This week I passed my Salesforce Field Service Lightning Consultant certification. It is one of the rarer certifications, so I wanted to share some of the things that helped me to prepare for and pass the exam.
Salesforce Knowledge
Firstly, why? Everyone has different motivation to do something, and if it involves hours of study then you want to have a good reason! I always want to increase my Salesforce knowledge, and training on a relatively new Cloud, and aiming for an extra cert is generally motivation enough for me. But with Field Service Lightning it took me back to my first graduate job. Ok it was a long time ago so we don’t need to know the year, but my first ‘real’ job was working with Cable & Wireless (which became NTL, then as it is today, Virgin Media). Part of the role involved dispatching technicians and installers around the country. After a while I was promoted to a team that was configuring a new dispatch system, which I then became the System Admin of. It wasn’t quite Field Service Lightning, but it led me into a Business Analyst role, and CRM, and eventually Salesforce. So this cloud and this cert feels like it completes a loop!
The Salesforce Field Service Lightning Consultant exam has 2 prerequisites, the Salesforce Certified Administrator credential and the Salesforce Certified Service Cloud Consultant credential. To be honest, you would not want to skip the Service part of this anyway, in fact you will probably need to revisit some of that knowledge.
Resources
Here is the exam guide to get you rolling. I started with Trailhead, I would recommend this Trail with 3 badges or this Trailmix. You can pay for this course (approx $2700) from the Trailhead Academy team.
I was fortunate that as a Salesforce Partner I had access to some Fastpath training. If you work for a partner it is worth joining. There was set up work (covered in the Trailmix above) and then 5 daily 2-hour sessions, plus homework for afterwards.
I failed the exam on the first attempt. I have a list of excuses if anyone wants to hear them. But I took note of the areas I did badly in, and followed up with a pass and a much higher score.
Advice
My advice would be:
- Don’t leave it a month in between studying and actually taking the exam! (Christmas holidays got in the way)
- If possible join the Fast Path Group (Partner training) or a study group
- Go back to Service Cloud and make sure you learn Entitlements & Milestones
- Be comfortable with the Object schema. Know what Work Orders, and Work Order Line Items do, and how they relate to Appointments, Territories, & Resources.
- Learn what makes a Scheduling Policy (Rules, plus Service Objectives, equals Scheduling Policies)
- Something new I learnt this week is on Webassessor if you are not a native English speaker you can request an extra 30 minutes by sending an email to: certification@salesforce.com
- Don’t be afraid of failing and retaking!
Good luck! And if you need any help with a Salesforce Field Service Lightning implementation, or any Salesforce project, please contact us.
About Cloud Galacticos
Cloud Galacticos is a Salesforce Silver Consulting Partner with an all-star team. We are user and developer group leaders, bloggers, MVPs and all round Salesforce nerds. We have people all over the UK including Manchester, Leeds, York, Sheffield and London. If you are looking for a Salesforce partner with experience who can help you make the most of your org, why not give us a call?
