Free Salesforce Platform App Builder Practice Exam (with Answers)

The system Administrator should avoid complex integration or development by looking for an AppExchange Solution. Using an AppExchange solution is a much better long term solution – these packages are pre-built and easy to install. They require little maintenance and upgrades are typically included by the provider. There is no Commissions standard object in Salesforce.

• Salesforce: AppExchange FAQ

An Administrator should set up Feed Tracking. Feed Tracking enables you to track a maximum of 20 fields per object, including standard and custom objects. Changes made are then displayed in the Chatter feed.

• Salesforce Help: Feed Tracking
• Trailhead: Enable Feed Tracking

Global Actions and Object-Specific Actions can be created in Salesforce, enabling users to do more, quickly. For example, create new records, update existing records or log calls.

• Global Actions: are not related to a specific record and can be placed anywhere that actions are supported.
• Object-Specific Actions: are related to a particular object, eg. when you create a Contact via the Contacts related list on an Account record, the ‘Account Name’ field is populated for you.

Actions are available on the Salesforce mobile app via the landing page, as well as on object specific record pages.

Global publisher layouts can be set up to determine the order actions appear in certain interfaces, such as the Home tab, Chatter tab and mobile app. Global publisher layouts only contain Global Actions! Actions for specific objects are determined in their object page layout.

Salesforce comes with many standard global and object-specific actions such as Log a Call. Custom actions can also be configured.

• Salesforce Trailhead – Create Global Quick Actions (Mobile)
• Salesforce Trailhead – Create Object Specific Quick Actions (Mobile)
• Trailhead: Create Global Quick Actions
• Trailhead: Create Object-Specific Quick Actions
• Trailhead: Empower Your Users with Quick Actions

A standard field may only be a controlling field, not a dependent field.

• Salesforce Help: Dependent Picklist Consideration

The four types of access to objects set at profile and permission set level are Read, Create Edit and Delete – these are often referred to as CRED.

• Salesforce Help: Object Permissions

Users must be assigned one profile – profile is a required field on the user record and a user cannot have more than one profile.

In contrast, a user may have zero to many permission sets.

• Salesforce Help: Profiles
• Salesforce Help: Permission Sets
• Salesforce Ben: Salesforce Roles and Profiles (Feat. Permission Sets)

The organization-wide sharing access options for Campaign Members are ‘Controlled by Campaign’ or ‘Controlled by ‘Campaign Member’. The Controlled by Campaign Member option inherits sharing settings from leads, contacts, accounts, and person accounts.

• Salesforce Help: Set Your Internal Organization-Wide Sharing Defaults
• Salesforce Help: Considerations for Using Accounts as Campaign Members

The organization-wide defaults sets the base level of access to an object. For example, if Opportunities are set to ‘Private’, this means that users will only see Opportunities they own or those owned by their subordinates.

The OWD should always support your most restrictive requirements, so if even a single user should not see Opportunity records they do not own, then the OWD for Opportunities MUST be set to ‘Private’.

• Salesforce Help: Organization-Wide Sharing Defaults

From the page layout editor, you should enable ‘Visible’ and disable ‘Read-Only’.

• Salesforce Help: Set Field-Level Security for a Field on All Profiles

The organization-wide default for an object must be Public Read Only or Private to create sharing rules.

• Salesforce Help: Sharing Rule Considerations
• Trailhead: Define Sharing Rules

We should use custom report types when standard reporting cannot meet our requirements. Good examples include the need to restrict, reorganize or rename fields.

• Salesforce Help: Create a Custom Report Type
• Salesforce Admin: Build Powerful Reports with Custom Report Types

Conditional formatting can be used to highlight different summarized values or data ranges.

Bucket fields are used to categorize data but do not highlight them like conditional formatting.

Subtotals and Grand Total can be enabled to show values but do not highlight them.

• Salesforce Help: Highlight Data Ranges with Conditional Formatting

A fixed dashboard is one where the ‘View Dashboard As’ setting is fixed to a specific user. This is achieved by selecting ‘Another Person’ and choosing a specific user in the ‘View Dashboard As’ section.

