Categories
Certification Guide

Zero to Admin Certified

In this blog, we will take a journey for someone who wants to start his/her career in salesforce and look forward to achieving their first milestone “Salesforce Administrator Certification

All the recommendations in this blog are my own and not influenced or provided by Salesforce. You can feel free to modify or pick a different approach based on your study style.

Overview

Salesforce Administrator is a person who understands the out-of-the-box (OOTB) features of the Salesforce platform and what configuration options are available to meet the common business requirement. Read more details in the Exam Guide but on a high level, the following points should be noted.

  • Questions – 60 + 5 Random unevaluated
  • Time – 1 Hr 45 Min
  • Pass Score – 65% (42 out of 65)
  • Result – Immediately
  • Closed Book Exam
  • Fee – $200 and $100 for retake

Developer-oriented certifications like App Builder, and Platform Developer I, don’t require Admin certification as a prerequisite but for everyone starting fresh, I recommend going for admin certification first. Admin Certification preparation gives you a great understanding of the Salesforce platform and what can be achieved out of the box without any development.

Preparation

Timeline

For someone new to salesforce and aspiring to learn Salesforce and appear for this certification, I recommend at least 4 months study plan.

  1. Introduce2 Weeks – Understand what is Salesforce and how to navigate to various configuration setups and learn about the capabilities of the platform.
  2. Indulge4 Weeks – Go deep into various topics and explore various configuration areas of Salesforce and how to leverage them.
  3. Refine 6 Weeks – At this point, you are very familiar with Salesforce and now you should start to accumulate your learnings from the Admin Certification’s point of view. The following trailmix includes various superbadges to get deep knowledge of the topic as well as modules arranged based on the exam content.
  4. Revise4 Weeks – Now it’s time to recollect all the knowledge and prepare your mind for your certification exam.

Strategy

Understand the exam break up and divide the topics which should be given more priority and topics which just need to be memorized and understood from a high level.

salesforce admin exam content and weightage
Exam Outline with Weightage

These three areas are the focus topics that should be understood in detail as most of the questions will be scenario-based or will require complete understanding to pick the best answer.

Priority 1 – User Setup and Security [20%]

This is the core of salesforce and will be an important concept throughout your salesforce journey. Understand this thoroughly and go even a little beyond the scope of the certification exam, like high-level knowledge of territory management, teams for sharing, etc.

You can refer to this session on YouTube in which we discussed this topic at 9:40.

User Setup & Security and Access
Priority 2 – Data Management, Analytics, and Automation [30%]

This is also a very important area of salesforce which is present in most of the certifications like App Builder and Consultant Exams. Data Management and Analytics are also core responsibilities of a Salesforce Admin. You would be maintaining the data in the Salesforce system when it requires bulk processing and cannot be done one at a time and generate reports for leadership from time to time to see the company’s growth and progress.

You can refer to this session on YouTube in which we discussed these topics

  • 2nd Session at 12:45 – Data Management & Analytics.
  • 3rd Session at 12:25 – Process Automation
Data Management & Analytics (Reports and Dashboards)
Process Automation (Workflow, Process Builder & Flow Builder)
Priority 3 – Standard and Custom Objects & Out of the Box (OOTB) CRM application – [43%]

In this part, you are expected to understand what salesforce provides out of the box (powerful CRM application) and where would you need to introduce custom objects or additional attributes in the standard object to meet a business requirement. Overall in your salesforce journey as an admin, developer, consultant, or architect, organizations expect you to always leverage the vanilla salesforce features to meet any requirement before stepping into the customization zone.

You can refer to this session on YouTube in which we discussed this topic at 12:40.

This is a vast topic and you should invest sufficient time exploring all the standard objects and how they are interrelated and what functionality is provided by salesforce.

The bare minima you should understand are the following objects and their relationship. Account, Contact, Lead, Campaign, Opportunity, Case. Additionally, you must be aware of objects like Product, Pricebook, and Order.

