Complete Salesforce Admin Certification Study Guide

This study guide will help you prepare for the Salesforce Admin Certification and pass the Salesforce Admin Certification exam:

A Salesforce Administrator is the one who helps run Salesforce smoothly or the developer who builds new custom apps to extend capabilities.

While working as a Salesforce professional, you require Salesforce certification for the sake of benchmarking your skillset and the know-how of real-life cloud experts. Salesforce has introduced a Salesforce Certified Administrator Program for proficient Salesforce administrators.

Certification is becoming increasingly popular among Salesforce professionals, not just for a higher level of knowledge acquired, but for the higher employability and higher salaries, as yearned for by many of these experienced professionals.

Salesforce Admin Certification Study Guide

As per a report from IDC, 2019 Salesforce is all set to earn $1.2 Trillion in business revenues and 4.2 million new jobs.

This Salesforce Admin Certification Guide will give you insights on why and how you appear for a Salesforce Admin Certification Exam along with the details of the examination such as places to access the information related to the exam, salaries expected after you pass the examination, and all other relevant exam-related queries that you may have as a Salesforce Administrator.

Why Choose Salesforce Admin Certification

Salesforce professionals are very much in demand, and more so for those with Salesforce Administration profiles. Salesforce Admin Certification exam is one of the basic exams that an aspirant must pass, before taking other certification exams.

You may choose Salesforce Admin Certification Training for the following reasons:

• Salesforce Admin Certification acts as a benchmark for the skills, know-how, and expertise of individuals.
• Certified Salesforce Administrators can work smarter, and not just work harder.
• Acquire the latest skills required to maintain Salesforce Administrator certification.
• A certified Administrator surely fetches a higher salary, in the global marketplace of Salesforce professionals.

As per Mason Frank Salary Survey, the Salesforce Administrator earns the highest salary. However, there is a persistent demand for other Salesforce professionals as well.

The average salary of any Salesforce Administrator depends on the various levels of experience. You can glance through the salaries at various levels for different countries in the figure below.

Also Read =>>  Ultimate Salesforce Certification Guide

But for a certified Salesforce Administrator, the salary increases even more. As per the review by Mason Frank International, the certification of a Salesforce Administrator is the most popular one.

Please refer to this link for further details.

We will provide the following insights in this Guide.

• What are the prerequisites for Certified Salesforce Administrator training?
• Types of Salesforce Certified Salesforce Administrator Exam?
• Details on the Salesforce Administrator Examination.
  • How to Study for the Administrator Certification Exam?
• How to Access Training Materials for Salesforce Administrator Exam?

Recommended Salesforce Administrator Certification Course

Complete Salesforce Admin Certification Course

This is arguably one of the best online courses you can buy on Udemy to understand several core aspects of Salesforce administration.

What makes the course reliable is the fact that it is thought by a Salesforce instructor with more than 10 years of experience. The course was just recently updated with 290+ additional lessons to keep up with the latest Salesforce Admin Exam syllabus.

Course Features:

• Learn to Administer Salesforce Professionally.
• Learn to deploy Salesforce Lightning Experience.
• Features 8 Articles with 1 Practice Test.
• 2 Downloadable resources

Duration: 22.5 hours of on-demand video
Price: $24.99

Prerequisites of a Certified Salesforce Administrator

The prerequisites include:

• The Certified Salesforce Administrator must have relevant years of experience in working as a Salesforce Administrator.
• The Administrator must have the applied skillsets on the practical know-how as well as the related concepts – as stated in the exam objectives.
• Administrators must have the ability to assist their companies and extract more from additional features and capabilities.
• The exam encompasses the entire Salesforce application inclusive of features, functions, configurations, and management options available to the said Administrator as applied to the cloud-based Salesforce products for Sales, service, and collaboration as well.

There are two types of Salesforce Admin Certification examinations. Let’s explore!!

Types of Certified Salesforce Administrator Exam

The first credential is that of a Salesforce Administrator which includes the features and functionalities pertaining to a Salesforce implementation. The second credential is that of Salesforce Certified Advanced Administrator.

This applies to Salesforce Administrators who have acquired skillsets in configuration maintenance and with a thorough understanding and exposure to the best practices adopted for administration work along with advanced features and functionalities as required for solving complex business problems.

Salesforce Administrator Examination Details

Salesforce offers aspiring candidates an examination guide for appearing for the Salesforce Administrator Examination. It incorporates the necessary training objectives, along with the relevant documentation and training materials. All these serve the purpose of helping the aspirants with a passing score.