This means that when users view the dashboard, they will view the data the ‘viewing as’ user has access to, potentially granting them visibility of data they wouldn’t usually have sight of.

The ‘View Dashboard As’ user can be set in the properties of the dashboard. In the following image, I have selected the ‘viewing as’ user to be Charlotte, the VP of Sales at Cloudy Computing. When other users view the dashboard, they will have visibility of all the data Charlotte can see. This could mean that users in subordinate roles i.e. Sales Team members may see each other’s data.

You can enable Row Counts to see the total number of records per Account. In order to see the total Opportunity Amount, you’ll need to summarize the Amount field by Sum.

• Salesforce Help: Reports
• Trailhead: Reports & Dashboards for Lightning Experience

A self relationship is one where records can be related to other records of the same object. This type of relationship is used in features such as the Account Hierarchy and Campaign Hierarchy.

• Salesforce Help: Object Relationships Overview
• Trailhead: Create Object Relationships
• Salesforce Ben: The 6 Types of Relationships in Salesforce

Salesforce Junction Objects give you a way to create a many-to-many relationship between Salesforce objects. They are created using a custom object and then relating two other objects via two master-detail relationships.

• Salesforce Help: Create a Many-to-Many Relationship
• Salesforce Help: Object Relationships Overview
• Trailhead: Create Object Relationships
• Salesforce Ben: The 6 Types of Relationships in Salesforce

When creating a Master-Detail relationship, you have the option to tick ‘Allow reparenting’ which enables users to change the parent record.

• Salesforce Help: Object Relationships Overview

The child record will inherit the sharing settings of the master record and certain options will be removed. The Owner field on the record of a child object in a master-detail relationship isn’t available and is automatically set to the owner of the master record. Custom objects on the detail side of a master-detail relationship can’t have sharing rules, manual sharing, or queues, as these require the Owner field.

In a master-detail relationship between a standard object and a custom object, the standard object must be the master and cannot be the detail.

• Salesforce Help: Object Relationships Overview
• Trailhead: Create Object Relationships

Schema Builder is a tool that lets you visualize and edit your data model. It’s useful for designing and understanding complex data models, as well as creating objects.

• Salesforce Help: Design Your Own Data Model
• Trailhead: Work with Schema Builder

The Data Import Wizard is the most suitable tool in this instance as it supports importing Person Accounts, can import up to 50,000 records, has deduplication options, as well as the option to toggle triggering Workflows on and off.

The Data Loader does not give you the option not to fire Workflow rules, nor does it offer any ability to find duplicates.

• Salesforce Help: Add Person Accounts with the Data Import Wizard
• Salesforce Help: Data Import Wizard
• Salesforce Help: When to Use Data Loader
• Salesforce: How To Import Data into Salesforce Series

We cannot use Reports, Data Import Wizard or Data Loader to export attachments. Therefore the suitable option is the Data Export Service which can be used to export data, including attachments, weekly or monthly.

• Salesforce Help: Export Backup Data from Salesforce
• Salesforce Help: Data Export FAQ
• Trailhead: Export Data

The Data Import Wizard and Data Loader have some similarities. Both require files to be saved as a CSV file and validation rules and triggers will fire.

The Data Import Wizard can import 50,000 records and the Data Loader can import 5,000,000 records.

Workflow rules and processes will fire when using Data Loader, however, when using the Data Import Wizard you have the option to toggle them on and off.

• Salesforce Help: Data Import Wizard
• Salesforce Help: When to Use Data Loader
• Salesforce: How To Import Data into Salesforce Series

When a field is universally required or required because of a validation rule, it will be required during a data import via an API or Data Loader.

The API and Data Loader do not enforce fields required by page layouts. You cannot make a field required via the Record Type.

You can enable the ‘Set Audit Fields upon Record Creation’ feature and import using Data Loader to alter certain system audit fields. The audit fields are: Created By, Created Date, Last Modified By ID, Last Modified Date.

The Data Import Wizard does not have this functionality and there is no need for a third party application since Data Loader can achieve this.

