Salesforce Certified Integration Architect

A few days before the start of my Christmas break I sat the Salesforce Certified Integration Architect exam. This was the last exam for the year and the last I required to obtain the System Architect Certification. As my title was previous Technical Architect - Integrations I hoped I’d not find this one too hard.

I completed the Trailmix and purchased both the course and practice exams from Focus on Force. I was getting very high marks on the FoF practice exams so felt that this, coupled with my previous experience, and the overlap from the previous Architect exams meant this should be a fairly easy exam.

However almost as soon as I started I realised it wasn’t going to be the gentle ease into my break I was expecting. The questions were long and involved, some with diagrams. They were quite different to the FoF example questions and to the previous Architect exams. This seemed to be much more applied knowledge and problem solving than straight knowledge. Some of the questions appeared to have two correct answers (although only only one could be selected). I soldiered on and obtained this result.

Definitely closer than I’d like. You need to answer 40 questions correctly. So I had 4 spare but to only get half of the questions correct in a section is really not great. But a pass is a pass!

This of course also means I obtained the Certified System Architect taking me to 15 Certifications in total, 12 this year. A fitting end to my year of certification

Salesforce Certified Identity and Access Management Architect

Towards the end of last week I sat the Salesforce Certified Identity and Access Management Architect exam. I’d really not been looking forward to this. Identity and Access Management are obviously Integrations related (which was my previous focus area) but I’ve generally not had to get too deep into the nitty gritty details. Anyway let’s see how I got on with this.

This is a well established certification within the Architecture Pyramid. It makes up 1/4 of the System Architect Certification so was in my path. This exam involves a lot of stuff that product development people at ISVs probably don’t need to think about too much. Salesforce license types, MS AD integration, different OAuth flows and more.

The Trailmix for this exam involves a lot of links to videos from old Dreamforces (hello current and former FinancialForce/Certinia colleagues!) and links to Salesforce help, blogs and guides. Be prepared to do so actual study rather than bashing out Trailhead modules. So what was the outcome?

I passed. The passmark for this exam is 67%. So a reasonably comfortable pass. I could have got 5 more questions wrong and still passed. I’m not sure why I did as badly as I did on the Salesforce as an Identity Provider section. I suspect it was questions on specific Salesforce licence types and what they give access to that were the question.

I made use of Focus on Force preparing for this exam and I would say it made a massive difference. The practice exams definitely helped and I’d say without FoF I would have failed. Right as I write this FoF has a 50% sale on and I’ve purchased courses for the next couple of planned exams. It’s that good.

With this one down I’m on 13 certifications. 10 this calendar year. And 1 more to go to get Systems Architect to go with the Application Architect I got earlier this year. You can probably guess what’s planned next!

Salesforce Certified AI Specialist

Months ago now (I totally forgot I had not posted this) I sat, and passed the relatively new AI Specialist Certification. Unusually I sat this in person (at Dreamforce). This exam was free at Dreamforce and is now, until the end of 2025, free for anyone to sit.

As a very new certification (when I sat this it had been available for about a month) there were no study guides, practice exams and the like available. I think that may have changed by now. However I did not think this was a particularly hard exam to pass. At least for me I’d done a lot of work in Prompt Builder and Agent Builder in the run up to Dreamforce so was in a good place to sit this exam. If you’ve not been working in this area the you’ll find the Trailhead is pretty good.

So I’ve already said I passed, but how did I do?

So that was a pretty solid pass. The pass rate is a reasonably high 73% on this exam. But I exceeded that comfortably (by about 11 correct answers). So that’s great. As you can see I had one section I was not too hot on - what the various Salesforce provided AI tools and features are. I’m not super interested in them so this is no surprise!

This was a quick exam for me: 19 minutes. So about 20 seconds a question.

This was, for me, a nice easy one to break up the Architect Certifications. Which I’ll be back to real soon…

Salesforce Certified MuleSoft Associate

After the focussed set of certifications to achieve the Application Architect certification I wanted to do something different, and perhaps a bit easier, before tackling the three further certifications required for the System Architect cert. Salesforce have been quietly expanding the Associate offerings. I already had two but there were two more available. I decided on the MuleSoft one as that is something I really thought I should know more about. Let’s see how I got on.

I found both the Salesforce Associate and AI Associate certifications pretty easy. I’ve been using the platform pretty much every day for 3 years so the first was basically just stuff I knew. I’d done all the AI trailheads and have a degree that was 50% AI from 20+ years ago. So the AI one was fine. But I’ve barely even seen MuleSoft!

The Certificate is about 50% the philosophy of MuleSoft and the approach they want to take to enterprise development. I found this pretty interesting. But I did actually need to study and think about what the material was saying about organisational alignment and structure. A lot of what it said really hit home with me. I’ve seen the disfunction of a very large enterprise building huge monolithic apps first hand!

