One of the more interesting (but low-key) functional enhancements to arrive on the Salesforce platform over recent releases is Topics.

A Topic can be viewed as a consolidation of the collective enterprise intelligence around a specific term or theme, across both the collaboration dialogue and the business processes managed within Salesforce. In practical terms this translates to Chatter posts and Object records being assigned one or more new or existing Topics. All assigned records and posts then display on the Topic page – providing the consolidated view of everything happening across the enterprise that pertains to the Topic. This is incredibly powerful in terms of both data categorisation and the insight possible from considering the holistic view of a contextual theme or initiative.

The Topic functionality doesn’t end there; from a Topic page (see screenshot above) it is possible to endorse users as experts on the Topic thereby harnessing knowledge within the enterprise and providing an effective means of channeling communication such as a questions, suggestions and so on. Note, users can elect to remove themselves from the Knowledgeable People list.

Topics can be followed (if feed tracking enabled for Topics) and favourited which enables interested users to be updated proactively. Discussion of Topics is tracked at the Group and User level, the Chatter tab also shows the Trending Topics area which highlights recent activity, this excludes Topic used solely in private Groups or record feeds.

Note, as a point of clarification Topics differ from Groups in that they collect posts from across Chatter and also records.

Primary Use Cases

1. Topics provide a good solution option for any data categorisation or notification requirement relating to enterprise-wide initiatives or themes.
2. Topics map well to Organisational concepts such as departments, virtual teams, projects etc.
3. Topics could provide a useful (albeit elective) notifications model where the Topic feed is used to push notifications to users interested in new transactional records related to the Topic theme, which could represent a reference data type such as a region, product or channel.

Key Considerations

Topics for Object. Once enabled for an object, records can suggest Topics based on the values in selected fields. Whilst a Topic has a feed, record assignment does not generate a post. To mitigate this, Topic assignment can occur via #hastag in a post to the record feed. Additionally, feed activity related to a record is not viewable on assigned Topic pages. The concept relates to grouping and categorisation of records, not consolidation of feed items.

Global Search enabled. Topics appear as a distinct Object within the Record search results.

List Views. Topics can be referenced in List View filter criteria.

Reports. With Winter ’15 the reporting options are limited to those below (to my understanding) via CRT. Reporting on record level assignment isn’t there as yet.
–Topic – list of topics with # talking about statistic
–Topic Assignment – count of assignment per record type (key prefix)

Knowledge Articles. Topics can be added to Knowledge articles enabling end-user categorisation of published articles in addition to pre-defined data categories.

Customisation. Apex triggers can be defined on the Topic and TopicAssignment (assignment of a topic to a FeedItem or a record) objects, which are also API accessible.

Permissions. Profile permissions (or permission set) control who can create, edit, delete and assign topics. Defined topics are public regardless of whether they are solely used in private groups or on records.

Topics for Objects – Screenshots

1. Add a Topic to a Record

2. Topics Assigned to a Record

3. Topic Page – Records Tab