• Salesforce Help: Set ‘audit’ field values for imported records

A multi-select picklist would be the most appropriate solution in this scenario as it allows users to select multiple values from a list you define. A picklist would only allow a user to select a single value. A text area field would allow users to enter any value they wish but this would not be a good solution as data quality would be poor. A lookup would only allow a user to select a single value.

• Trailhead: Get Started with Picklists

When ‘Roll up activities to a contact’s primary account’ is enabled in Activity Settings it will only affect new activities, unless an existing activity is updated in a way that will force a recalculation e.g. when an activity is closed.

The roll up activities feature is not recommended for orgs where contacts are related to multiple accounts due to the risk of skewing reporting. This can happen where an activity is related to a contact’s primary account, even though the activity is to do with a different account.

• Salesforce Help: Enable Roll Up of Activities to a Contact’s Primary Account
• Salesforce Help: Considerations for Disabling Roll Up of Activities to a Contact’s Primary Account

Indirect lookup relationships allow a relationship to be formed between a parent Salesforce object and an child external object.

• Salesforce Help: External Object Relationships

Text, percent and Currency are all data types that are supported by formula fields.

Not all data types are supported, including Email and Phone.

• Salesforce Help: Formula Data Types

A CASE statement checks a given expression against a series of values. It can then return different values. For example, the following Lead scoring formula returns a different numerical value, based on the Lead Source.

CASE(LeadSource, “Phone”, 2, “Web”, 1, 0)

If the Lead Source is Phone, the Lead score is 2. If the Lead Source is Web, the score is 1. If the Lead Source does not match either of our Case expressions (Phone or Web) we have a “catch all” value of 0.

• Salesforce Help: Formula Operators and Functions

A cross-object formula can reference fields from a master (parent) object if an object is on the detail side of a master-detail relationship. For example, if Application is the child object in a Master-Detail relationship with Job, we could use cross-object formulas to bring field values from the Job on to the related child Application.

• Salesforce Help: What Is a Cross-Object Formula?
• Salesforce Help: Tips for Building Cross-Object Formulas
• Trailhead: Create Cross-Object Formulas

Formulas can return various data types, including Date, Percent and Text. Array is not a valid return type of a custom formula.

• Salesforce Help: Formula Data Types

The four types of a roll-up summary functions are: COUNT, SUM, MIN, MAX

• Salesforce Help: Roll-Up Summary Field
• Trailhead: Implement Roll-Up Summary Fields

We can create a roll-up summary field on the Account object, using the MAX function on the Amount field on Opportunity. In addition, we must add the filter criteria ‘Forecast Category EQUALS Commit’ to the roll-up summary field to ensure we only display the values from Opportunities in the Commit category as requested by the VP of Sales.

• Salesforce Help: Roll-Up Summary Field
• Trailhead: Implement Roll-Up Summary Fields

A validation rule can make a field required when it meets certain criteria. In our example, the Stage must be Closed Lost and the Closed Lost Reason blank.

A required field is always required and is therefore not appropriate. Field dependencies could make the Closed Lost Reason field only available when the Stage is set to Closed Lot, however it would not make the Closed Lost Reason required.

Workflow Rules will not make fields required based on criteria.

• Salesforce Help: Define Validation Rules
• Trailhead: Create Validation Rules
• Salesforce Ben: How to Use Validation Rules in Salesforce

The correct formula is: AND(ISPICKVAL( StageName, ‘Closed Lost’), ISBLANK( TEXT( Lost_Reason__c )))

The formula must check two criteria, first the Stage = Closed Lost, and second if Lost Reason is blank.

We need both criteria to be met so we require AND at the start. OR would only ensure our record meets one of our criteria.

Picklist often need to be wrapped in other functions in order to be accessible. To use Stage, we must wrap it in an ISPICKVAL function.

To use ISBLANK with our Lost Reason picklist, we must wrap it in a TEXT function.

• Salesforce Help: Define Validation Rules
• Trailhead: Create Validation Rules
• Salesforce Help: Formula Operators and Functions
• Trailhead: Use Picklists in Formulas

Validation rules and formulas use the field API name. This is one of the many reasons it’s important to build your rule using the ‘Insert Field’ option so you enter the correct field name.

