As a developer in any of the fields of Information Technology, certification provides an upper edge and can help you get a job and grow in your career. Just like other technologies, Salesforce too introduced the Salesforce Developer Certification I in 2015. This certification aims to recognize candidates that have knowledge of the non-declarative side of this platform i.e. Visualforce and Apex. There is another Dev40I Force.com certification for developers but this is a much better certification at the beginner level.
Salesforce Platform Developer I exam consists of 60 questions that cover topics and are in the form of multiple-choice and true/false questions. The duration of this test is I05 minutes at the max and in order to pass, you must score at least 68%. Prior to attempting this exam, you must have at least six months of experience in Apex or some experience in Java or another object-oriented language. This is a general rule and if you have practical knowledge, you have an added advantage in this examination.
With certification, you can get access to better job opportunities and it is a learning experience too. Even employers gain confidence in employees that have Salesforce Developer Certification.
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Resources Available for Salesforce Developer Certification
There is a Platform Developer I study guide that can help you start preparing for the certification exam. You should follow the trailheads and workbook for developers too. Some of the common resources and guides for this certification include:
Platform Developer I Guide, Apex Workbook, Force.com Workbook, Visualforce Workbook, Developer Trailhead- Beginner course.
What should be your strategy for preparing for the Certification
This certification is a paid exam and if you do not want to waste your money, you must strategically plan and prepare for the certification. Instead of just plowing through multiple study materials, you must plan strategically. Here are some tips:
- Divide and conquer: You must review the study material and guide and then identify the topics that you have the least experience in. you can just run through the familiar and experienced topics to save time.
- Book your exam: Book your exam date and time, well in advance. This way you will have a deadline to meet and you can plan your studying schedule accordingly.
- Topic-wise study: You should label each of the topics based on your strength in that topic and start with the one with the least.
- Material: Once you have decided on the topic, then find resources for a study on Trailhead and developer workbook.
You can create flashcards for each topic to memorize and understand the basics and order of execution of the topics.
Material to refer to various subjects of the Salesforce Developer Certification
This section contains questions based on simple to complex code snippets. The task is that the developer must be able to read and understand the code, identify the state of a variable or correct utility class, etc.
Strategy and course to prepare for Apex
You must first study the apex sharing model. Other topics include:
- Triggers: This includes topics such as before and after triggers, DML operations, context variables, etc. you must know what cannot be implemented in a trigger and when you should opt for a trigger or a workflow.
- Data types: Knowledge of advanced and primitive data types.
- Access modifiers.
- Code evaluation: you should be able to read and evaluate the code.
- The scope of variables.
- Limits class
- Schema methods
- Collections used in Apex such as Set, List, and Map.
- Knowledge of inner classes and their limitations.
- Exception handling.
- For and Soql-for loops and iterators.
- Knowing the relationship of query limits of SOQL.
- Knowledge of creating test data and how to load bulk data. You should also understand the components of the test class and the best ways to use and create classes.
- Difference between SOQL and SOSL and their return types.
Strategy and course to prepare for Basic Visualforce
- Knowledge of controller types, both standard, and custom and their usage.
- Security implications of controllers.
- How to merge fields.
- Value of lightning in Salesforce and why it is actively being promoted.
- Understanding the components of lightning and its resources.
Course for Developer Console
This includes understanding the structure and information contained in each tab and the use of the information.
Course for changesets
You should understand the concept of changesets and also in which organizations it can be used. It includes topics such as Application Lifecycle Management and Change management.
Governor limits questions
In these types of questions, firstly it will have a code snippet that contains a DML operation. You should read and understand the code and count the number of DML operations present in it. Then reconcile it with DML limits and you can move to the next question. DML based questions are the most difficult ones to answer in this certification.
Course for Process Automation
This covers topics related to declarative features and their association with the data model. It will also cover topics such as the difference between Lookup relationships and Master-detail, external objects and their initialization and relationships, rollup and formula fields. There will be several multi-faceted questions combining different concepts in this topic. This accounts for a significant part of the exam and is a complex topic.
Other topics include in the Salesforce Developers Certification exam are:
- MVC Architecture
- Multi-tenant Environment
- App Exchange
- Data Model and Management.
- Understanding the relationship between Standard Objects.
It is a complex certification exam with lots of topics covered. But there is a lot to learn and you can focus on topics that cover up more questions and refer to dumps and mock tests.
Although there is a lot of topics to study, you can succeed with some practical knowledge and dedication. Start and focus on the topics and areas at which you are the weakest and prepare a proper strategy.
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