Some details of the Exam are:

• Salesforce Administrator Examination
• Training Materials
• Recommended courses for the Examination
• Online Classes
• How to Maintain the Certification?

Salesforce Administrator Examination

Salesforce offers the following self-study materials on the Salesforce Administrator profile:

• Trails and Trailmix
• Hands-on experience
• Super badger

Salesforce has trailhead, a learning portal that enables you to acquire various Salesforce skills, from anywhere. It may so happen that your next job as a Salesforce Administrator requires that you better learn the latest Salesforce skillsets. Trailhead allows you to market your skills, all for free.

Superbadges enable you to acquire skill-based credentials and find applications in complex, real-life business problems. Superbadges come with Supersets that help you get the certification for success in getting the next job,

The materials include:

• How to Prepare Salesforce Administrator Credentials? (Trailmix)
• How to Study for the Administrator Certification Exam? (Trail)
• Lightning Experience Reports and Dashboards Specialists. (Superbadge)
• Business Administration Specialist (Superbadge)
• Security Specialist (Superbadge)

Moreover, there is a Trailhead Academy that offers the following expert-led courses:

• Administration Essentials for New Admins (ADM-201)
• Administration Essentials for New Administrators in Lightning Experience and Certification (ADX-201C)
• Preparing for Your Salesforce Administrator Certification (CRT-101)
• Administrative Essentials for New Admins in Lightning Experience (ADX-201)
• Lightning Experience Administrative Essentials for New Admins (ADX-201E)
• Trailhead Virtual Bootcamp for New Admins (TVB201)

Let’s see some more details on Salesforce Administrator Study Materials.

 How to Prepare for the Salesforce Administrator Certification Exam

This study material comes in the form of a Trail mix, lasting for a duration of 35 hours, accessible to prepare you for the exam.

The Salesforce Administrator Exam tests the knowledge of the aspiring candidate with the following objectives in mind.

The aspiring candidate must demonstrate the application of some of the features or functions:

• Organization Setup
• User Setup
• Security and Access
• Standard and Custom Objects
• Sales and Marketing Applications
• Service and Support Applications
• Activity Management
• Data Management
• Reports and Dashboards (Analytics)
• Workflows and Mobiles

The outline of the Exam is given in the below table:

Organization Setup

Here the candidate demonstrates the following skill sets:

• Describe company-based information such as currency management, default settings, business hours, etc.
• Compare the various UI features which are under the control of the Administrator.
• Provide details on UI Settings, list views, home page layouts, and search settings.

User Setup

Here the candidate demonstrates the following skill sets:

• Outline the steps for setting up and maintaining the users, providing details on how to reset passwords, assign the licenses, resolve the issues for locked user accounts.
• Comprehend how to activate, deactivate or freeze users.

Security and Access

Here the candidate demonstrates the following skill sets:

• Explain the security controls for the various organizations such as IP settings, passwords, network settings, and identity confirmation.
• Apply appropriate security controls with respect to the user request scenario. This is based on a Salesforce sharing model inclusive of features and capabilities such as role and role hierarchy, organization-wide defaults, sharing rules and public groups as well as manual sharing.
• Provide details on how best to use the permission set or custom profile with respect to the scenario, utilizing permissions and profile settings.
• Describe the usage of folders to organize, and secure communication templates, dashboards, and reports.

You can get further details on Sales and Marketing functions from Sales and Marketing Applications.

You can get further details on Service and Support functions from the above link.

Activity Management

Here the candidate shows the following skills:

• Explain the Activity Management details for Salesforce-related tasks, events, public calendars, and multi-day events.
• Explain the details related to chatter such as feed, groups, security, and following.
• Here the candidate shows the following skills:
  • Explain the Activity Management details for Salesforce related to tasks, events, public calendars, and multi-day events.
  • Explain the details related to chatter such as feed, groups, security, etc.

Data Management

In this section, you will find the details on:

• Identify tools for data management and various use cases such as Data Import Wizard.
• What all to consider for importing, mass deleting, and updating data in the form of CSV files, record IDs, any external IDs, field mapping, and others.
• What are the capabilities of data validation tools?
• What are the various data backup procedures for example data loader, data export?

Reports and Dashboards

In this section, you will find the details on:

Reports generated & customized, and dashboards while considering the following parameters.

