How to pass ADM 201–Salesforce certified administrator

    ADM 201 or Salesforce certified administrator certification assesses you for the knowledge required to maintain a salesforce instance in a company. It checks candidates ability to configure an application in force.com application. But it does not evaluate against coding aspects like apex and visualforce.Difficulty wise it is a bit more tougher than DEV 401. ADM 201 syllabus contains all the topics needed for DEV 401 along with some additional contents like basic knowledge in sales cloud, service cloud, chatter, reporting, user setup, securing application etc. Detailed syllabus can be found in below link.

Syllabus / Study guide 

    First and mandatory thing to do while preparing is to go through the above study guide. It will give you a very good understanding regarding different areas against which you will be assessed.

Structure of Exam

    It is a multiple choice exam with 60 questions. You will get 90 minutes to complete the exam and need 65 percentage(39 correct answers) to pass the exam. Exam fee is $200. If you failed in first attempt, second attempt can be done with a fee of $100. Most of the companies have partnership with salesforce.com through which they will be able to get vouchers for exam. So if you are from a partner company of Salesforce, try to get a voucher from your company.  

Materials to prepare

    This certification is demanded by companies looking for administrators. The role of an administrator in small to medium sized companies includes tasks like maintaining the production sandbox, creating users, managing security, running reports etc. Many business analysts who does not have plan to go to development side of salesforce.com also takes this certification. Salesforce.com recommends its “Administration Essentials for new Admins” instructor led training program as a preparation for this certification. But it is a paid training. If you cannot afford paid training, you can pass it preparing with resources available online. Also there are many people who pasted notes from salesforce training online. For example check  ADM Notes in this blog. Please find the list of other free resources to prepare for the exam,

• Force.com Fundamentals - You can find HTML/PDF version of the book in salesforce documentation. It walks you through creating a recruiting application in force.com platform. It might look bit time consuming initially, but it is a very good resource and gives clear understanding of most of the aspects of force.com platform. Try to build recruiting application on your own with the instructions given in the book.
• Create your own Developer Org and practice – Salesforce offers free developer org for anyone who is interested to practice. You can create your own org in registration link.
• Online Free Training – Salesforce offers free online training videos. Once you have registered for developer org, you can access these materials from the “Help” link in top right corner of your developer org. It will give you access to lot of videos regarding different aspects of force.com platform. Again if your company is a partner of salesforce, you can get access to premium online training videos. Out of those videos “Administration Essentials for New Admins”, “Administration Essentials for Service Cloud” etc are very useful. Salesforce offers trail head training which is free and gives practical experience.
• Online blogs – There are many good blogs explaining about all the topics in the study guide. For example you can check – Cloudsocius blog. You can check salesforce documentation for additional materials regarding any topic related to force.com platform. Just search in Google for additional new blogs. There are many coming up every day.
• Flash card training – These are basically sample questions very similar to the actual questions in exam. This you can use as the last step in practice. Once you have gone through all materials, you will be able to answer most of the questions. If there are some questions you are not able to answer, prepare more in that area and attempt again. Some good flash card training sites are – cram , Quizlet etc.

 

I am certified. Now what?

    Congrats. It is time to celebrate. But remember that now you have to maintain your certification. Salesforce require you to maintain DEV 401 and ADM 201 certifications. Every year there will be three releases(updates to the platform) for Salesforce. Associated with each of these there will be maintenance exams. So every year you have to write thee maintenance exams. But these are online exams, based on release updates. These are easy exams, which you can clear easily if you go through release notes. After your initial certification, two consecutive release exams are free for you. But after that you will have to pay $100 every year once for maintenance exams. So always remember to take maintenance exams on time, otherwise your certifications will become invalid.

Also ADM 201 certification is a mandatory requirement before you can take Sales cloud consultant, Service cloud consultant and advanced administrator certifications. Make a good study plan and start preparing towards it.