When a record is submitted to an approval process it is locked for all users except the System Administrator and users with ‘Modify all Data’ or ‘Modify All’ object level permission. Additionally, the System Administrator can choose to allow the assigned approver/s to edit:

• Salesforce Help: Prepare to Create an Approval Process
• Trailhead: Customize How Records Get Approved with Approvals
• Salesforce Help: Considerations for Managing Approvals

Although Approval Processes have similar functionality to Workflow Rules, they are not being retired at present. You should continue to build approvals using the Approval Process tool.

• Salesforce Help: Set Up an Approval Process

• Trailhead: Choose the Right Automation Tool

Both Process Builder and Flow can be used to automatically create a record and submit it into an approval process. Since Process Builder is being retired, ultimately it would be best practice to use Flow.

• Salesforce Help: Submit a Record for Approval from a Process
• Salesforce Help: Flow Core Action: Submit for Approval

Flow contains the option to troubleshoot a Flow using ‘Debug’ from within the Flow Builder.

Debug enables you to enter values for the input variables and will display debug details. For example, if you were testing a Flow for the Account object, you could select an Account to test your Flow on. Because you have selected the Account record, you will already know if that record should be processed etc.

• Salesforce Help:  Debug a Flow in Flow Builder
• Trailhead: Make Sure Your Flow Works

An Administrator can go to Time-Based Workflow in Setup to troubleshoot. From here you can click ‘Search’ to see all or narrow your search using the filters provided.

• Salesforce Help: Monitor Pending Workflow Actions

For this scenario, we should use a Schedule-Triggered Flow as these can be launched at a specified time and frequency.

• Salesforce Help: Flow Types

Although all of these requirements could be achieved using Workflow, it would involve creating 3 individual Workflow rules, as each action requires different entry criteria. Salesforce is retiring Workflow rules and recommends that Flow should be used for all new automation.

Flow can be used to consolidate multiple processes and actions into a single Flow.

Process Builder could be used, however we want to create a Task and an Email Alert, not an Event and an Email Alert. Additionally, similar to Workflow rules, Process Builder is being retired and it would be best practice to create any new automation in Flow.

We should not use APEX when something can be required declaratively.

• Salesforce Help: Flows

Before creating an action to send a custom notification from a process, for example Process  Builder or Flow, you must first create a Notification Type. This  can be  done in Setup > Notification Builder > Custom Notifications.

• Salesforce Help: Send Custom Notifications
• Salesforce Help: Create a Notification Type

The most important takeaway from this scenario is to remember that the most restrictive field access settings of the two always apply. In our example, read only is the most restrictive setting and will override the page layout setting.

• Field-Level Security

We can edit the properties of fields on the page layout, making them ‘Read Only’ or ‘Required’.

Fields required via the page layout are not universally required. There is no ‘Edit-Only’ field property.

• Page Layouts
• Customize Record Details with Page Layouts

Making a field ‘Read-Only’ on the page layout does not prevent the field from accepting values via an API such as Data Loader.

The 3 types of Lightning Components available when creating a Lightning Record Page are: Standard, Custom and Custom-Managed.

Standard components are Lightning components built by Salesforce and include things such as List View Component, Related List Quick Links Component and Related Record Component.

Custom components are those that you or a developer have configured for your org.

Custom-Managed components are third party components from the AppExchange.

• Salesforce Help: Standard Lightning Page Components
• Salesforce Help: Custom Lightning Page Components
• Trailhead: Get Started with the Lightning App Builder
• Trailhead: Work with Custom Lightning Components

When designing a Lightning page, the first step is to select a page template or clone a Salesforce Default Page. The page template controls the number and layout of columns and headers.

Search Layouts and Validation Rules can be configured per object in Setup but not when creating a Lightning page.

• Salesforce Help: Lightning Page Templates

To reduce clutter on your Lightning Record Page and ease navigation, you could consider adding Tabs or an Accordian.

Tabs can be used to store components that are not always required and can be named to suit your needs. The Accordion component is similar; tabs go from left to right, whereas an Accordion is a stacked list that goes from up to down.

