Everyday is a school day at Cloud Galacticos. We like to encourage our team to keep on learning and developing their Salesforce skills, especially as we operate in a fast moving and dynamic environment. One of our most recent team members to gain a new certification is Val, who passed her Sharing and Visibility Designer Cert. We caught up with her to find out more…
WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO TAKE THE EXAM?
As a fan of Trailhead, I’m a big believer in constantly challenging myself to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of Salesforce. I have enjoyed completing some Superbadges to cement knowledge gained from working with Salesforce.
A few months back, I decided to embark on a journey to become a Certified Application Architect. Subsequently passed the Certified Salesforce Platform Developer I as my first step on that road.
HOW DID YOU APPROACH THE PREP FOR THE EXAM?
I conducted some research into other people who had taken and passed the exam. The consensus seemed to be that the first approach is to review the exam guide. Then to conduct a self-diagnosis of the areas I knew well, and those I know fairly well (and may need to refresh). Finally, those which I was aware of but had never touched before.
From there I focussed on the items in my list which needed the most attention. Then I embarked on a combined mission of completing Trailhead badges (and one Superbadge) which covered the subjects and/or reading up from help.salesforce.com. I also created online flashcards for the areas I would need to revise later, which helped a lot.
WAS IT A TOUGH EXAM AND ANY TIPS FOR PEOPLE THINKING OF DOING THIS EXAM?
It was harder than I expected. I was glad I’d gone into some detailed study on Apex sharing and sharing within communities. Additionally, there were more questions than expected about scalability issues. So I can’t stress enough the importance of knowing all areas inside out!
And as a member of the Ladies Be Architects group, I found some great posts and links there, which helped me to focus on study areas.
WHAT DOES PASSING THE CERT MEAN TO YOU IN TERMS OF YOUR DAILY WORK?
As a Senior Consultant at Cloud Galacticos, my role includes designing and implementing solutions on the Salesforce platform. So it is important to make sure the knowledge that goes into providing our customers with advice and solutions is correct and up to date. It includes studying areas of functionality that I haven’t personally touched on, but which could come up as important in my next project.
DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER CERTS YOU PLAN TO TAKE IN THE FUTURE?
The last step towards Certified Application Architect for me is to take the Data Architecture and Management exam. So that is going to be my next focus. Wish me luck!
ABOUT CLOUD GALACTICOS
Cloud Galacticos is a Salesforce 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?
