Object Reference for Salesforce and Force.com

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Data Categories

Data categories are organized by category group and let:

  • Users classify and find records.
  • Administrators control access to records.

Data categories can be used by Salesforce Knowledge (articles) and answers communities (questions).

Data Categories and Articles

Salesforce Knowledge supports a five-level hierarchy of data categories within each category group. You can classify articles in the knowledge base according to multiple categories that make it easy for users to find the articles they need. For example, to classify articles by sales regions and business units, create two category groups, Sales Regions and Business Units. The Sales Regions category group could consist of a geographical hierarchy, such as All Sales Regions as the top level, North America, Europe, and Asia at the second level, and so on.

The figure below shows a knowledge base administrator's view of an article about laptop deals. Using the article edit page, the administrator has classified the article with Laptops in the Product category group, and USA in the Geography category group.

An article classified with the Laptops and USA categories on the Article Management tab

The next figure illustrates an agent finding that same article published on the Articles tab. The agent selects Laptops and USA in the Products and Geography drop-down lists respectively.

An article classified with the Laptops and USA categories on the Articles tab
Data Categories and Answers

In an answers zone, data categories help organize questions for easy browsing. Each answers zone supports one category group. For example, if you're a computer manufacturer you might create a Products category group that has four sibling categories: Performance Laptops, Portable Laptops, Gaming Desktops, and Enterprise Desktops. On the Answers tab, zone members can assign one of the four categories to each question and then browse these categories for answers to specific questions.

Anwers tab displaying categories

Working with Data Categories in the API

The following table lists API resources for working with data categories.

Name Type Description
Article Type__DataCategorySelection Object Gives access to article categorization.
QuestionDataCategorySelection Object Gives access to question categorization.
WITH DATA CATEGORY filteringExpression SOQL clause Filters articles depending on their status in the publishing cycle and their data categories. For more information, see the Salesforce SOQL and SOSL Reference Guide.
WITH DATA CATEGORY DataCategorySpec SOSL clause Finds articles based on their categorization. For more information, see the Salesforce SOQL and SOSL Reference Guide.
describeDataCategoryGroups() Call Retrieves available category groups for objects specified in the request.
describeDataCategoryGroupStructures() Call Retrieves available category groups along with their data category structure for objects specified in the request.
describeDataCategoryGroups Apex method Returns a list of the category groups associated with the specified objects. See the Force.com Apex Code Developer's Guide.
describeDataCategoryGroupStructures Apex method Returns available category groups along with their data category structure for objects specified in the request. See the Force.com Apex Code Developer's Guide.