I have covered both areas, Sales and Marketing Applications, and Service and Support Applications in our session and you can watch that session recording on YouTube.

Priority 4 – Low Hanging Fruits [7%]

We are keeping the other topics on low priority but the questions from these topics are simple and straightforward. You should understand the basics of these topics and when we can leverage these features.

Following are the topics that will definitely have 1 to 2 questions each

Learn and keep them in your recent memory in the last month so that you can answer quickly. These topics will cover you in the scenarios where you hit a wrong answer in the major topics.

You can refer to this session on YouTube in which we discussed this topic at 1:37:54.

Before Your Exam

This is a very important phase and you should first schedule your exam after a month and start this phase and revise everything you learned in the last 3-4 months.

  1. Schedule your Certification Days Webinar – This is a 5-hour webinar happening every month. Schedule this a month in advance as it gets full very quickly and keep the session date 1-2 weeks before your exam date.
  2. Trailhead Study Trailmix 2Hr 30Min – This will act as a knowledge check for you and give you confidence in your preparation and revise the concepts. It also has some sample questions to give you an idea about how questions are framed in the real exam. Don’t fall prey to dumps!
  3. Mock Exams – There are various options to look for mock exams some of them are paid and some are free and you can optionally go for some of these to assess your knowledge before the exam.

Important Tips and References

Practice everything in a Hands-on org as much as you can!

Create a Trailhead Playground and see everything, setup menu and how to configure different settings and practice them as that will go deep in your memory and you will be able to recollect better during the exam.

Other Tips

  1. Multiple Answers – There are some questions with multiple answers and only the correct combination will be considered right. In such questions look for absolute wrong options to rule them out and then look for the correct ones. In some scenarios, the options when performed in a sequence also make it a correct answer so look for such a pattern too.
  2. Review Flag – Use the review flag wisely and mark the question where you are not sure about the answers and give them extra time later and keep moving.
  3. Time per question – You have approx. 95 seconds per question so try to not spend more than one minute per question initially and use the time later. Some questions will be easy enough to answer in 10 seconds.
  4. Details of Q&A – Read all the fine details of the question and answers and don’t jump to a conclusion quickly. If it is a lengthy question read it twice to get more clarity, there will be a few keywords that will determine the best option. There might be two correct answers but due to a specific keyword in question, one of the options will be more optimal and correct in that situation/scenario.

References

Join Chatter Groups

  1. Letterkenny Developers’ Chatter Group – Access the presentation files and notifications of all our upcoming sessions.
  2. ADM 201 Study Group – Global study group for all the admin certification aspirants.
  3. Certification Days – Q&A and any technical help with the Certification Days preparation webinar I mentioned above.
  4. Salesforce Admins Live Sessions – Links to all the new webinars hosted for admins.
  5. Admin Trailblazers – All the Admin Trailblazer community, where people post their challenges and advice while performing day-to-day responsibilities as salesforce admin.

Listen to your fellow Trailblazers’ Experience

In our Letterkenny Developers Group, we ran a Salesforce Academy with the above plan and two of them cleared their certification, and listen to their journey and experience in this video at 1:10:34.

Trailhead Live Videos

Google spreadsheet with links to more such videos

Find additional such videos on Trailhead Live

Help Articles

Conclusion

Salesforce is a very powerful platform and the number one CRM company. Starting your journey in Salesforce itself makes you ahead of the curve and getting a certification will be definitely an extra edge.

Salesforce Administrator Certification is not a simple certification and requires a very good understanding of the platform and its OOTB features. Read More

Focus on the topics which require greater understanding first like Security, Data Management, and Vanilla Salesforce as most of the questions are scenario-based. Read More

Keep a solid revision plan for at least one month and focus on Certification Days webinar, Mock Exams, and Trailhead. Read More

Collaborate while studying and keep an eye on the important tips for your exam. Read More

All the very best and let me know if this post helped you in your preparation. Feel free to share your feedback to improve this post.