The other 50% is mostly a very high level overview of the MuleSoft platform and how it delivers on the approach and philosophy. There is no hands-on element. Just learning the main building blocks and what they are used for. A general knowledge of API terms and patterns is helpful here. Especially REST APIs and how they work.

The pass mark for this exam is 70%. As you can see I was comfortably above this with a couple of weeks studying. I’m sure my integration experience helped here but you can definitely go from next to no Mule knowledge to passing this (and gaining that Mule basic knowledge) pretty easily. Allowing for the section weightings in the exam I scored about 87%.

I’d recommend this certification for anyone with a bit of curiosity about the Mule platform. Or anyone just wanting to increase the number of certifications they hold!

Certified Platform Developer 1

I actually passed this certification a few weeks back and forgot to post! This was my fifth Certification of the year, 8th overall and one that I was pretty confident I could pass before I even started studying for it.

I had both a book and Focus on Force to ensure I passed this one. I used both mostly because I rarely use Visual Force or Aura, both already being old hat by the time I started on the platform. However both are covered in the exam and I wanted coverage of these. I still pretty much hate both after studying for this. LWC is so much better!

Once again I was doing really well with the FoF practice exams. But how did that translate to the real exam this time?

Never in doubt! The sub-80% sections are a bit disappointing but 100% for Developer Fundamentals is great and the study focus on VF and Aura clearly paid off. All in all a good pass.

This also completed my Application Architect certification. Moving me to six certifications for the year and nine overall. Hopefully there are still some more to come!

Certified Sharing and Visibility Architect

Another month, another Certification! The Year of Certification is going really well. That makes four in four months this year, five months in a row if I include December last year. That’s also 3/4 of the Certifications for the Certified Application Architect done with only Platform Builder 1 to go.

This time round I didn’t have a book to guide me. This is a topic that I didn’t feel I had as much experience and confidence in so I wanted something more than the Trailhead guide. So I purchased the Focus on Force guide and practice exams ($48). Considering I was getting a $400 (+tax) exam for free through a Partner Voucher this seemed a reasonable investment.

I spent quite some time going through the guide, the section exams then the two practice exams. I did them more than once and was scoring 90%+. So when I sat down I was pretty confident. The pass mark for this exam is a relatively high 67% but I wasn’t worried as I was doing so well in the practice exams. So how did I do?

I passed! As is becoming pretty standard I took about half an hour completing one question every 30 seconds or so. Pretty fast, much faster than required but it works for me. If we weight the above section percentages by the section weightings that equates to a little under 74%. I had expected better based on the practice exams but there we go.

As the above shows I had three good sections and one terrible one. Luckily for me that is the section with the lowest weighting in the exam. So what went well? Clearly I learned a lot about the important parts. I felt very confident about the standard access controls and the implications.

However the Access to other Data section was clearly a disaster. I didn’t feel that the FoF practice exams and questions really prepared me for this well. There was very little on Content Delivery for example. And my mind basically went blank on the different types of Experience Cloud licenses. And there were multiple questions on that. I even went back and doubled down in one case reasoning if I answered one question one way I had to alter a very similar question to match. I think I got both wrong so should have spread my bets!

Anyway on to PD1

Certified Data Architect

The “Year of Certification” continues. Third month, third Certification. And my 5th Certification in the past 6 months (shame I didn’t do one last November!) This one seemed to follow on nicely from the Certified Data Cloud Consultant. And indeed there is a little overlap.

As per usual I was ready to start the exam 10 minutes early. The authentication process is now second nature (I know where I have a blank enough bit of wall for the photo part to work). I had done some practice questions and scored around 73%. Way better than the required 58%. So I was feeling pretty good.

As soon as the first question came up it confirmed what I already knew. This is a more scenario and problem solving based exam than the previous straight knowledge based ones. And that makes sense. An architect is all about problem solving. So the questions have some context. They might need to explain the objects that exist, the business process being followed or the competing requirements. If you are going to sit this then definitely be prepared to read more and think more about the questions.

Despite the additional detail in the question I still dook about my usual amount of time. As per previous exams I completed this one using about 30 seconds per question. I felt I was slower than this. I was intentionally reading each question twice and making sure I considered all the answers. So I’m not sure why I was so fast. My advice is definitely to not go for speed! There are no bonus points for speed available!

Overall I’m not too unhappy with the results. If you multiply the area percentages by the coverage in the exam guide that works out as about 70%. Clearly a good margin of comfort over the 58% pass mark but still plenty of room to improve! The Data Migration part clearly caught me a bit. I think I was too caught up with using ETL tools rather than Salesforce ones. I still think in many cases those might be a good idea!

Data Migration is something I’ve not done too much of on the platform so it makes sense that I was weaker here. I’m not sure how relevant this will be in future exams but I thought I had studied up. Clearly not well enough!

I was using another book from my Packt bundle which is looking like increasingly good value! I’ll review that in another post.

