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How I prepared for and passed my Salesforce Administrator Certification

I have been wanting to add the precious Salesforce Administrator Certification to my bucket for quite some time. A few months back I registered for the Level Up Challenge by Salesforce (Trailhead) and after successful completion of the Admin SuperSet, I won a voucher for Salesforce Admin Certification! In this blog, I will share my focus areas and the resources (all free-of-cost)  that helped me clear it in the first attempt!

The first step is to check and understand the Exam Guide that outlines the topics and their weightage in the examination. Register yourself to Trailhead (if you haven't already). This is the best place to start the preparation! 

https://trailhead.salesforce.com/help?article=Salesforce-Certified-Administrator-Exam-Guide

The duration of the exam would be 105 minutes and would have 60 multiple choice/multi-select questions and 5 non scored questions. The passing score is 65%.

The questions in the exam are designed to test your understanding of the Admin concepts. I found the multi-select questions to be hard where the answer options were very similar to each other. Hence, a clear understanding of concepts is important. 

Tip: Pay special attention to the topics mentioned in brackets in the exam guide. Try to have a clear understanding of those.

For example, the organization setup section accounts for 3% and describes the following areas:

  • Describe the information found in the company settings (for example, fiscal year, business hours, currency management, default settings).
  • Distinguish between the various UI features that an administrator controls, including the implications (for example, UI settings, search settings, list views, homepage layouts).

You will find questions around the topics in the bracket!

A good point of start would be the trail (link below) for admin certification. The hands-on and projects are very good to practice what you learnt in the modules.

https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/trails/administrator-certification-prep

In addition to this, I am sharing a few more resources I used.

Security and Access account for 13% and the who sees what series on youtube provides a very good explanation of the concepts. I referred to it to gain an initial understanding of the overall security model, then followed and completed the modules on the trailhead and referred the series again for my revision.

Who sees what series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOIPH0aLY0E&list=PLnobS_RgN7JbdH3SW3rvWu-8lE7WBeHxO&index=1

Security Specialist Superbadge:

https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/superbadges/superbadge_security

Reports and Dashboards account for 10%. You should have a good understanding of when to choose which report format. Sharing some links I found useful.

Choosing Report formats:

https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=sf.reports_changing_format.htm&type=5

Dashboard Component types:

https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=sf.dashboards_component_types.htm&type=5

Chart Types:

https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=sf.chart_types.htm&type=5

I found the questions on process automation and data import/export tricky. Make sure you have a clear understanding of when to use which automation tool and use cases for the import/export tools

For mock tests, I used FocusOnForce and SalesforceBen, the free ones. They are good to test your knowledge on the different concepts and you can revise the topics on which you get less score. I hear the paid ones are good too but I haven't used them. 

https://www.salesforceben.com/certified-admin-mock-exam/

https://focusonforce.com/salesforce-adm-201-exam-questions/

As a closing note, I would say if you are conceptually clear on the topics, you would clear the exam with flying colors. Practising the trailhead projects without looking at steps would help you in a big way.

Wishing you all the best for your certification!

 

 

 

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