Salesforce Certified Administrator - Fact Sheet¶

Quick Reference¶

Exam: Salesforce Certified Administrator Cost: $200 USD ($100 retake) Format: 60 multi-choice + multi-select Duration: 105 minutes Passing: 65% Maintenance: 3 free annual release exams (Spring, Summer, Winter)

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Salesforce platform basics¶

Editions (top-level)¶

• Essentials - SMB, simplified
• Professional - mid-market
• Enterprise - most popular for cert prep
• Unlimited - largest enterprises with all features
• Developer - free, for development; not licensed for production users

Cloud products (separately licensed)¶

• Sales Cloud - lead/opportunity/account/contact management
• Service Cloud - case management, knowledge, omni-channel
• Marketing Cloud - email/journey marketing (separate platform)
• Commerce Cloud - e-commerce (B2B and B2C)
• Experience Cloud - external community sites (formerly Community Cloud)
• Data Cloud - customer data platform
• Field Service Lightning - mobile field service
• CRM Analytics (formerly Tableau CRM / Einstein Analytics)
• MuleSoft - integration platform

Lightning vs Classic¶

• Lightning Experience - modern UI, default since 2018; what's tested
• Salesforce Classic - older UI, still supported but not on the exam

Org setup and security¶

User types¶

• Standard User - normal Salesforce license
• Customer Community / Partner Community - Experience Cloud users
• Chatter Free / External Apps - lighter-license users

User access controls (layered)¶

Org-Wide Defaults (OWD)        ← most restrictive baseline
   ↓ unlock via
Role Hierarchy                 ← grant access to records owned by subordinates
   ↓ unlock via
Sharing Rules                  ← grant access based on criteria/owner
   ↓ unlock via
Manual Sharing / Apex Sharing  ← per-record grants

Plus:

• Profiles - what users can do (CRUD on objects, field-level security, app/tab access)
• Permission Sets - grant additional permissions on top of profile (preferred over creating many profiles)
• Permission Set Groups - bundle permission sets

MFA¶

Required for all internal users since Feb 2022 (Salesforce-mandated, no opt-out).

IP restrictions and login hours¶

Set per profile to restrict login times and source IPs.

Single Sign-On¶

• SAML 2.0
• OAuth 2.0
• OpenID Connect
• Connected Apps for OAuth

Objects and fields¶

Standard objects¶

Salesforce out-of-the-box:

• Account - companies / B2B customers
• Contact - individual people
• Lead - unqualified prospect (gets converted to Account + Contact + Opportunity on conversion)
• Opportunity - sales deal in progress
• Case - customer support ticket
• Campaign - marketing campaign
• Product / Pricebook - what you sell
• User - Salesforce users
• Activity / Task / Event - work items, calendar

Custom objects¶

Add your own (__c suffix):

• Up to 800 custom objects in Enterprise edition
• Have records, fields, page layouts, validation rules, automation, etc.

Field types¶

Field-Level Security (FLS)¶

Per-profile / per-permission-set control of which fields a user can read/edit. Combined with object permissions and record access.

Lookup vs Master-Detail¶

• Lookup = parent can be deleted; child becomes orphan or null
• Master-Detail = parent deletion cascades to children; child inherits owner + sharing from parent; supports roll-up summary
• A custom object can have up to 2 master-detail relationships
• Once converted from Lookup to MD, can't have orphans

Record Types¶

Different "flavors" of the same object - different page layouts, picklist values per type. Common pattern: Sales Process A vs B both on Opportunity object.

Data management¶

Importing data¶

Data Loader is the most-tested tool.

Deduplication¶

• Duplicate Rules + Matching Rules - prevent or alert on duplicate creation
• Built-in matching rules for Account / Contact / Lead

Mass operations¶

• Mass Transfer (records between owners)
• Mass Update (limited)
• Inline edit on list views

Backup¶

• Weekly Export (data) - free, weekly schedule, ZIP of CSVs
• Salesforce Backup & Restore - paid product for production-grade backup
• Apex Data Loader CLI - DIY scripted exports

Sandboxes¶

Use Full for UAT / pre-prod testing; Partial for testing with sample data; Developer for unit/integration.

Change sets and packages¶

• Change Sets - move metadata between connected orgs (sandbox to prod)
• Unmanaged Packages - distributable customizations
• Managed Packages - AppExchange products with versioning

Automation tools¶

Flow Builder (the modern one)¶

Salesforce's primary automation tool. Replaces Workflow Rules, Process Builder, and Approval Processes (somewhat).