Certified Data Cloud Consultant

The “Year of Certification” rolls on into its second month. And I passed my second Certification exam of the year! I’ve been doing a lot of learning and exploring with Data Cloud so I expected to be in a good place to pass this exam with a little extra study. So how did it go?

I’m getting pretty familiar and comfortable with the exam process now. I know it’ll take a few minutes to do the biometric authentication and get the exam up. So I don’t worry about how long that’s taking. I know the Launch button will appear 10 minutes before. So I launch 10 minutes early. And I know to not get worried no matter how it feels as I am answering the questions - more on that in a bit

I had studied up for this exam. To start with I completed the Partner Learning Camp curriculum. The non-hands on parts of this have now been migrated to the preparatory Trail Mix so anyone can access them. If you have access to the PLC definitely go and do the hands on available there as this will teach you so much more. I had also built my own little study guide as I went pulling in material from Salesforce help. I used that in the last few days running up to the exam.

In the end I used about my normal time: a little under 30 seconds per question. I would recommend sitting these exams at your own pace. They are not a sprint! You don’t get extra marks for being quick. However I generally know the answer or have a good educated guess and spending longer won’t change that. I do make sure I read the question twice to make sure I’ve fully understood it. This exam was also the first time in a Salesforce Certification exam that I’ve used the Review feature to come back to a question later.

The exam transcript shows quite a wide variation in scores for each topic. The pass mark for the exam is 62%. So I’m happy I scored at least that in each section. Given the section weightings the above equates to about 78%. Not bad (and comfortably above the pass rate) but not that amazing. The 100% section is good though!

That said at the end of the exam I was mostly just happy (and a bit relieved) to have passed. I was not feeling particularly happy about quite a few questions and more often than I’d like I felt like I was taking educated guesses. Not completely blind random guesses but I was definitely not sure.

In terms of areas for me to improve and areas I feel the Trail Mix does not cover well:

• Right to Be Forgotten

• B2C Integration

• Marketing Cloud Integration

• S3/Cloud Activation

If you are thinking of sitting this study on on those areas! For me the “Year of Certification” rolls on. I think my next exam (maybe a couple of months away) will be an Architect one.

Salesforce Certified Associate

This was the first of the lower-tier Associate certifications that was introduced earlier this year. I sat (and passed) this exam a couple of weeks back. Here are my thoughts (as well as some issues I had sitting this exam)

First of all this is a pretty easy exam. Like the Certified AI Associate exam it took my about 10 minutes once I was able to actually connect (more below). This is an entry level certification designed for those with about 6 months of Salesforce usage experience. Note this is usage - developers may not actually gain that much usage experience!

This exam is definitely more on the admin path with many of the questions being on areas of the platform I have never used as a developer. Luckily I had prepared for this exam and have been on a Superbadge kick recently which has ensure I’ve been using a lot fo the platform.

I am a little annoyed to have only got 50% on the Reports & Dashboards as I’d completed the Lightning Experience Reports & Dashboards Specialist Superbadge a few days before I sat this exam. So I should have done better than 50% there! If I ever decide to sit the Salesforce Certified Administrator exam clearly I need to study that area more.

Would I recommend this certification? It’s a cheap and easy way to get on the certification ladder. It helps ensure you actually do know something about using Salesforce which might be an eye opener for some developers! So yes, I’d probably recommend it.

Stay Calm!

I had some real troubles accessing the exam which I did not have with the previous exams I’ve sat. Recently when working from home certain internal sites have been incredibly slow to load. Unfortunately the Kryterion site seemed to be the same. Waiting 2-3 minutes for pages to load as the time ticks past being 10 minutes before the scheduled start to 10 minutes after is stressful! Thankfully I was able to take a few deep breaths once connected and answer the questions

Year of Certification

If this year was my “All Star Ranger” year I want next year to be my Certification year. I’ve got 3 certifications right now. I want to pass at least 4 more next year. We’ll see how that goes and I’ll be sure to post some thoughts on each exam as I sit them

Salesforce Certified AI Associate

Salesforce introduced this new certification a month or so ago. I sat (and passed) this today so thought I’d write a short entry about it.

First off this is an associate level certification. This means it is not as in-depth as the main certifications and as such I think the exams are easier. I’d say this certification mans the holder has a base level understanding of the topics but it does not test any real depth. Certainly this is not a technical certification.

In the current AI climate having some certification in this area is probably a good thing so it’s definitely worth doing. If you’ve been keeping up with the various AI trailheads (or just do the prep trailmix) you’ll be good to sit the exam. This is not one where you need to do any additional study or self-learning.

The exam itself consists of 40 multiple choice questions and the passing grade is set at a reasonably generous 65%. As you can see from the transcript I was well above that. You get a really generous 70 minutes to complete the exam. I did not feel I was rushing and.I took 10! The questions are akin to Trailhead module quiz questions.

This is a pretty cheap exam to take. If you are lucky enough that your employer will pay for it so much the better! I’d say pretty much everyone working on the platform might benefit from doing this one