How to pass the Salesforce Certified Platform App Builder Transition exam with 100% success :)

Updated: March 03 2016

Those of you who hold the Salesforce Certified Developer certification actually hold a piece of history because this certification was made to ride heroically into the sunset on Sept 14 2015.

Once in a lifetime! and don't forget about climate change!
Once in a lifetime! and don’t forget about climate change!

Salesforce.com has introduced 3 new exams among others in the recent past. These exams are:
1. Salesforce Certified Platform App Builder
2. Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I (I also hold this certification and more about it in another blog post)
3. Salesforce Certified Platform Developer II

In my opinion, Salesforce has tried to break out the declarative capabilities of the platform and utilize the App Builder cert to test our knowledge about it.
SFDC-new certs

If you hold the erstwhile developer certification, then you are eligible to write a short transition exam to get the new App Builder cert. Now isn’t that awesome!!!!

The rest of this blog focuses on the transition exam and in case you are not eligible then its gonna be a little more harder as you need to take the complete exam.

So here’s some info about the exam.
Notes:

  • The developer exam was discontinued starting on September 14, 2015.
  • The developer exam will still be recognized by SFDC
  • The goal is to move to the Salesforce Developer I certification by FY18.
  • Platform Developer I will become the replacement certification for Certified Force.com Developer in the Salesforce Consulting Partner Program and in the individual partner certification growth targets.
  • Please refer to the transition plan.
    http://www.salesforce.com/campaigns/success-services/certified-force-developers.jsp

Pre-Requisites and additional info:

  1. You should have passed the Developer certification. 🙂
  2. You are not expected to have programming experience (APEX, Visualforce, Lightning components using APEX or JS). But great if you do.
  3. You are not expected to administer Sales Cloud or Service Cloud.
  4. But you ARE expected to have the following experience:
    • Familiarity with the declarative capabilities of the Force.com platform.
    • Awareness of Salesforce license types and the related considerations.
    • You know to design applications to support business processes and reporting requirements.
    • Familiarity with the social and mobile capabilities of the platform. Think Salesforce1.
    • Familiarity with the Salesforce development environments and the options available to deploy applications and manage changes on the Force.com platform.

Exam Overview:

  • Format: multiple-choice/multiple-select transition exam.
  • Number of questions: 20 (Don’t let this fool you)
  • Time allotted to complete the exam: 30 minutes
  • Passing Score: 65% (13 right answers and I hope my math is correct here d-oh!)
  • Attempts to pass: 3 (Seriously? Pass it in the first attempt)
  • Registration fee: 100 USD; Retake fee: 50 USD

Important topics with links (How convenient!):
Record Types Overview

https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=customize_recordtype.htm

https://help.salesforce.com/help/pdfs/en/salesforce_recordtypes_cheatsheet.pdf

Roll-up Summary Fields
https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=fields_about_roll_up_summary_fields.htm

Workflow Field Update Considerations
https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=workflow_field_update_considerations.htm&language=en_US

Social Accounts, Contact and Leads Overview
https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewHelpDoc?id=social_networks_overview.htm&language=en_US

External Objects
https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=external_object_define.htm

https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewHelpDoc?id=external_object_relationships.htm&language=en_US

https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewHelpDoc?id=ext_data_sync_database.htm&language=en_US

Lightning Components
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WsU0_ghZ_Q

http://developerforce.github.io/lightning-app-builder-tutorial/

http://developerforce.github.io/lightning-components-tutorial/

Object-Specific Actions
https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=actions_overview_object_specific.htm&language=en_US

Understanding Sandbox Environment Types
https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=data_sandbox_environments.htm&language=en_US

Packages
https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewHelpDoc?id=sharing_apps.htm&language=en

https://developer.salesforce.com/page/An_Introduction_to_Packaging

Workflows and Order of Execution
https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewSolution?id=000005694&language=en_US

https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=workflow_field_updates_reevalute_wf.htm&language=en_US

https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=workflow_field_update_considerations.htm&language=en_US

Salesforce Automation Options
https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=process_which_tool.htm&language=en_US

Person Accounts
https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=account_person.htm
https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=account_person_behavior.htm&language=en_US

Custom Objects and relationships
https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=search_fields_custom_object.htm&language=en_US

https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api.meta/api/relationships_among_objects.htm

https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=relationships_considerations.htm

Please refer to the study guide

Final thoughts:
Do not underestimate this exam. Even though there are just 20 questions, most questions are tricky and you have a lot of study material so everything in the study guide is fair game.

Focus on the new Salesforce features – Lightning connect, process builder, lightning pages/components and external objects. You know the rest of the stuff.

I took about 15 minutes to complete the exam and took another 5 minutes to revise my answers. I always add kind words in the feedback form that appears when you submit your exam. Not sure if this plays a role in seeing “Pass” every time 🙂

But overall, you should know most of the information already, just make sure you have gone through the study guide and you will be fine.

Use the Salesforce online help and trailhead for the topics listed and you should be good.

Finally good luck to all of you and please let me know if you have any questions or comments.
It will also be good hear from you if this helped you with your exam 🙂

Please do follow me on Twitter if you are on there.

YES YES YES!!!! You can do it..You can be a Platform App Builder!