A Solution in Salesforce is a reusable answer linked to one or more Cases — what an agent would attach to say “this case was resolved using these instructions, and the instructions are now available to use on similar cases”. Solutions are the older Service Cloud knowledge object; modern orgs use Salesforce Knowledge instead.
What a Solution looks like
A Solution record has just a few fields — title, the body of the answer, status (Draft / Reviewed / Translated), and an indicator of whether it’s visible in the self-service portal. It’s a flat, single-version, lightly-versioned answer.
Linking is via the CaseSolution junction object: one Case can have many Solutions, one Solution can be linked to many Cases.
Solution status values
- Draft — agent created, not vetted
- Reviewed — approved by a moderator
- Duplicate — flagged for cleanup
- Visible in Public Knowledge Base — published to self-service
Why Solutions are considered legacy
Salesforce announced direction toward Salesforce Knowledge in 2014 and has been deprecating Solutions ever since. New orgs created in recent years don’t get Solutions enabled by default. The reasons:
| Capability | Solutions | Knowledge |
|---|---|---|
| Versioning | None | Full version history with archive/restore |
| Workflow / approvals | Minimal | Built-in publication workflow |
| Article types / categories | Single object | Custom article types with data categories |
| Multi-language | Limited | First-class translation workflow |
| Public-facing rendering | Public Solutions tab only | Knowledge in Experience Cloud sites |
| Search experience | Basic | Federated, file-attachments, ratings |
| Lightning Knowledge | Not in Lightning | Native to Lightning Experience |
| Reporting | Basic | Article views, votes, ratings |
Migrating from Solutions to Knowledge
Salesforce provides a one-time migration tool in Setup that copies Solutions into Knowledge articles, preserves links to Cases, and marks the Solution as migrated. Once migrated, retire the Solutions tab and switch agents to the Knowledge component on the Case page.
When you’d still see Solutions
- Old Classic-only orgs running for years on Service Cloud Classic
- Orgs that never migrated and use a third-party KB instead
- Test/sandbox environments where the toggle is still on
For any new build, use Lightning Knowledge — there’s no good reason to start with Solutions in 2026.
Common follow-ups
- What replaced Solutions? — Salesforce Knowledge (Lightning Knowledge).
- Can Solutions and Knowledge coexist? — Yes, but it’s a transitional state.
- Are Solutions versioned? — No — that’s a key reason to move to Knowledge.
Verified against: Salesforce Help — Migrate to Lightning Knowledge. Last reviewed 2026-05-17 for Spring ‘26.