Flow types¶

• Screen Flow - user-facing UI flow (lightning component, custom button)
• Record-Triggered Flow - runs before/after a record save (replaces Workflow Rules + Process Builder)
• Scheduled Flow - runs on a schedule
• Auto-Launched Flow - called from Apex, Process, button
• Platform Event Flow - triggered by platform events

Common elements¶

• Get Records, Create Records, Update Records, Delete Records
• Decision (branching), Loop, Assignment, Subflow
• Action (call Apex, send email, post to Chatter, etc.)
• Screen elements (only in Screen Flows)

Validation Rules¶

Formula-based rules that block save if condition is true. Display custom error message.

Approval Processes¶

Multi-step approvals with submit, approve/reject, escalation, rejection actions.

Slowly being absorbed into Flow Builder (newer Approval features in Flow).

Lightning App Builder¶

Drag-drop record page customization. Lightning Components on a page. Per-record-type, per-app, per-profile assignment of pages.

Reports and Dashboards¶

Report types¶

• Tabular - simple list (no totals)
• Summary - grouped by one or more fields with subtotals
• Matrix - rows + columns (cross-tab)
• Joined - multiple report blocks on the same canvas

Report formats¶

• Standard report types - based on standard objects + relationships
• Custom report types - admin-defined to enable reporting on custom relationships

Dashboards¶

• Up to 12 components per dashboard (varies by edition)
• Component types: chart, gauge, metric, table
• Dynamic dashboards - run as logged-in user (limit varies by edition; max 3-10)
• Dashboards refresh on demand or scheduled

Folder permissions¶

• Public folders - shared with group/role
• Private folders - owner only
• Folder permissions: View / Edit / Manage

Sales Cloud highlights¶

• Lead management (capture → score → assign → convert)
• Web-to-Lead form integration
• Lead Conversion - Lead becomes Account + Contact + Opportunity
• Opportunity Stages + Sales Process - kanban-style pipeline
• Forecasting - territory or hierarchy-based
• Products and Pricebooks - what you sell with multiple price lists
• Quotes - generate quote PDF from Opportunity
• Path - guided steps shown on record page (e.g., Lead Path)

Service Cloud highlights¶

• Case management - email-to-case, web-to-case, console-based work
• Case assignment rules - auto-assign by criteria
• Escalation rules - auto-escalate based on age/priority
• Auto-Response rules - auto-reply to new cases
• Knowledge - articles, categories, search
• Omni-Channel - route work (cases, chats, calls) to agents based on availability
• Service Console - agent UI with split view, related records, macros

Common exam triggers¶

• "Records are publicly visible to all internal users by default" → OWD = Public Read/Write or Public Read-Only
• "Manager should see records owned by direct reports" → Role Hierarchy + "Grant Access Using Hierarchies"
• "Sales rep can see records meeting criteria" → Criteria-Based Sharing Rule
• "Field hidden on a profile" → Field-Level Security
• "Block save unless field is filled correctly" → Validation Rule
• "Need to roll up child record sums to parent" → Roll-Up Summary on Master-Detail
• "Two flavors of an Account, different page layouts" → Record Types
• "Mass insert 500,000 records" → Data Loader (Wizard caps at 50K)
• "Multi-step approval with manager + finance approval" → Approval Process
• "Run logic when record is saved" → Record-Triggered Flow
• "Display sequenced steps on Opportunity record page" → Path
• "Auto-route case by language and priority" → Omni-Channel Routing
• "Quarterly historical sales report" → Custom Report Type + Summary Report

Highest-yield facts¶

1. Sharing model layers: OWD → Role Hierarchy → Sharing Rules → Manual/Apex Sharing
2. Profile = baseline access, Permission Set = additional permissions (prefer permission sets to manage many profiles)
3. MFA mandatory since Feb 2022
4. Data Loader for >50K records, Import Wizard for less
5. Lookup vs Master-Detail: MD has cascade delete + roll-up summary; orphan vs no orphan
6. Flow Builder is the modern automation tool (Workflow Rules and Process Builder are deprecated for new dev)
7. Sandbox types: Developer (1d / 200MB) / Developer Pro / Partial Copy / Full
8. Reports: Tabular / Summary / Matrix / Joined
9. Dashboards limit: 12 components per dashboard (Enterprise+)
10. 3 free release exams per year (Spring, Summer, Winter) for cert maintenance
11. Custom field naming: Field_Name__c (custom suffix __c)
12. Lookup, Master-Detail, Hierarchical are the three relationship field types