Platform App Developer

I passed by first Certification of the year today. A great start to my “Year of Certification”. I had expected to walk this exam. Read on to see if I did or not!

This is the first “real” Salesforce Certification I’ve sat (although I do have a Slack one). The Associate exams are way easier! This exam sits some where between Administrator and Developer. It’s not got any Apex in it but it’s got a lot of the point and click automation, data modelling and ALM/app deployment coverage. As such it probably makes sense as a first Certification for developers and architects.

I definitely underestimated this exam. I assumed that as a code-based developer I’d be able to pass this easily. In the end I’d say I did pass pretty easily. However as I was going through the exam I was less certain. A lot of questions created some doubt and I wasn’t sure I was getting them correct. Developers certainly need to not underestimate the capabilities and complexities of the no-code/low-code side of the platform. And should not discount these tools when developing there solution.

The passing mark for this exam is a relatively generous 63%. There are 60 marked questions (and 5 unmarked questions that help Salesforce keep the exam fresh or something). This equates to 38 correct answers being the passing level. You get ages for this exam: 105 minutes and it costs $200 to sit. Given the weightings of the sections I scored about 80% overall. So a good pass despite how it felt during the exam.

The section I did badly on I would have expected to do well on! Data Modeling is the same for declarative and Apex developers. So why did I do so badly here? I’m not 100% sure. I think some of it was data load/export which is more of an Admin task. The rest was probably how the different lookup types interact with rollups (which I generally don’t use).

In short - study up on all the areas. Don’t assume you know the areas you think you do. Studying for the exam is a learning experience! My review of the Salesforce Platform App Builder Certification Guide will follow.