Categories
Certification Guide

Platform Developer II Certification

In this blog, I have highlighted some topics which I found important based on my exam and you can expect one or two questions from each. These topics are perfect for revision before your PD II certification.

The topics are segregated as Visualforce, Apex, and Lightning.

About

Platform Developer II program is designed to demonstrate the skills and knowledge in advanced programmatic capabilities of the Lightning Platform and data modeling to develop complex business logic and interfaces.

To earn this credential you need to complete following two steps

  1. Advanced Apex Specialist Superbadge
  2. PDII Proctored MCQ

Strategy

You can find some tips on strategizing your certification exam from my blog about Certified System Architect.

Important Topics

Following are the topics which should be studied thoroughly and also good for a quick revision.

Visualforce

  1. Transient Keyword Developer Guide
    • Use the transient keyword to declare instance variables that can’t be saved and shouldn’t be transmitted as part of the view state for a Visualforce page.
  2. Visualforce for Large Data Volumes & Lazy Loading Developer Guide
    • Loads specific parts of the page for faster access using custom rendering, Javascript Remoting, and Custom Components.
  3. Visualforce Controllers
    1. Standard Controller – Guide
      • What all can be done directly with a standard controller and not using any custom controller or extension?
      • What are all available actions in a standard controller? Answer.
    2. Custom Controller & Controller Extension – Guide
      • When to go for a custom controller instead of using a controller extension?
    3. Standard Set Controller – Guide
      • Supports 10,000 rows of data.
**CONTROLLER EXTENSION**
public myControllerExtension(ApexPages.StandardController stdController){
this.acct = (Account)stdController.getRecord(); 
}

**SET CONTROLLER**
setCon = ApexPages.StandardSetController(Database.getQueryLocator(queryString));
setCon.setPageSize(size); --> Sets page Size
setCon.getResultSize(); -->  Find total record count
setCon.getRecords(); --> Find the records to be displayed
{!setCon.first}, {!setCon.next}, {!setCon.previous}, {!setCon.last} --> Pagination Methods
  1. Related List VF Component
    • Can be implemented using a standard controller itself.
<apex:detail relatedList =”false”/>
<apex:relatedList list=”Contacts”/>
  1. JS Remoting & VF Remote ObjectsGuide
    • JS Remoting – Guide
      • Makes basic CRUD object access easy
      • Doesn’t require any Apex code
      • Supports minimal server-side application logic
      • Doesn’t provide automatic relationship traversals; you must look up related objects yourself
    • VF Remote Object – Guide
      • Requires both JavaScript and Apex code
      • Supports complex server-side application logic
      • Handles complex object relationships better
      • Uses network connections (even) more efficiently
  2. VF Page Testing setCurrentPage()StackExchange
**Page reference is passed as a parameter**
Pagereference pref = page.AccountPage;
Test.setCurrentPage(pref);
  1. Continuation VF pageGuide
    1. Action methods return a continuation object
      1. public Object calloutActionMethodName()
    2. Callback Methods
      1. public static Object callbackMethodName(List< String> labels, Object state)
      2. Returns null, page reference, or another continuation for chaining more continuations.
    3. You can chain up to three callouts.
    4. In test classes add a mock response
      1. Test.setContinuationResponse(controller.requestLabel, response);
  2. Visualforce Pagination ( > 10,000 records ) – Developer Blog
    1. What will be the optimal approach for pagination based on data volume and customizations requirement?
  3. ActionSupport – ActionFunction – ActionRegion
    • Action Function – JS function in VF page to call controller method. (Must be inside apex:form)
    • Action Support – Add JS event or AJAX support to a component and then call the controller method.
    • Action Region – Optimize VF page performance during an AJAX request.

