This tutorial provides frequently asked Salesforce Solution Architect interview questions and answers with explanations to help you prepare for the interview:
Salesforce is the world leader in the CRM marketplace.
Salesforce professionals are high on demand. As per International Data Corporation (IDC), Salesforce and its partner ecosystem will create 4.2 million new jobs and 1.2 Trillion in new business revenues, worldwide between 2019 to 2024.
The Solutions Architect are professionals who can resolve business problems and handle project completion.
Today’s businesses rely a lot on a Solutions Architect who has the expertise to recommend the hardware and software systems vital for operations. People who have technical acumen and development may seek to become Solutions Architects.
In this post, we will provide some Salesforce Solutions Architect interview questions to help you appear for an interview with Salesforce Solutions Architect.
Top Salesforce Solution Architect Interview Questions
Q #1) What is the difference between Salesforce Solutions Architect and Technical Architect?
Answer: A Solutions Architect designs solutions and also leads the solution delivery process, whereas a Technical Architect is a person who designs technical solutions and also leads and manages the technology delivery process.
A Solutions Architect hires a Technical Architect when he/she does not have the expertise in a specific technology. They play more of an influencer role, but the Technical Architect plays an individual performer role.
Q #2) What Is the Salesforce Architecture?
Answer: It has a series of layers on top of each other. Salesforce offers core services to the customers on the multi-tenant cloud. It helps your organization irrespective of size to access the same computing power, data storage, and core features.
Multitenancy in Salesforce allows you to keep your data secure and get the latest features through seamless upgrades – automatically, three times a year.
Here is a diagram that shows the layers:
[image source]
Q #3) What is Page Layout in Salesforce?
Answer: Page Layouts allow you to customize the organization and design of the detail and edit pages of Salesforce records. They can control the appearance of fields, custom links, and related lists which reside on the detail and edit pages belonging to the standard or custom object pages that can be seen by the users.
It can also control which all standard and custom buttons will be visible on the details and the related lists.
Here is how a page layout looks like:
For example: Create custom fields for an account object like membership plan, membership expiry date, last recharge amount, and create page layouts with these fields.
Q #4) What is Salesforce Record Type? When to use Record Type or Page Layout?
Answer: Salesforce Record Type helps to specify record categories that prove useful for displaying page layouts and various picklist values. The Salesforce admins usually attach these record types with profiles to enable different user types to view different page layouts and picklist values in the detail page of the record.
Here is how a record type looks like:
For example: Use picklist values for segmented business needs with record types based on the product line, region, etc.
Q #5) What are Workflows and Workflow Rules? What are the types of Workflow?
Answer: Workflow is a business logic engine for the Force.com platform that enables definition rules to automate actions on meeting criteria. There are three types of evaluation criteria for workflows.
The three different types include:
- Project Workflow
- Case Workflows
- Process Workflows
On the other hand, workflow rules act as containers comprising components like criteria, actions, and conditions which, if found true, will allow the action to happen. Each workflow rule is based on a single object since, with the rule defined, it is this very object that influences the fields which are available for setting the criteria.
Here is a figure that displays a Workflow Rule:
[image source]
Q #6) What is a time-dependent workflow?
Answer: It is possible to define rules to trigger time-based workflow actions off any field of type Date or Date time on an object.
Example: Remind opportunity owners by generating critical date reminders in a situation when an enormous opportunity is 14 days away from the intended Close Date. Also, use the same rule to notify the sponsor and subsequently change the ownership of the Opportunity, if the Close Date is 10 days away.
Q #7) Can I have time-based workflows on custom objects?
Answer: Yes, and it applies to any object supported by Workflow.
Q #8) What are the workflow actions used with time-based Workflow?
Answer: All the types of existing actions are available – Tasks, Email Alerts, Field Updates, and Outbound messages.
Q #9) Are there any restrictions for time-based Workflow?
Answer: Yes, it is not possible to configure a time-dependent workflow action that is used to evaluate the criteria “Every time a record is created or edited”.
Q #10) How do you clear the time-based Workflow action queue?
Answer: The workflow rule queue provides the record name, which we can use to individually hunt down the pending actions and cancel them. You can also remove the time-based Workflow action Queue by removing the scheduled actions or turning the criteria false.
Q #11) What is Organization-Wide Default (OWD)? What is the number of accesses in OWD?
Answer: OWD settings are the default access level on records for any Salesforce object. They can give permissions to organization-wide and used in the restriction of the access, and control of the record level access.
Their available accesses are:
- Public Read Only.
- Public Read/Write.
- Public Read/Write/Transfer.
- Public Full Access.
- Private
- View Only.
- Use
- Hide Details.
- Hide Details and Events.
- Show Details.
- Show Details and events.
- Controlled by parent
- No Access.
