Become a Certified Salesforce Administrator!
Spring has Sprung! Salesforce Spring ’15 is in now in full swing, and as part of that, the updated Certified Administrator exam Spring ’15 study guide and Spring ’15 Release notes are now available.
What this means is that we know where to focus our studying efforts and subject matter deep dives. In addition, Salesforce has a tremendous amount of amazing publicly available materials to help us understand and test drive in Developer orgs. This includes the Salesforce User Guide, aka the “Salesforce Bible”.
Organization Setup – 1%
- Describe the components of the company profile – see pp. 193 of the Spring ’15 Salesforce User Guide “Company Information Overview”
User Setup – 9%
- Identify the steps to set up and maintain a user – see pp. 294 of the Spring ’15 Salesforce User Guide “Manage Users”
- Given a scenario, troubleshoot common user access and visibility issues
- Check login history
- Check profile login restrictions
- Check if organization has trusted IP ranges
- Check organization based business login hours
Global User Interface – 1%
- Distinguish between and identify the implications of the various user interface features that an administrator controls – from help.salesforce.com “Customizing User Interface Settings”
Security and Access – 15%
- Explain the various organization security options – see pp. 348 of the of the Spring ’15 Salesforce User Guide “Manage User Access to Data”
- Specifically:
- User object access is set by Profiles and Permission Sets
- User field access is set by field level security
- User access to individual records is controlled by organization wide defaults, role hierarchy, and sharing rules
- Specifically:
- Describe the features and capabilities of the sharing model – see pp. 394 of the of the Spring ’15 Salesforce User Guide “Sharing”
- Given a scenario, apply the appropriate security controls
- Determine organization-wide defaults for a particular object
- Determine appropriate object sharing rules
- Describe the various profiles controls – see the Standard Profiles Salesforce.com help doc
- Given a scenario, determine the appropriate use of a custom profile
- Useful for granting some level of access to custom objects
- Standard profiles may not be modified
- Custom object access is disabled by default to require explicit access configuration
Standard and Custom Objects – 18%
- Describe the standard object architecture and relationship model
- Explain how to create, delete, and customize fields, page layouts, and list views for custom and standard objects
- Given a scenario, determine the appropriate fields and page layouts for custom and standard objects
- Explain how to create, delete, and customize record types for custom and standard objects
- Given a scenario, determine the appropriate record types and business processes for custom and standard objects
- Explain the implications of deleting fields
- Describe when to use and how to create formula fields
- Helpful Salesforce.com Links
- Formulas Quick Reference (pdf) (reference information about formulas
- Useful Formula Fields (pdf) (examples of formula fields for various types of Apps that you can use and modify for your own purposes)
- Tips for Reducing Formula Size (pdf)
- Using Date and Date/Time in Formulas (pdf)
- Examples of Advanced Formula Fields (Help Document)
- Helpful Salesforce.com Links
Sales Cloud Applications – 9%
- Given a scenario, identify the capabilities and implications of the sales process
- Marketing Cloud
- Campaigns
- Leads
- Marketing Automation
- Lead Conversion)
- Sales Cloud
- Accounts
- Contacts
- Opportunities
- Sales Activities
- Marketing Cloud
- Given a scenario, identify when to apply the appropriate sales productivity features
- Describe the capabilities of Products and price books
- Describe the capabilities of Lead management
- Given a scenario, identify how to automate Lead management
- Describe the capabilities of campaign management
Service Cloud Applications – 6%
- Describe the capabilities of Case management
- Given a scenario, identify how to automate Case management
- Setting Up Web-to-Case
- Setting Up Email-to-Case
- Email-to-Case and On-Demand Email-to-Case Overview
- On-Demand Email-to-Case Settings
- Getting the Most from Your Self-Service and Customer Portals
- Setting Up Auto-Response Rules
- Setting Up Assignment Rules
- Setting Up Escalation Rules
- Customizing Support Settings
- Describe the capabilities of Solution management
- Describe the basic capabilities of Portals
- Describe the capabilities of the Community Application
Activity Management – 3%
- Describe the capabilities of Activity management
Chatter – 1%
- Describe the features of Chatter
- From Salesforce.com/chatter/features
- Feeds: keep up with your critical projects, topics, and teams. Work together on sales Opportunities, service Cases, and marketing Campaigns. Capture organizational knowledge in a single location.
- Publisher: create instant actions for any business process: expense Reports, support Cases, Orders, and more. Customize actions for your company, and even integrate third party Apps.
- Files: secure, social and mobile file sharing puts files in the context of business processes. You can always find what you need, fast — and discover valuable resources you didn’t even know about.
- Files are connected directly to business
- Files are synced across all of your devices
- Files FAQ
- An Introduction to Salesforce Chatter
- From Salesforce.com/chatter/features
Data Management – 11%
- Describe the considerations when importing, updating, transferring, and mass deleting data
- Given a scenario, identify tools and use Cases for managing data
- Describe the capabilities and implications of the data validation tools
- Describe the different ways to back up data
- Exporting Backup Data
- Export data using Data Loader
Content and Folder Management – 2%
- Describe the capabilities of Salesforce Content
- Describe how folders can be used to organize and secure communication templates, Dashboards, Reports, and documents
Analytics – Reports and Dashboards – 13%
- Describe the options available when creating or customizing a Report
- Describe the impact of the sharing model on Reports
- Describe the options available when creating and modifying Dashboards
- Describe the capabilities of custom Report types
Workflow Automation – 7%
- Describe when workflow rules are evaluated
- Describe the capabilities of workflow rules and actions
- Given a scenario, identify the appropriate workflow solution
- Describe capabilities and use Cases for the approval process
- General Workflow and Approvals Limits
Desktop and Mobile Administration – 2%
- Describe the capabilities of Salesforce Classic Lite (formerly Salesforce Mobile Lite)
- Describe the installation and synchronization options of Salesforce for Outlook
- Getting Microsoft® Outlook® and Salesforce in Sync
- Administering Connect for Outlook (also listed above)
AppExchange – 2%
- Identify use Cases for AppExchange Applications
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