Certificates are a waste of time and have no value – one expert wrote on LinkedIn, and I felt sad because I myself have 15 of them. I decided to hide under the blanket and end my career. After all, the LinkedIn gurus are always right. Under the blanket, I wanted to wipe my tears with those certificates; however, they’re in PDF format – they aren’t even good for that. Not all tears have gone to waste, because this experience got me thinking. Are certificates useful? You can bump into many people who would say they’re not. I can say they’re, but… it depends. As Craftware is famous for its cooperation with Salesforce, in this article, I’ll focus on certifications from the world of Trailblazers.
Can you become a Salesforce analyst without Salesforce certifications? Yes, you can. End of story. Unless you want to broaden your knowledge continuously and add beautiful certifications to your CV. This is where this article starts.
Are certificates useful? Yes. If you work with the system, it’s even easier for you, because, while learning for certifications, you can get a proper perception of the system. Moreover, during your everyday work, you can experience moments of enlightenment related to the configuration described in the learning resources. It’s a win-win situation. Apart from feeling more comfortable with the system and shaping your CV, you get a license to kill to rock at Salesforce.
I personally began working with Salesforce without any certification. I got to know the system, only through a series of trailheads done with a miserable face. I had a negative attitude towards Salesforce. It changed with time when I started clicking through the system. To know your enemy, you must become your enemy. A smart guy, this Sun Tzu, but how do you become the Salesforce system?
Everything starts from the Admin, who is in the center of all certifications and constitutes the basis to earn the next ones. Not a long time ago, the condition for passing the other certifications was earning the Admin certification. Luckily, Salesforce is becoming less strict and allows now earning some of the certifications independently. But I recommend starting from earning the Admin certification because it contains the basic dose of Salesforce knowledge and allows you to better understand the whole system.
What do you need to learn to pass the exam?
- Configuration & Setup (company settings, UI settings, user maintenance, security control, sharing settings, profiles & permission sets)
- Object Manager & Lightning App Builder (relationship model, fields & page layouts management, record types)
- Sales & Marketing Applications (sales process, opportunities, paths, dashboards, lead scoring, lead management, campaign management)
- Service and Support Applications (case management, queues, escalation rules)
- Productivity and Collaboration (activity management, chatter, mobile app, AppExchange)
- Data and Analytics Management (data backup, data validation tools, report, report Types, dashboards)
- Workflow/Process Automation (flow, approval process)
- Number of questions: 60 (and sometimes 5 non-scored questions)
Passing score: 65%
Difficulty level: Difficult
My impression: Personally, I’ve taken the certification exam twice. The second time was easier than the first one. The amount of information you need to acquire can be overwhelming, but it’s something manageable. The exam contains theoretical questions regarding the name of a specific function in the system or the activity that a given function executes. It also contains questions based on a specific case, such as What would you do if you were an administrator?, as well as single or multiple choice questions.
Example question: What’s the difference between a lead and opportunity in Salesforce?
After earning the Admin certification, you can take on the next challenge. There are two paths available here – you can either go deeper into the soft side of Salesforce or specialize in a specific product. I have a piece of advice for those who are starting their career and don’t have experience in working with the system – take the soft part, and then supplement it with other more technical certifications.
I’m convinced this certification is one of the best for those aspiring to be a business analyst. So, if you’re not an analyst yet, you can pass the certification exam, and the time spent on studying for it will give you the foundation of business analysis. If you’re already an analyst and you expect groundbreaking knowledge, you won’t get to know anything new from the field of analysis or Salesforce. The certification is focused on business analysis within the context of Salesforce, but it doesn’t go deep into the technical aspects of the system. It shows the role of an analyst as someone who supports the system from the first idea to implement it through UAT testing.
What do you need to learn to pass the exam?
- Customer Discovery (business goal, strategy, current state, BA role and activities in software lifecycle, Salesforce environment analysis, potential solution recommendation)
- Collaboration with Stakeholders (discovery activities, identifying stakeholders, stakeholders relationship, moving from current state to the future design, priorities and consensus)
- Business Process Mapping (types of process modeling, visualizing processes, documentation)
- Requirements (scope, requirements, user stories, identify validate prioritize requirements, documents version control)
- User Stories (how to create user stories & acceptance criteria)
- Development Support and User Acceptance (support project delivery and testing to meet stakeholders expectations)
Number of questions: 60 (and 5 non-scored questions)
Passing score: 72%
Difficulty level: Easy
My impression: It’s the certification tailored for analysts. For many years, Salesforce tried to cover up the need for such a profession saying that an analyst should be an administrator and vice versa. As the years have gone by, Salesforce has expanded its horizons and enabled taking this certification exam providing that you had the Admin certification. It was an initial prerequisite, but, currently, it’s not anymore. Quite rightly so, because the certification exam doesn’t contain questions about Salesforce. In my opinion, it’s similar to the ECBA (Entry Certificate in Business Analysis) certification, but a lot easier. Another convenience is that you only have to select one of three answers during the exam. It means that by eliminating the least relevant answer, you get a 50% chance of getting the right one. Salesforce recommends that analysts with two years of experience should take this certification exam. I think an analyst with minimal experience can pass this exam without any preparation.