• Report types – standard and custom reports.
• Fields and filters
• Summarizing Record
• Sharing model of reports with user groups, roles, or territories.
• Conditional Highlighting for summary or matrix reports based on specified colors or ranges.
• Create Charts.
• Elaborate on dashboard components such as charts, tables, metrics, and others.
• Features of custom record types such as fields via lookup, multiple objects, rename and reorder sections and fields, and others.

Please find more details here.

Workflow/Process Automation and Desktop/Mobile Administration

This section provides insights on:

• Features of Salesforce mobile apps.
• Find an automation solution based on workflow process features.
• Features of the Approval process.
• Elaborate on Salesforce Lightning for Outlook (Installation and Synchronization)

Please find more details here.

How to Access Training Materials for Salesforce Administrator Exam

Salesforce offers help with various resources in the form of study materials, training, and also hands-on experiences, to prepare you for the Salesforce Administrator exam.

Through these materials, Salesforce tries to offer a roadmap for preparing for the exam as well as offer insights from other experts in the industry.

The resources available are as follows:

• Instructor-led courses
• Salesforce Trailhead
• Virtual Courses

Instructor-led Courses

• Administrator Essentials for New Admins (ADM201C)
• Administrator Essentials for Experienced Admins (ADM211)

Administrator Essentials for New Admins (ADM201C)

This educates the new administrators on the setup, configuration, and maintenance of Salesforce applications. It offers insights into other user groups such as power groups, IT managers, etc.

You can get further details on such instructor-led courses from Salesforce experts and from Trailhead Academy.

Salesforce Trailhead

Trailhead offers an exam guide for all those interested in the Salesforce Administrator exam. Although online courses are available through Trailhead, your budget constraints will decide whether you will take this course or go for any traditional course.

Virtual Courses

Some of these virtual classes come in the form of:

• Certification Preparation for Administrator (CRT101)
• Trailhead Virtual Bootcamp for New Admins (TVB201)

Certification Preparation for Administrator (CRT101)

This course offers you insights on the following:

• Understand the exam objectives and weightage of the exam.
• Know the most focussed product areas.
• Offer details on the salesforce admin certification questions.
• Whether Additional resources are available to prepare for the exam.

This also includes all the necessary pre-work, which is about the preparatory courses.

You can get further details from Certification Preparation.

Trailhead Virtual Bootcamp for New Admins (TVB201)

This is a blended, expert-led program that provides you with a learning plan for a duration of 30 days. The program provides live coaching from instructors with Salesforce certifications. It also provides you with Q & A sessions with fellow students.

You can get further details from Trailhead Virtual Bootcamp.

You can get a comparison of the above courses from the following table:

Further Reading =>> Best Salesforce Admin Interview Questions and Answers

Frequently Asked Questions

Q #1) What is the passing score for Salesforce Administrator Exam?

Answer: The passing score for the exam is 65 %.

Q #2) The Advanced Salesforce Administrator is meant for whom?

Answer: Advanced Salesforce Administrator is meant for more experienced Administrators.

Q #3) What are Manager Group features? How to share these features?

Answer: Manager Group is an option in SFDC. A Salesforce user is assigned to a public group with a User of Group Member.

The two ways to share these features for the Manager roles are:

• Use Manual sharing for the users to share with the Manager Groups.
• Share records throughout the Management chain.

Q #4) What are the ways to use the Manager Groups features?

Answer:

• Make a Chatter group for the Managers.
• Add Manager Groups for specific profiles.
• Enable Manager Groups with a Request in Salesforce.

Q #5) What are Salesforce Duplicate Rules?

Answer: Duplicate Rules are nothing but an action taken up by Salesforce when the user is either creating duplicate records or editing the records. Matching Rules identify Duplicate Records.

Q #6) What are the actions supported by Salesforce Process Builder?

Answer: Salesforce Process builder supports all actions that are available for workflow rules.

The actions supported are:

• Create A Record
• Post a Chatter
• Send Email Alert
• Call Flow from the Process.
• Use an already existing action within another process.

Q #7) What are the available Capabilities for Report Notifications?

Answer:

The available capabilities for the users are:

• Set notification criteria by subscribing to reports.
• Frequency of notifications sent for each report.

Further Reading => Salesforce Certification Verification Process

Conclusion

Certification is gaining popularity among Salesforce professionals, not only for acquiring higher knowledge but higher employability too. With high employability comes higher salaries, as earned by many of these experienced professionals.

Salesforce has its own portal that enables you to acquire various Salesforce skills, from anywhere. Salesforce offers guidance to these experienced professionals who will write the Salesforce Administrator exam while searching for a better opportunity.