Apex

  1. DML and Callouts (Limits and Limitations) – Guide
    • To perform Callouts from trigger context use @future block.
    • Callouts cannot be done after DML statements, reverse is possible.
    • For testing implement Test.setMock(mock callout class) and execute in between Test.startTest() and Test.stopTest()
    • 100 callouts are allowed in a single transaction
    • 120 seconds is the maximum cumulative time allowed for callouts in a single transaction.
  2. Query optimization for LDV and Selective SOQL Query – Improve Performance – Help Article
    1. Use Skinny Table – Apex Hours Session
    2. Indexed Table – Apex Hours Session
      • Standard Index (up to 1 M, 30% of 1 M and 15% of additional each million records)
      • Custom Index (up to 333K, 10% of each 500K records)
    3. Query Plan Tool – Help Article
      • A tool within the developer console to determine the performance of your SOQL query
    4. Make SOQL Selective – Help Article
      • Indexing will not work if
        • Not Equal To, Not Contains, Not Starts with used
        • Comparing with NULLS
        • Contains operator used and number of rows scanned is > 333K
        • Exceeds any of the upper limits defined for indexing.
      • Following can’t be Indexed
        • Multi-select picklist, Currency (multi-currency org), Long text, binary fields.
        • Formula of the following type
          • Non-Deterministic – Uses NOW or TODAY and value changes based on time.
          • Lookup to multiple objects
          • Includes any non-supported index fields
          • Includes Text(picklist field)
  3. Concurrent usage (Governor limits) – Trailhead
    1. Max 25 long-running API Requests (time > 20 seconds).
    2. Callouts cause concurrency between systems
    3. Reduce the following:
      1. Number of Apex Triggers
      2. The complexity of your Query
      3. Switch to Async process
      4. Data you are processing in one transaction.
    4. Solutions
      1. Async Callouts (Continuation)
      2. Selective Query
      3. Bulkify and reduce no of Apex triggers.
  4. SOQL with Big ObjectGuide
    • The !=, LIKE, NOT IN, EXCLUDES, and INCLUDES operators are not valid in any query.
    • Aggregate functions are not valid in any query.
    • Only the last field in a query can use the following operators (=, <, >, <=, >=, and IN)
  5. SOQL FunctionsGuide
    1. Localized Results SELECT statements can include the Translating Results, ConvertCurrency(), and FORMAT() functions in support of localized fields.
    2. Use toLabel(fields) to translate SOQL query results into the user’s language.
    3. Use SCOPE clause of a SOQL query to return records within a specified scope.
      • delegated, everything, mine, mine_and_my_groups, my_territory, my_team_territory…
    4. KnowledgeArticleVersion SOQL Clause – UPDATE TRACKING, UPDATE VIEWSTAT
    5. HAVING – use a HAVING clause with a GROUP BY clause to filter the results returned by aggregate functions, such as SUM().
    6. TYPEOF – A TYPEOF expression specifies a set of fields to select that depends on the runtime type of the polymorphic reference.
    7. You can update objects with information about when they were last viewed by using the FOR VIEW clause in a SOQL query.
    8. FOR REFERENCE – The LastReferencedDate field is updated for any retrieved records.
    9. Use FOR UPDATE to lock sObject records while they’re being updated in order to prevent race conditions and other thread safety problems.
    10. Security with SECURITY_ENFORCED clause.
  6. Platform Events and Streaming APIGuide
    • Streaming API uses the Bayeux protocol and CometD, so the client-to-server connection is maintained through long polling.
    • Publishing Platform Events
      • Process Builder using the Create a Record action
      • Flow using a Create Records element
      • Apex EventBus.publish() method
      • REST API sObjects resource
      • SOAP API create() call
    • Subscribing to Platform Events
      • Process Builder using a process that starts when a platform event occurs
      • A flow that waits for a platform event to occur
      • Apex trigger
      • Streaming API using the CometD messaging library
      • The empApi Lightning component
  7. Static ResourcesHelp Article
    1. Package a collection of related files into a directory hierarchy and upload that hierarchy as a .zip or .jar archive.
    2. Reference a static resource in page markup by name using the $Resource global variable.
    3. Use relative paths in files in static resource archives to refer to other content within the archive. 
      • For example, in your CSS file, named styles.css, you have the following style:
        • table { background-image: url('img/testimage.gif') }
      • create an archive (such as a zip file) that includes styles.css and img/testimage.gif
      • <apex:stylesheet value="{!URLFOR($Resource.style_resources, 'styles.css')}"/>
    4. A single static resource can be up to 5 MB in size.
    5. An organization can have up to 250 MB of static resources.
    6. Static resources apply to your organization’s quota of data storage.
  8. Load test data from Static Resource
    • Account records and a static resource name of myResource, make the following call:
      • List<sObject> ls = Test.loadData(Account.sObjectType, 'myResource');