Example question: What is journey mapping used for?
After earning the Admin and BA certifications, you can boldly start your professional adventure with Salesforce. But it’s not the end of possibilities. If you’re interested in the technical aspect of the Salesforce system and its declarative configuration, it’s worth earning the Salesforce App Builder certification. If the technical aspect is not important to you, you can move to the UX Designer certification (but if you already know App Builder, it can help you prepare for this certification).
This certificate is for those who want to design, build, and deploy the solutions using declarative skills, to put it simply, click through the right features in Salesforce. It can be useful when your team needs help with configuring or if, as an analyst, you need to prepare a mockup or test a simple solution. The certification also provides you with knowledge of building the platform (without the need to have developer knowledge) and helps to consolidate the admin information.
What do you need to learn to pass the exam?
- Salesforce Fundamentals (a recap of admin knowledge)
- Data Modeling and Management (choosing the right pelation, what happens when changing the field type, schema builder, data export and import)
- Business Process Logic and Automation (formula fields, roll-up summary fields, validation rules, approval process, flow)
- User Interface (UI customization options, custom buttons, links, actions, lightning components),
- App Deployment (sandbox types, change sets, managed and unmanaged package, deployment plan)
Number of questions: 60 (and 5 non-scored questions)
Passing score: 63%
Difficulty level: Easy (if you have the Admin certification)
My impression: It’s the same as the Admin certification, so you can treat it as a recap. If you want to earn certifications fast, you should take this certification exam as soon as you earn the Admin certification (of course, after you’ve prepared for it accordingly). It gives a perfect foundation if you want to earn the UX Designer certification. Salesforce recommends that you have at least 6 months to a year of experience in working with the platform.
Example question: What type of sandbox should you use for UAT testing?
Once you acquire admin and analytical knowledge and know how to build applications, the next step is to make sure that the application is user-friendly and valuable.
The next certification you should have is the Salesforce UX Designer certification. It can help you understand the UX basics and the capabilities and limitations of Salesforce in this area. It combines analytical knowledge with technical information.
What do you need to learn to pass the exam?
- Discovery (a recap of the BA certification)
- UX Fundamentals (UX methods, branding and styling, design for engaging, mobile UX fundamentals)
- Human-Centered Design (human-centered design and inclusive design)
- Declarative Design (a recap of the App Builder certification)
- Testing (validating and testing design with an end user, evaluate and manage design changes)
- Salesforce Lightning Design System (SLDS) (SLDS purpose, SLDS design and configuration, components functionality)
Number of questions: 60 (and 5 non-scored questions)
Passing score: 65%
Difficulty level: Moderate/Difficult
My impression: It was one of the most interesting certifications I earned because it contains information about UX basics. I was surprised (or not) that UX has a lot in common with business analysis – several interesting concepts (almost philosophical) and some useful techniques. Salesforce recommends that you should work with the platform between 3-6 months and have 6 months of experience in UX. The UX part on discovery and user-centered design overlaps with business analysis and the SFDC BA certification. Whereas the SLDS part is a completely unrelated thing, and you can find it quite difficult if you didn’t have previous experience in creating the system. Before taking this exam, I recommend that you earn the Admin, BA, and App Builder certifications, and then study for SLDS, as you have a greater chance of passing it. From the online reviews about this certification exam, I found out it all depends on the set of questions you get. Some people passed it on the third or second attempt, and some, like me, passed it on the first attempt, but only by one point, so failure was a step away.
Example question: How many times per second should the animation flash to be considered unusable?
In this article, I presented certifications that can give you technical and analytical knowledge as well as help you use this knowledge in a user-friendly way. In the next article, I will focus on certifications that enable you to customize Salesforce to the organization where this technology is to be implemented. Stay tuned!
Author
- System-Business Analyst
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System-Business Analyst. A graduate of Electrical Engineering as well as Electrical Power Engineering at the Lublin University of Technology, and postgraduate studies “Analityk Biznesowy – profesjonalista na styku IT i Biznesu” (“Business Analyst – a professional at the interface between IT and Business”) at the SGH Warsaw School of Economics.
He is certified with the ECBA, Salesforce: Admin, Business Analyst, UX Designer, Strategy Designer, Service Cloud Consultant, App Builder ; AgileBA Foundation, IREB CPRE Foundation, Facilitation Foundation, Change Management Foundation, ABC Scrum Master, AgilePM Foundation, and PRINCE2 Foundation.
