FAQ

FAQ

This section contains the answers to the most frequently asked questions about Coveo for Salesforce.

General

What’s Coveo for Salesforce?

Coveo for Salesforce integrates AI-powered search and recommendations into Salesforce Service, Sales, Community, and B2B Commerce Cloud to surface relevant unified content from Salesforce and other applications (see Coveo for Salesforce overview).

Do I need to be a Salesforce administrator to install Coveo for Salesforce?

Yes. To install the Coveo for Salesforce application from the AppExchange, you must be the Salesforce administrator of your organization.

What’s a Coveo organization?

A Coveo organization is a private and secured environment in the Coveo Platform.

For Coveo for Salesforce Pro and Enterprise editions, the organization hosts a unified index of your content from one or more sources (such as CRM [Salesforce], websites, files [Dropbox, Google Drive], Intranet [SharePoint, Confluence], or community [Khoros Community]) to make this content searchable (see Coveo Administration Console).

For all editions of Coveo for Salesforce, a Coveo organization hosts usage analytics data allowing you to track how end users take advantage of the search solution (see Coveo Usage Analytics overview). The Coveo organization also offers Coveo Machine Learning and Search optimization/Search features.

How can I access my Coveo organization?

A Coveo organization administrator accesses the Coveo Administration Console (platform-ca |platform-eu | platform-au) from a browser.

End users don’t need any access to the Coveo organization Administration Console. They only see search results from the Coveo organization in search applications such as Coveo for Salesforce (see Coveo for Salesforce overview).

Can I link two Coveo organizations to one instance of Salesforce?

No. The Coveo for Salesforce application is meant to keep a singular relation between your Salesforce organization and the Coveo organization.

What’s a Coveo Insight Panel?

A Coveo Insight Panel is the part of the Coveo for Salesforce application that you see in Salesforce page layouts. It automatically displays content relevant to the context of the currently viewed Salesforce page.

What type of content can be indexed?

Many different types of content can be indexed through sources such as Salesforce, Dropbox, and Khoros Community:

• Attachments

• Microsoft Office items (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)

• Salesforce system objects and fields (standard and custom)

• Community forum posts

How often is content refreshed or updated?

A refresh is typically performed at 15-minute intervals, but your administrator can configure the refresh rate for each source.

Can Coveo have an impact on the performance of my Salesforce organization?

Coveo for Salesforce is engineered to have only minimal impact on the performance of your Salesforce organization and won’t affect performance for users.

• Coveo for Salesforce Pro and Enterprise editions:

  • Content indexing

    The most resource intensive operation occurs when your Coveo organization initially indexes the whole content of your Salesforce organization, but the Salesforce API throttles call to prevent performance issues. The search results from your Salesforce source are then maintained up-to-date thanks to incremental refreshes, which only fetch the changes that have been made since the last indexing, therefore further minimizing the impact on the organization performance. Indexing content sources other than Salesforce has no impact on your Salesforce organization performance.

  • User interface display

    The Coveo for Salesforce application consumes minimal Salesforce organization resources. For a given user, the application initially performs an HTTP request to get a security token that’s reused for all page loads. Search requests are sent directly to your Coveo organization, which returns search results without consuming Salesforce organization resources.

If I add a source, will everyone be able to search the content?

There are three different types of sources (see Content Security). You can make your source accessible to:

• Everyone

• Specific identities

• Users following system permissions

Can Coveo include search for content tagged with Salesforce topics?

In the Coveo for Salesforce configuration page, use the advanced source configuration parameters to include content tagged with Salesforce topics in your search.

Pro Edition

Can I try the Pro Edition?

Yes. When you install and configure the package, you can select the Pro Trial.

What happens to my data when my Pro Trial period is over?

The entire Coveo organization, including all data, is securely deleted.

What are the main benefits of the Pro Edition?

The Coveo for Salesforce Pro Edition offers:

• Coveo Index (faster and more complex queries)

• External Content (choice of two from more than 30 connectors)

• Contextual Insight Panels in Service and/or Sales Cloud

• Case Deflection in Experience Cloud (see Integrate a Coveo Case Deflection component)

• Search interface facets)

• Improved Coveo Usage Analytics (Coveo UA) features (more events, visibility, export, dimensions, etc.) (see Usage Analytics Concepts)

• Basic Support included

Which content sources are available to index in the Pro Edition?

You can have Salesforce sources, plus two Cloud sources from any of the following types (see Coveo for Salesforce edition comparison):

• Web and Sitemap sources

• Push API and REST API

• Amazon S3

• Microsoft SharePoint Online

• Jira Cloud

• Google Drive for Work

• Dropbox Business

• Box Business

• YouTube

• RSS

• Jive Cloud

• Khoros Community

• Zendesk

How do I estimate my item count?

Depending on the connector a source is based on, there are different ways to estimate its number of items.

In Salesforce, you can use the Storage Usage page (see Monitor Data and Storage Resources). You can also use SOQL to estimate the item count. Be aware that all related objects, such as Case Comments, count as additional items.

For public sites, inspect the sitemap or check how many pages external search engines have indexed using a query like site:example.com.

For other systems, use similar methods if available.

When do I consume Salesforce APIs with Pro Edition?

Mostly when indexing the Salesforce organization.

Does Pro Edition work with Salesforce Lightning Experience and Classic Visualforce?

Yes, both are fully supported. However, new Coveo for Salesforce features are only being developed in Lightning.

