Monday, November 22, 2010

What you should study to pass your 401 certification

Give to me straight, what SHOULD I study?


So now that I've scared the hell out you, I'm going to let you know what you should study.

Remember, you can memorize all you want. You can go through every element on the videos and in the Force.fundamentals and still not cover everything. Here's a few things you can't find anywhere but in the obscure corners of the SFDC platform and are on the test. Here's a few tips from me to you - make sure you know these for the test.

Just as an FYI, all of these answers will be found on the SFDC platform, in your development ORG (which is free to set up) in the help menu on the home page.

  • Know how wireless devices access the SFDC platform.
  • Know what the Process Visualizer is and what it does.
  • Know what Globalization is and how International Currencies work.
  • Know about encrypted fields
  • Know about custom domains. Can you register your own domain on the SFDC platform?
  • Know what the Declarative interface is.
  • Know what an insertable system audit fields are
  • Know what an outlier is (hint: it's part of the reports/dashboard)

These are the topics you'd have to take the test and figure out there isn't any information on any of these topics in any of the materials SFDC gives you to study. Oh sure, they're in the help section and yes, they're buried in there, but hopefully knowing these will get you over the top and pass.


Of course here's some standard stuff you should know as well


  • Know all about your security settings. Know the difference between Org Wide Defaults, Object level and field level security as well as how you grant access to records.
  • Know all about object relationships. Know each of the object relationships like: many to many, master/detail and self.
  • Know all about workflow rules and workflow process.
  • Know everything about the different types of reports and dashboards. The SFDC help information on this is pretty weak, but take what they give you.
  • Know about the different types of Data Loader and their limitations.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but remember the test is made up primarily of examples where they're giving a scenario and you have to pick the best two or three answers. There are very, very few questions such as: Name the three things you can do with a workflow rule? As you'll see in the next post from actual questions from the test.


On to the questions!!!

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