CRM, Salesforce

Why certifications are important

What are salesforce certifications

Salesforce certifications are the way, like with many IT and cloud platforms, to show your knowledge of certain parts of Salesforce. A certification belongs to an individual. Mostly a consultant. As Salesforce platforms is extensive there are several routes and levels where all certifications fit in. Below a list with the certifications per Salesforce offers:

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Administrator and Developer

  • Administrator
  • Advanced
  • Platform App Builder
  • Platform Developer I
  • Platform Developer II
  • Commerce Cloud Developer

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Architect

  • Data Architecture and Management Designer
  • Sharing and Visibility Designer
  • Application Architect
  • Development Lifecycle Deployment Designer
  • Identity and Access Management Designer
  • Integration Architecture Designer
  • Mobile Solutions Architecture Designer

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Consultant / Specialist

  • Sales
  • Service
  • Community
  • Pardot
  • Marketing
  • CPQ
  • Field Service

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Once certain certifications have been successfully completed an Application Architect or System Architect will automatically be rewarded. The route to the Technical Architect is an intensive and long route and is worth a blog on its own, so I won’t go those details here.

As Salesforce’s platforms keeps growing its certifications does as well. To read more about each certification visit: http://certification.salesforce.com/credentialoverview

Importance to the customer

A customer wants to make sure that the consultant(s) they hire are certified and up to date with the knowledge the customer needs. Customers can verify a consultant’s certifications here.

Importance to the consultant

A consultant wants to show internally and externally they have a certain level of knowledge the help customers in those areas. Certifications and customer references are the best way to show this.

Importance to the Salesforce partner

Salesforce is depended on its partner for a successful implementation project. That’s an important reason why Salesforce partners are required to have their consultants certified in the areas they serve their customers.

How to get certified

The main source for learning and studying is Salesforce’s learning program called Trailhead. This free gamified platform will give you access to information, questions, challenges and a test environment offered in structured way so it always fits your needs. It currently consists of 261 modules, 52 projects, 9 superbadges. This is a fun and interesting way of learning all capabilities of the platform. Our team has already earned close to 400 badges.

Once you feel ready to do an exam you will need to sign up and register via Webassessor. An exam registration costs 200 USD or 400 USD depending on the exam. Each re-try will cost half of its original price. Each country has several test locations, although it is also possible to do it from home or your office. All exams consist of 60 multiple choice questions which you will need to answer in 90 or 120 minutes depending on the exam.

As Salesforce has 3 free releases every year you are required to pass a maintenance exam for each release to keep up with new features and functionalities. These exams consist of 5 multiple choice questions and can be done from your home or office. These cost 100 USD per calendar year. Maintenance exams are grouped by type. There is one for the consultants certificates, one for the administrator certificates, etc. There is a max of 300 USD in case you have more than 3 maintenance exams. Your certification will expire when you are 3 releases behind.

Once a year Salesforce hosts their massive event in San Francisco called Dreamforce where it is also possible to get certified. My colleagues Michael Liljenström, Jens Ekendahl and myself went to Dreamforce to get inspired, updated and certified. We each registered for 2 exams and passed all. Michael and I passed ‘Data Architecture and Management Designer’ and ‘Sharing and Visibility Designer’. Michael earned on top of that ‘Application Architect’. Jens passed Sales Cloud and Service Cloud. Well done to all!

These are not the only certifications we hold in our Salesforce team at Stretch. We have currently a total of 38 certifications spread over our consultants in Stockholm and Oslo.

Looking for more information, contact us at salesforce@stretch.se to hear more about our services or open positions.

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