What security precautions should I take to protect my sensitive data on the Pro Edition?

All Coveo customers benefit from an infrastructure and a platform built to satisfy the requirements of the most security-sensitive organizations. Coveo is committed to preserve the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of customers information assets (see How Does Coveo Secure Your Data and Services?).

You can choose not to index some of your content, if needed. There are a few different approaches available in your sources to consider, depending on the connector. You can choose to index only specific fields, use exclusion rules to restrict sections of a website, add a web scraping configuration to index only specific parts of a web page, or use conditional indexing to index only specific subsets of Salesforce objects.

Enterprise Edition

Can I try an Enterprise Edition?

Yes. During the package setup, you can select the Enterprise Trial.

What are the Enterprise Edition Trial limits?

The trial is limited to:

• 10 users

• 10 sources

• 30 days

• 5 GB of disk space

• 2,000,000 items

How much does it cost once the Enterprise Edition Trial is over?

Pricing is based on a subscription license cost per user per month. Contact us for pricing.

Can an Enterprise Edition Trial be extended?

Contact us to discuss the possibility of extending the trial period.

What happens to my data when my Enterprise Trial period is over?

The entire Coveo organization, including all data, is securely deleted.

What are the main benefits of Enterprise Edition versus Pro Edition?

• Your choice of any source, including on-premises sources

• Increased item limits

Can I upgrade from Pro Edition to Enterprise Edition?

Yes. Contact us to determine your options.

How many content sources are available in Enterprise Edition?

Coveo offers more than 30 connectors to the most common enterprise data sources. Coveo sources are typically configured in just a few clicks, directly from the Coveo Administration Console, and fully support incremental indexing and field mapping. Have a look at our available Cloud connectors.

Pro and Enterprise editions

Why does the Salesforce source require the Modify Metadata Through Metadata API Functions and the Manage Sharing permissions for the Coveo index account?

The crawling account needs the Modify Metadata Through Metadata API Functions and the Manage Sharing permissions to access the security permissions within the Salesforce Metadata API. These permissions allow the crawling account to read the configured security model (profiles, permission sets, sharing rules) of objects and fields, and the standard and custom objects (see Coveo management of security identities and item permissions and Metadata API Developer Guide).

Why use the Metadata API instead of the sharing object on the records?

Since your data is kept in your Salesforce organization, only the metadata is transferred to the Coveo Index, at the field and record levels. All source links redirect to the Source System record, which is Salesforce in this case. The Coveo Index only retrieves and embeds the Salesforce security model (profiles, permission sets, sharing rules, and field level security) for each record.

When the Salesforce security model changes, the new security model is also replaced in the Coveo Index at the next source refresh, rescan, or rebuild. Coveo captures the existing Source System security model when indexing instead of replicating or creating another model version. This means that users can only search and find the Salesforce content or data that they’re allowed to access according to their configured Salesforce permission models.

Do I need the Modify Metadata Through Metadata API Functions permission?

The Coveo Index can’t retrieve information about private objects, such as cases or opportunities. The Modify Metadata Through Metadata API Functions permission, associated to the Metadata API, allows you to create sources accessible to Users following system permissions and to index the Salesforce security settings of your objects.

If you want to create a public community or a public console, the Modify Metadata Through Metadata API Functions permission isn’t needed, since you create a source accessible to Everyone and you don’t index objects accessible to Specific identities¹.

Is the Modify Metadata Through Metadata API Functions permission needed to index Salesforce Chatter?

Yes.

Is the Modify Metadata Through Metadata API Functions permission needed for sources accessible to “Everyone”?

No. It’s only needed for sources using the Users following system permissions content security option that index private Salesforce objects.

Do I need to enable the modify Metadata Through Metadata API Functions permission to use the Salesforce Knowledge source?

Salesforce Knowledge does not index permissions and therefore the Coveo Index account only needs Salesforce Knowledge User permission set on the account. This applies to both Classic and Lightning Knowledge data models.

Who uses the Modify Metadata Through Metadata API Functions permission?

All Coveo Customers who have implemented a Coveo Salesforce source using the Users following system permissions content security option have activated the Modify Metadata Through Metadata API Functions permission for the Coveo Index account.

Why is the Coveo index using the meta-retrieve operation on non-indexed objects?

When indexing an object, you might retrieve the lookup field of another object metadata that you don’t index.

The Salesforce Connector uses various Salesforce APIs performed in READ operations, even though the Coveo Index account has the Modify Metadata Through Metadata API Functions permission (see API Call Basics).

The Salesforce Connector makes a series of describeSObjects() calls, which are used to retrieve the CRUD permissions and field-level security of a Salesforce object. If you select a parent or lookup field within a Salesforce object to be indexed, the describeSObjects() call retrieves, in READ mode, metadata associated to the object and the field. It’s included in the mapping file. The parent or lookup object isn’t indexed by the Coveo Salesforce Connector, unless it’s selected to be indexed. However, the mapping file is used by the Salesforce Connector to identify the fields to index and to monitor during a refresh or rebuild process.

Is the Modify All Data permission required to access the Coveo Interface Editor in Salesforce?

Yes, you must enable the Modify All Data permission to access the Interface Editor in Salesforce.

Is the Modify All Data permission required to install Coveo for Salesforce or to index Salesforce content?

No, the Modify All Data permission isn’t required. See Creating a Dedicated Salesforce Crawling User.