforce ’19 and is generally available from Winter ’20. You can create and manage content from a single location, then use that in multiple places. It allows you to share content across communities, create content on Community by Community basis, and assign access roles to users to control who creates the content. It is available in both Lightning and Visualforce + Tabs Communities.

Salesforce CMS Starter

All standard Salesforce licenses include CMS starter pack. With a starter pack, you can create up to 500 content records, 20 custom content types (apart from the default News type) and have up to 50 GB of content served in a year. If your organization needs more then additional allowances are available as enhancements to your license.

Salesforce CMS Process

Managing content using CMS is a four-step process. You start with creating content, then share that content with Communities. Organize the Content with Tags, Collections, and finally display content in the Community.

CMS Connect

CMS Connect allows you to bring existing content from an external Content Management System such as Drupal, WordPress, AEM, Sitecore, SDL, etc. It removes the need to copy the content again in your Community. This way you can have consistent branding across multiple locations and provides ease of maintenance.

CMS Content Type Creator

Salesforce provides a default “News” content type. However, you can also create your own custom content types. As of the Summer ‘20 release, content type creation is done programmatically, using the Metadata API. The CMS Content Type Creator (an AppExchange package from Salesforce Labs) allows you to create, clone, and delete custom CMS content types through an intuitive graphical UI based in Salesforce Lightning Experience.

Getting Started with Salesforce CMS

Salesforce CMS is a useful feature if you want to display contents on your community. If you have been using custom objects, lightning components, and/or visualforce pages for the same, follow this guide and find out in the next 45 minutes if using Salesforce CMS can be a better option.

Here’s what this guide covers

• Prework
• Create a CMS Workspace
• Create Content
• Organize Content
• Add Content to Community
• Create Custom Content Types

References & Useful URLs:

1. CMS Basics – Trailhead Module (35 mins) – https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/modules/salesforce-cms-basics
2. Start Using CMS – Help Article (10 mins) – https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=community_managed_content_start_using.htm&type=5
3. CMS Workspaces – Help Article (15 mins) – https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=cms_cmsworkspace_overview.htm&type=5
4. Create Content – Help Article (15 mins) – https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=community_managed_content_content_creation.htm&type=5
5. Translate Content – Help Article (15 mins) – https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=cms_translations_overview.htm&type=5
6. Organize Content – Help Article (15 mins) – https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=community_managed_content_organizing_content.htm&type=5
7. Add Content to Your Community – Help Article (15 mins) – https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=community_managed_content_adding_to_site.htm&type=5
8. CMS Connect – Help Article (15 mins) – https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=communities_cms_connect.htm&type=5

Change Log:

• Dec 2020 – Updated the Screenshots as per Winter ‘21 Release
• Jan 2020 – First Published