Q #12) What are the various workflow actions?
Answer: These include:
- Update a field.
- Send an Email.
- Assign Task to a Salesforce User.
- Send an outbound message.
Q #13) What do you mean by Workflow Task?
Answer: It helps to assign a task to a user, role, or record owner. It determines the assignment details given to a specific user by an automated process.
Q #14) What is Workflow Alert in Salesforce?
Answer: Workflow Alerts help to build notifications as per your Salesforce action. When a specific workflow rule gets triggered, a template is sent to the relevant people in the end-user organization. It is possible to attach a maximum number of 5 alerts to each action.
Example: We can send workflow email alerts to users or contacts with a valid email address.
Q #15) What is Apex?
Answer: Apex is an object-oriented programming language that allows developers to execute flow and transaction control statements and flow on Salesforce servers along with calls to the API. And it uses Java-like syntax and acts like database stored procedures.
It helps the developers to add business logic for some of the system events, such as Visualforce pages, button clicks, and related record updates. You can initiate the Apex code from triggers on objects or Web Service Requests.
Q #16) In how many ways can you call the Apex classes?
Answer: We can call Apex classes in the following ways:
- From another class
- From Developer Console
- From Visualforce Page
- From Home page components
- From Javascript buttons/links
Q #17) What is S-Control?
Answer: S-control offers a flexible, open means to extend the Salesforce User Interface and that includes the ability to create and display your own data forms. It contains any content to display or run on a browser like an ActiveX Control, Java applet, custom HTML web form, or an Excel file.
Q #18) What is a Visualforce Page?
Answer: Visualforce pages, similar to standard web pages, act as basic building blocks for application developers. They have powerful features to display, access, and update your organization’s data. The Visualforce framework has a tag-based markup language similar to HTML.
It also contains server-side “standard controllers” to enable you to carry on with database operations such as to save or queries, which are simple to perform. You can invoke or reference Visualforce pages with a unique URL as if they would be on a traditional web server.
Q #19) Does Visual force still support the merge fields usage like S-control?
Answer: Yes, Visualforce Pages support embedded merge fields similar to S-Controls.
Q #20) What do you mean by Salesforce Governor Limits?
Answer: Salesforce ensures practical usage of resources in the Force.com platform by using the Governor limits. A developer can use the Governor Limits to use the code effectively. If the Governor limit is not satisfied, an error occurs, and the program gets stopped or halts the execution of a program.
Q #21) What are Apex Governor Limits?
Answer: Apex runs in a multi-tenant environment where a single resource gets shared by all the organizations and customers. Governor Limits help to limit the code execution to allow you to stay within the place of Apex coding, as Apex has different or individual coding limits. It makes sure that no one monopolizes the resources.
Q #22) What are the differences between Sandbox and Development Environment?
Answer: An exact copy of your Salesforce.com instance is the Sandbox environment. The Developer editions are free, independent environments.
Here is a chart that explains the differences:
| Sandbox | Development | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Not Free | Free |
| Purpose | It can copy your live instance to a sandbox environment to test any changes, AppExchange apps or updates, and implementations o It offers an hands-on training environment without any risk for your live data. On the other hand, Developer editions are free, independent environments | It can serve the purpose of development of integrations and apps, meant for the AppExchange. o It is also a great tool for testing/training in Salesforce.com and that enables everyone to get it free |
| Execution | Run on Sandbox Pods (CS1 Or CS2) | Run on Product Pods (NA1 Or NA2) |
Q #23) How to schedule an export backup of your Salesforce Data?
Answer: Salesforce has a data export feature to enable you to get a copy of all your data. It is possible to create backup files manually after six days for once only or automatically schedule to generate them after intervals of a week or a month.
The backup file appears as a zip file and comprises all your organization’s data as a set of CSV (comma-separated) files. It is also important to note that formula and roll-up summary fields are not to be included in the export.
Q #24) What is Amazon Web Services (AWS)?
Answer: AWS is the leading PaaS service from Amazon. It has a development platform with a code library and a compute engine. It has an open-source community to enable the developers to share their innovation and advice.
Q #25) How to protect against Injection Attacks?
Answer: There are many ways to protect against injection attacks. It is secured by avoiding the use of dynamic Structured Query Language (SQL). Besides this, it is possible to enlist a web application firewall. And also ensure continuous monitoring of SQL statements regarding the connections with the web applications.
Q #26) What is your protocol to ensure security?
Answer: We require some steps to make the cloud environments secure. Such as:
- Daily Backup of data
- Ensure continuous monitoring
- Encrypt data and use virus protection
Q #27) What are the certifications required by a Solution Architect?
Answer: The skills required depend on the role played. However, individual skills required are:
- Java
- AWS
- Azure
- Apache Kafka
Further reading =>> Salesforce Certification Guide
Q #28) What are the two Data Management tools in Salesforce?