LWC and Aura

  1. @AuraEnabled AnnotationGuide
    • Apex class static methods to make them accessible as remote controller actions in your Lightning components.
    • Apex instance methods and properties to make them serializable when an instance of the class is returned as data from a server-side action.
    • @AuraEnabled(cacheable=true) – You can improve runtime performance by caching method results on the client by adding (cacheable=true) to the annotation [API version 44.0 and above]. setStorable() was used in JS before this feature.
    • @AuraEnabled(continuation=true) – Use the continuation class in Apex to make a long-running request to an external web service.
    • Separate by space when used together. @AuraEnabled(continuation=true cacheable=true)
  2. Component JS Debugging Guide
    1. Enable Debug Mode for Lightning Components – Framework JavaScript code isn’t minified and is easier to read and debug.
      • Performance is slowed down drastically and should be used temporarily
    2. Disable Caching Setting During Development – Session Setting
      • Enable secure and persistent browser caching to improve performance
    3. Salesforce Lightning Inspector Chrome Extension
    4. Log Messages using console.log() in browser’s dev console.
  3. <lightning:layout/> multipleRows attributes Component Library
    • multipleRows(default=false) – Determines whether to wrap the child items when they exceed the layout width. If true, the items wrap to the following line.
  4. <lightning:layoutItem/> Device Size attributesComponent Library
    1. If the viewport is divided into 12 parts, this attribute indicates the relative space.
    2. Accepts integer from 1 to 12
    3. Attributes available are:
      • largeDeviceSize – Desktop
      • mediumDeviceSize – Tablet
      • smallDeviceSize – Mobile 
  5. Salesforce Lightning Inspector (Tabs and Usage) – Guide
    • Use of Storage and Actions tabs.
  6. Events Anti-PatternsGuide
    • Don’t Fire an Event in a Renderer – Firing an event in a renderer can cause an infinite rendering loop.
  7. Error handling for LWC – Developer Blog
  8. Events in Aura Components
    1. Component Event
      • var compEvent = cmp.getEvent("sampleComponentEvent");
    2. Application Event
      • var appEvent = $A.get("e.c:appEvent");
  9. Aura component in Custom ActionsGuide
    • For your Aura component to work as a custom action, you must set a default value for each component attribute marked as required.

Conclusion

Platform Developer II is a certification focused on testing your programming skills and you should do hands on with trailmix and superbadge on Trailhead.

The topics outlined in the blog are from my preparation notes and post-mortem of the examination.

Thank you for reading through and all the best for your certification.

Please share your feedback and I’ll incorporate it in my upcoming blogs.

Categories
Certification

Certified System Architect

This is my first blog and I’m going to talk about the strategy I followed to clear my System Architect certification in just three months and also share my preparation experience along with some useful blog references and my own notes.

About

To earn this certificate you just need to complete following four certifications and you are entitled Certified System Achitect.

  1. Platform Developer I
  2. Identity and Access Management Designer
  3. Integration Architecture Designer
  4. Development Lifecycle and Deployment Designer

Take these certifications as a stepping stone and study the topics keeping in mind that you are preparing for your CTA review board examination.

Strategy

Set a goal

Set a final goal that is achievable and you can stick to it. Also, keep track of your progress.

