Get your message out today!

Getting your message out is key for anyone running an online campaign. StoreConnect Customer Commerce comes with the ability to publish articles quickly and easily. This guide will show you how. Once StoreConnect is installed on your Salesforce org, this can be done in a matter of minutes. We will use this very article and its content as an example. This article will have the following values:

1. An article name and title of ‘[Tutorial] Creating an Article in StoreConnect Customer Commerce’
2. It will be displayed in the ‘StoreConnect Store’
3. It will have a path and identifier of ‘create-an-article’
4. It will have the author of Keith Bonarrigo
5. This is a public article so it will not require a login to be viewed
6. A subtitle of ‘Get your message out today!’
7. A summary of ‘Create an article to get your message out in StoreConnect Customer Commerce’
8. Introductory text of ‘Create an article to get your message out in StoreConnect Commerce’
9. It will be published on 01/03/2024 at 12:00pm
10. It will have a meta title of ‘Create an article in StoreConnect Customer Commerce’
11. It will have meta keywords of ‘StoreConnect, Publish Article StoreConnect, Salesforce article’
12. It will have a meta description of ‘A step-by-step guide of how to create an article in StoreConnect Customer Commerce’

1. Install StoreConnect

We need to get StoreConnect installed to publish articles. This can done either with a trial install as described here or in a sandbox or production org as described here

2. Organize your article content

Determine what you want to say and have it prepared to enter into the StoreConnect ‘Article’ record entry. In addition, you must have a store defined in StoreConnect. We have our content arranged into the list above, so we will proceed to the next step.

3. Navigate to the StoreConnect CMS

1. Open the StoreConnect CMS app in the Salesforce app launcher
2. Select ‘Articles’
3. Click the ‘New’ tab from the Articles record page

4. Populate the Information section

1. Add the Article Name. This is the name that will display in Salesforce. We will add ‘[Tutorial] Creating an Article in StoreConnect Customer Commerce’
2. Select the Store. Click on the field and select the store name if it pre-populates or search for the name of your store. We will select the ‘StoreConnect Store’
3. Create a path and identier. This is the path and identifier that StoreConnect will use to reference your article. Use a string without special characters or spaces. We will use ‘create-an-article’ for this value
4. Add the author of the article. We will add ‘Keith Bonarrigo’
5. Check the ‘Require Login’ checkbox if the viewer needs to be logged into StoreConnect to see the article. This is a public article so we will leave this unchecked.

5. Populate the Post Content section

1. Add an existing media file or add a new one. This is the image that will appear in the header
2. Add the Title. This is what will appear as the main headline at the top of the article. We will use ‘Creating an Article in StoreConnect Customer Commerce’
3. Add a SubTitle. This will appear beneath the header. We will add ‘Get your message out today!’
4. Add Summary content. We will add ‘Create an article to get your message out in StoreConnect Customer Commerce’
5. Add Introductory Text. This can be plain text, HTML, or Markdown. We will add plain-text with a value of ‘Create an article to get your message out in StoreConnect Commerce’
6. Add the Content Body. This is the content that will show in the content that will show in the main body of the article. This can be entered in plain text, HTML, or Markdown

Note that our article template does not display the summary and introductory text fields, as such they will not display in the article output.

6. Populate the Publishing Details section

1. Enable the ‘Published’ checkbox to set the article as publicly viewable. We have this shown as enabled in this article but do not enable this until the article is finished and is ready to be viewed
2. Set the ‘Published On Date’. Click the date picker and select the date that this article will show as its published date. We will add 01/03/2024 Note: This date must be in the past in order for this article to show. To publish the article on a later date, select a date in the future

7. Populate the SEO Details section

1. Populate the ‘Meta Title’ field. Add a title that will show in the meta data of the HTML output of the article that search engines will index for search results. We will add ‘Create an article in StoreConnect Customer Commerce’ here.
2. Populate the ‘Meta Keywords’ section. Add a comma-separated series of keyword terms that that search engines will index for search results. We will add ‘StoreConnect, Publish Article StoreConnect, Salesforce article’
3. Populate the ‘Meta Description’. Add a description that search engines will index for search results. We will use ‘A step-by-step guide of how to create an article in StoreConnect Customer Commerce, built on Salesforce’ for this field

Learn more about HTML here

Learn more about markdown here

Learn more about meta elements here