Answer: The data management tools include:
- Data Import Wizard
- Data Loader
Q #29) What is a Data Import Wizard?
Answer: It makes your task easier to import various standard objects like contacts, leads, accounts, person-accounts, etc. It makes it possible to import custom objects as well. There is a limit to the number of records imported and that is 50,000.
Here is a figure to explain the Data Import wizard:
Q #30) What are Export and Export All regarding Data Loader?
Answer: Salesforce Data Loader has two buttons – Export and Export All.
When the user presses the Export button with any Salesforce object, then all the records of that object get exported to a .csv file (except the ones in the recycle bin).
But in the case of the Export All option, all the records inclusive of those in the recycle bin are exported to a .csv file.
Q #31) What are the different types of Salesforce Reports?
Answer: They are:
- Tabular Report: It is like a spreadsheet and offers the simplest and fastest way to view data.
- Summary Report: It is like a tabular report but allows users to do different things like group rows of data, create charts view subtotals, etc.
- Matrix Report: It is like a summary report, but it allows users to summarize and group data based on rows and columns.
- Joined Report: It allows you to create multiple report blocks for different views of data, and each block appears as a sub-report.
Q #32) What are bucket fields in Salesforce?
Answer: When there is no need for any sophisticated algorithms or custom fields, a bucket field helps to combine related data together by segments and ranges. It is just a method of grouping, arranging, and filtering report data.
You must define numerous categories (buckets) that are used to group report values when creating a bucket field.
Q #33) Is it possible to schedule a Dynamic Dashboard? Who all can access the “drag and drop dashboard”?
Answer: Dynamic dashboards display the metrics in an organization. They get created to provide security settings for dashboards at Salesforce.com.
Two setting options are there in dynamic dashboards:
- Run as a specified user.
- Run as the logged-in user.
Q #34) What is the Roll-up Summary field? What are the different types of roll-up summary fields?
Answer: The roll-up summary fields help to perform different types of calculations. We can only build them on the master object. They also help to calculate values from a set of related records, such as those in a related list, unlike formula fields, which calculate values with fields in a single record.
You can create such roll-up summary fields to automatically display the value on a master record, which is based on the values of records in a detailed record. However, the master and the detailed record must be associated directly through a master-detail relationship.
There are four different types of roll-up summary fields are these are:
- Count
- Sum
- Min
- Max
Example: Create a roll-up summary field for an account object to summarize related opportunities.
Here is a diagram that shows the Roll-up summary field:
Q #35) What is Sharing Rule? What are its types?
Answer: Sharing rules in Salesforce can create automatic exceptions to the Organization-Wide Default settings for the users who do not own the record. It is not possible to add sharing rules to a package and cannot be used to support sharing logic for apps that are installed from Force.com.
It is also possible for the Sharing rules to be based on other criteria or record ownership. The developer can use Apex to create criteria-based sharing rules. However, criteria-based sharing cannot be tested with Apex.
Here is a diagram that shows Sharing Rule:
There are two types of sharing rules:
- Owner-based
- Criteria-based
Example: An example of an owner-based sharing rule is when a company’s sales managers need to see opportunities owned by Sales Managers in a different region. The Sales manager could give the Regional Sales Manager access to the opportunities owned by the primary team using owner-based sharing.
An example of a criteria-based sharing rule is when you have a custom object named job application and a custom picklist named ‘Departments”. A criteria-based sharing rule will share all job applications for departments set as “IT”, viewed by the IT Manager.
Q #36) What is the standard profile?
Answer: A Salesforce org comprises a standard profile to be assigned to the users. Each and every org has standard profiles. However, it is possible to use standard profiles in Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited, Performance, and Developer Editions or create, edit, and delete custom profiles.
Q #37) What are User Permissions?
Answer: User permissions help you specify the tasks performed by users and what all features the users can access.
For example:
When the users have a “View Setup and Configuration” permission, they can view Setup pages, whereas it is possible for the users with the “API Enabled” permissions to access any Salesforce API.
Q #38) What are permission Sets?
Answer: A permission set is a collection of settings and permissions that enable the users to access various tools and functions. They extend users’ functional access with no change in their profiles.
Q #39) What is a Trigger? What are its types?
Answer: Triggers are custom actions made in Salesforce before and after the changes in a record. Examples are insertions, deletions, and updations, etc. The developers can also use triggers to call Apex. It is nothing but a piece of Apex code that runs before and after the next set of activities.
The two types of triggers in Salesforce are:
- Before trigger: To update or validate records before they get saved into the database.
- After trigger: To access field values that are set by the system.
We hope this guide on popular Salesforce Solution Architect Interview Questions will help you prepare for your interview. We wish you all the best!