• Salesforce Help: Add and Customize Tabs on Lightning Pages Using the Lightning App Builder

An Administrator can create a bespoke user experience using themes and branding in Salesforce Lightning Experience. You can choose an in-built theme, however these cannot be modified. Alternatively, you can create a custom theme and choose brand images, colors, background, banner, and default avatar images. Custom themes can be created, previewed, activated and deleted. Only one theme can be active, you cannot have multiple active themes.

With Apps, you have the option to override the organization’s theme; this means users will see the App’s brand image and navigation bar color, not the one defined in the custom theme.

• Salesforce Help: Brand Your Org in Lightning Experience

There are several out-of-the-box homepage components that are specifically useful to Sales users:

• Performance – displays Opportunities for the current sales quarter that are closed or open with a probability over 70%.
• Assistant – displays up to 10 updates about Leads and Opportunities.
• Key Deals – an Opportunity list that can be filtered by users to show all their deals, deals closing soon, and other helpful list views.

There is no Opportunity or Target component. Additionally, Sales users (and other users) will benefit from standard components such as Recent Records, Today’s Events and Today’s Tasks.

You can create multiple homepages and assign them to different types of users. Alternatively, you could create a single homepage and control component visibility based on profile!

• Salesforce Help: Set Up the Lightning Experience Home Page
• Trailhead: Build a Custom Home Page for Lightning Experience

There is no feature called Lighting Actions. Both Object Specific Actions and Global Actions respect validation rules. Quick Create (only available in Classic) does not respect validation rules.

• Salesforce Help: Create Records with Quick Create

The Service Console is a feature of Salesforce that creates an effective view to work with Cases. The Service Console enables users to access all things related to a Case from a single screen, including list views, case details and so on. In addition, a utility bar can be added which gives users access to productivity tools. One of these productivity tools is the ‘History’ utility, which allows easy access to recently accessed tabs.

• Salesforce Help: Lightning Service Console
• Salesforce Help: History Utility for Lightning Console Apps
• Salesforce Developers: Get to Know the Utility Bar

A Partial Copy sandbox allows you to not only copy metadata, but also a portion of your data. You can select a sample set of data using a Sandbox Template.

This sandbox is very helpful if you wish to test new functionality on live data, or if you wish to train users using live data, in a test environment.

Partial Copy sandboxes are included with Enterprise, Unlimited & Performance edition Salesforce licenses, and can be purchased separately

The Partial Copy sandbox has a refresh interval of 5 days, and allows data storage up to 5GB, and file storage mirrors that of your production Org.

Developer and Developer Pro sandbox do not include any real data and a Full sandbox can only be refreshed every 29 days.

• Salesforce Help: Sandbox Types and Templates

During the deploy phase, you should first communicate what changes will be made and when to ALL users, not just management!

Ideally, deployments should take place during off-peak hours.

• Trailhead: Understand What Application Lifecycle Management Is

Not all configuration and development needs to be built and tested in a sandbox environment. Reports and Dashboards are examples of things that can be built directly in production.

There are 3 email deliverability settings in Salesforce sandboxes:

• No access – All outbound email to and from users is stopped
• System email only – Only system generated emails such as password resets are sent
• All email – All emails are allowed

The default email deliverability setting for Salesforce sandboxes is ‘System email only’.

• Salesforce Help: Email Deliverability

Managed packages are typically created by Salesforce Partners to distribute or sell Apps. Managed packages can be sold in a number of ways, including selling access to the managed package via subscriptions or licenses (similar to how you purchase Salesforce licenses).

Managed packages can be upgraded as new versions are released. However, the source code is protected, allowing for property protection, and cannot be modified.

Unmanaged packages are typically used to distribute open-source projects, code or templates. The code and components can be edited once installed but an unmanaged package is not upgradable.

• Salesforce Developer: Overview of Packages

Cloudy Computing should create a managed package as this can be sold via the AppExchange. Managed packages also allow you to offer upgrades and protect the source code.

Unmanaged packages are typically used to distribute open-source projects, code or templates. The code and components can be edited once installed but an unmanaged package is not upgradable.

There is no such feature as Controlled Package or Lightning Package.

• Salesforce Developer: Overview of Packages