Step By Step Guide to Importing Articles in Salesforce Knowledge

If you are implementing Salesforce Knowledge, one of the things that you may want to do is to import knowledge articles rather than creating it one by one in Salesforce. Importing knowledge articles is different than importing records in a standard/custom object using a data loader tool and is a bit tricky. But don’t worry. Now, here is a step by step guide to walk you through the entire process and make it a breeze.

Import Articles Tool

Import Articles is a tool provided by Salesforce which you can use to import articles to Salesforce Knowledge base. It’s a declarative, no-code, simple-to-use tool. Before you can import Knowledge Base, you must first create a .csv file, a .properties file, and then a zip file. It also gives you sample .csv and .properties files to view the file structure and prepare your files accordingly.

There are two ways in which you can import articles to Salesforce Knowledge:

  1. Import Articles Only
  2. Import Articles with Translations
Import Articles Only

If you have Knowledge set up in only one language then you can use this option. Create the files as specified in sample file and then import the zip file to bring articles in. There is no need to define Master Language for articles in this case.

Import Articles with Translations

If you have multilingual Knowledge base, then you need to use this option. There are separate sample files provided for this. When creating .csv file, you need to specify the Master Language. Enter article details in master language first in a row followed by all the subsequent translations. Import fails if Master Language is not specified.

In this step-by-step guide, that should take between 30-45 minutes for you to follow, we will cover how to:

  • Create CSV File
  • Create Properties File
  • Create Zip File
  • Import Zip File
  • Monitor Article Import Queue
  • Refer Article Import Log
  • Review Imported Article
  • Import Article with Translations

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15 thoughts on “Step By Step Guide to Importing Articles in Salesforce Knowledge”

  1. Amazing step-by-step guide! Here are a couple of things to watch out for;
    – If your answer or question field is a rich text field, the article must be in HTML format. Specify the location of the question and answer html file in the column of the CSV file.
    – If the HTML file contains an image file name, it needs to be specified in the image folder. Otherwise, the article will not be imported.

  2. This is one of the best article to migrate external knowledge into Salesforce. In fact, better than Salesforce Trailhead. Very much precise and due to deck containing steps with screenshot it is fastest to understand. Thanks for publishing it.
    Just a suggestion: Can you make the presentation PDF available to download without premier membership? It will be convenient. You may include logo/name on every slide for copyright purpose.

      1. Thank You Anish.

        I have file attachments (e.g. pdf, xls, etc.) with original knowledge articles and I would like to migrate these attachments as files with respective knowledge. Could you please suggest how can I do this?
        Do I need to create a file folder under each article folder (same as data)?
        If yes, what will be the field in CSV and waht should be mentioned under taht field?

        Please reply. All you help is always highly appreciated.

        1. Hi Parag, I haven’t tried this out so you will need to test it yourself. Though my guess is that importing files to knowledge articles will be like importing file to any other standard/custom object. I don’t think the process will be different for knowledge articles. But please test and validate.

  3. Hi Anish,
    Thank you for this helpful step-by-step guide, much appreciated!
    One follow up question: If I have a library of PDF files to import rather than HTML articles, is there a solution to import them in batch?

    1. Hi Kareem, I am not sure if I have understood your question correctly. But Once you import the html file, the hyperlink that it contains will remain as is. So, when users click on the hyperlink, they will be taken to that URL. Are you looking for something else?

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