Salesforce Certification Maintenance Exams Spring 2019

        Here we are covering major features of Spring 19 release that are part of maintenance exams for different Salesforce certifications

Lightning Web Components(LWC)

        Salesforce introduced new lightning web components or LWC. It is another front end framework with lot of differences with Aura framework. LWC is way faster than Aura and uses modern web technologies like “Web Components” that got standardized after Aura was released in 2014. Aura and LWC components can coexist and admins will not see a difference in the way both operate.

Changes to Rich Text Editor

        Historically Salesforce was using CKEditor(open source) to show rich text field available in Salesforce interface. Now Salesforce is using another open source library called Quill to do this. This is because Quill plays better with locker service.

New Flow Builder

        Salesforce is replacing it’s old flow builder (called cloud flow builder) with new simplified graphical tool called Flow Builder. New interface is way more intuitive and you can access it while creating new flows or editing existing flows.

New interface to setup Sales Process

        Sales Process in Salesforce allows you to customize different steps of your sales operation. Historically you needed to setup Lead process to define different status values in lead and Sales process to define different stage values and probabilities in opportunity. This was a time consuming process. New interface to setup Sales Process allows you to define both Lead Status and Opportunity statuses in one shot in a single wizard with side by side view of both statuses.

Joined reports for lightning experience

        This feature allows up to 5 report blocks to be viewed side by side in a single joined report. To use this feature,

• Edit any existing report in Salesforce
• Click dropdown icon next to “Report” option in the view top left
• Select “Joined Report” from the drop down and apply
• Use “Add Block” button to add new reports

Other features

• Option to remove all Account team members in one shot.
• Ability to promote sub tab in lightning workspace to a main tab or workspace tab
• You can create “Account Relationship Data Sharing Rules” to share some standard objects and custom objects with partners
• Ability to specify relative values using macros while populating Date, Time, DateTime field values. For example you can specify due date of a task as “n days from today” in macro
• Ability to change template in a lightning page that is already created
• Admins can control visibility of components in lightning page based on user’s permissions. For example if user has “API Enabled” standard permission, show a particular component.
• While specifying default value of fields, now you can use values configured in custom metadata type.
• There is a new clause “WITH SECURITY_ENFORCED” that you can add at the end of SOQL in Apex to enforce field level security check. Example “SELECT Id, (SELECT Id, FirstName FROM Contacts) FROM Account WITH SECURITY_ENFORCED” will fail if the user does not have view permission on FirstName field

Trailhead to complete for administrator certification maintenance

        https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/administrator-maintenance-spring19

Trailhead to complete for Platform App Builder certification maintenance

        https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/platform-app-builder-maintenance-spring19

Trailhead to complete for Platform App Builder certification maintenance

        https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/modules/platform-developer1-maintenance-spring19

Trailhead to complete for Data Architecture Designer certification maintenance

        https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/modules/data-architecture-designer-maintenance-spring19/maintain-your-data-architecture-designer-cert-spring19

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.

How to start a career in Salesforce?

As it is an emerging technology, and a cloud computing technology, lots of people are planning to start a new career in Salesforce.com or SFDC. But most of them are in doubt, where to start. As with most of the other technologies, to develop a career in salesforce, best way is to take any certification provided by Salesforce. Salesforce is offering certification in many streams. Depending on whether you are looking for a career as a developer or an Administrator or a Consultant, Salesforce is offering many certifications.

For Developers

For developers, the first certification you can start with is Dev401 exam. It is an online exam where you have to answer multiple choice questions. Its fee is $200. Questions are mainly coming from basic application configuration in Salesforce. The tutorial PDF provided by Salesforce with name ' Force.com fundamentals  will help you to answer most of the questions of this exam

Next level exam for salesforce developers is Advanced developer Exam. It is the next level exam for developers. This exam with fee $400 will, ask you to complete two steps in the exam. In the first step you need to clear an online exam with multiple answer questions. In the second level, you need to develop a small case study application.

For Administrators

For administration entry level exam in ADM201, which is almost similar to the DEV401 exam of developers. For this also most of the questions will be coming from the PDF provided by salesforce with name 'Force.com fundamentals'. For admin exam more than developing side, you can expect more questions from areas like application security settings, different sandbox limits etc. The exam will also test your understanding about most of the built in functionalities in salesforce like service, call center, sales apps in salesforce

Next level exam for administrators is Advanced Admin exam. This is equivalent to Advanced developer exam for developers.

For Consultants

There are exams for salesforce consultants also. Consultant exam depends on the area, in salesforce where we want expertise on. There are many consultant exams like service cloud, sales cloud etc. 

In addition to these salesforce is providing many other certifications in many other services provided by salesforce.


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