Certification Goal
Certification Goal set on 3rd August 2020

Here I set my long-term goal to complete the certification by end of the year i.e. 5 months and individual certification goals for one month each and keeping the remaining time as buffer.

I also kept a daily goal to study a new topic every day and mark the days when I studied (highlighted in pink in the above image), this will keep you engage and motivated to keep working towards your goal.

You can very well proportionally increase the time based on your learning speed and time you are willing to devote on daily basis.

Sequence of Certification

Choosing the right certification sequence will help you prepare topics quickly as some of the course content overlap with each other.

The sequence I gave my exam was Integration – Identity – Deployment. I would recommend using this sequence, Identity – Integration – Deployment as it will give you the following benefits.

  • Overall understanding of Identity and Access helps how different systems communicate when they are integrated together.
  • Identity and Access exam talk a lot in depth about OAuth and Connected App which are also required for Integration exam as an overview and thus will be easy when you prepare for the second certification.
  • Deployment exam is a lot of reading and memorizing stuff so keeping it at the end will help, as you will gain a flow and routine in your studies and you will be able to skim through contents quickly.

Lock the dates

Once you have set the goal and decided on the exam sequence, pick the dates, and book your exam on Webassessor. If you are not ready, you can reschedule the exam 24 hrs before the selected date.

Pointers while picking appropriate dates:

  1. I picked Mondays for my exam as I was able to find the right slot and use weekends for my final revision.
  2. Keep the same time for all the exams, it will give you the same feel and confidence when you give the exam.
  3. Book time off for your preparations in advance and make sure there are no project deliverables like deployments or migrations in the week before your exam.
    • I booked each Friday before my exam as time off, so that I don’t have anything falling over the weekend when I need to revise for my exam.

Preparation Timelines

I completed the certification in 3 months as I was preparing for 3 domain certifications and I already had the Platform Developer I (PDI) certification. You can attempt for PDI certification either before or after the domain certifications. I would recommend completing it first.

I gave roughly one month for each certification and split the time as follows.

Preparation (3 Weeks)

On a high level always be focused on gaining knowledge in these three weeks and preparing the notes so that the same notes will be very helpful when you appear for the CTA review board.

All the designer exams can be prepared with a common approach which I followed.

  1. Study all the topics in trailmix and keep preparing your notes.
    • Go through the video/ blogs outlined in trailmix thoroughly.
    • Additionally, read the related salesforce articles and note the limitations and implementation considerations outlined there.
    • Also, check out Dreamforce or CTA preparation-oriented sessions of the related topics on YouTube for a better understanding of how to implement them in the real world scenario. I have added such links in the relevant certification preparation blog.
    • Do some hands-on for even those topics which don’t have a hands-on challenge in trailhead to see how it works in real-time.
  2. Check out and read all the blogs posted by fellow trailblazers and if you find any topic not covered in trailmix read through that. I have added blog links in the relevant certification preparation blog.
Revision (1 Week)

Try to revise all the notes you prepared and get more clarity on any topics which you find difficult and try to do some hands-on to understand it better.

Check out some flashcards and quizzes for learning the definitions and key terms which can come directly and some sample question on Quizlet. I have added such links in the relevant certification preparation blog.

Preparation Guides and Notes

  • Identity and Access Management Designer (Coming Soon!)
  • Integration Architecture Designer (Coming Soon!)
  • Development Lifecycle and Deployment Designer (Coming Soon!)

Conclusion

Acquiring System Architect certification requires you to complete all the underlying certifications and you are entitled to this certificate, so don’t go for all the underlying certifications as an independednt certification. Try to study all of them as a whole by defining a clear goal for this top-level certification and gaining an in-depth understanding of each designer certification, this will definitely help you with your CTA review board preparation.

Define a clear timeline for your exam and also a timeline for each designer certification, also keep track of your progress so that you are on target for this bigger goal.

Thank you for starting this journey with me and stay tuned for upcoming blogs for individual certification and my own preparation notes.