Slack Administrator Certification Guide & Tips

As a Slack professional, you may be looking to prove your skills by becoming Slack certified. Within the Slack ecosystem, you can become certified as a Slack Administrator, Consultant, or Developer.

In this exam guide, we will focus on the Slack Administrator exam and help you prepare to become Slack certified.

Who’s the Ideal Candidate?

As an aspiring Slack Certified Admin, you should ideally have 6-12 months of hands-on experience of being a Slack Administrator and be familiar with all plans. 

You should be used to navigating around the Slack Admin console as well as specific features such as Admin Roles, User Provisioning, Settings and Policies, Channels, and App Approvals.

You will most likely pioneer best practices already within your organization, including channel naming conventions, and use channels for incoming requests, e.g,. #help-slack.

If you need to brush up on some areas or don’t have much hands-on experience, Trailhead provides a training course to help you prepare.

Key Topics

• Fundamentals (9%)
• Workspace administration (9%)
• Channel & user group administration (28%)
• User lifecycle management (14%)
• App administration (10%)
• Security (15%)
• Enabling Slack success (15%)

1. Fundamentals (9%)

The first section of the exam focuses on the fundamentals. For this part, you’ll need to be familiar with the different roles available within Slack and what features you get access to with each plan. 

You should know what common tasks or functions you’ll be expected to perform as a Slack Administrator, workspace and org-level settings that may need to be adjusted, as well as the dashboards that are available.

2. Workspace Administration (9%)

This section of the exam is worth 9% of the overall score. You should be familiar with workspace management, including when to create a workspace, workspace creation, approval processes, and workspace visibility. 

On Enterprise Grid, you can have multiple workspaces, so you’ll need to know how to design these. Also, you may be quizzed on how to consolidate workspaces.

3. Channel & User Group Administration (28%)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, channels and user groups make up the largest chunk of this exam. 

You’ll need to know how to manage channels within Slack, when to use a channel, direct message, or group message, and public versus private channels. 

You should know about multi-workspace channels, permissions, and sharing with an outside organization.

As someone who follows best practices, you should be able to implement naming guidelines and channel prefixes, as well as be on top of channel management, including deleting, archiving, and converting. This section also covers User Groups.

4. User Lifecycle Management (14%)

As a Slack Administrator, you serve your users and strive to make both their lives easier and the “flow of work” more efficient. 

This section of the exam focuses on authentication and the increasing functionalities you get as you move up the different Slack plans. Based on a use case, you should be able to recommend the best way to create new users, and perhaps compare SCIM to JIT when provisioning users.

This includes getting users into the right workspaces/channels, having a process for Guest User requests, and deactivating users when they no longer need access. 

5. App Administration (10%)

This section talks about apps, including the different scopes they can have and enforcing approval for new apps.

Workflow Builder is part of this section, so it could come up as Slack’s tool to automate processes and improve efficiency. 

6. Security (15%)

Security is important with any system, so it’s no surprise this has its own section on the exam. 

This will test you on how to secure your system and the options available. You’ll need to know how to manage access on desktop and mobile, as well as options for data retention. 

Slack provides tools to help specifically on Enterprise Grid, such as Data Loss Prevention, Audit Logs, and E-Discovery.

7. Enabling Slack Success (15%)

Post implementation, you’ll need to be able to measure your success, quantify it, and track progress. You should know what type of info the Analytics Dashboard can provide and what actions to take based on analytics. 

Longer term, you may be expected to know how to encourage Slack etiquette, recruit Slack Champions, and potentially build a team around you. This also extends to championing best practices and running enablement sessions too. 

Study Strategy

For the Slack Administrator Exam, I prepared by making notes that were grouped by exam section while going through the Slack Certified Admin Prep on Trailhead. 

If you do not currently have access to Slack, then consider signing up for a free trial or plan to get to grips with the basics. 

In terms of strategy, you could also prepare flashcards, form a study group, attend Slack events, and reach out via the Trailblazer Community on topics where you are not as confident as others.

Lean into whatever works for you. You are likely to have taken some form of exam before, whether it was for education or your Salesforce career; prepare in the way that you’ve learned works for you.

Exam Strategy

The exam itself is made up of 60 multiple-choice questions with up to 90 minutes to complete the test. To pass, you’ll need to get 65% or higher. 

If you’ve taken a Salesforce exam before, then the policies for Slack exams are the same and can be taken either in person or online. For more details on specifics, refer to Schedule a Salesforce Certification Exam.

Summary

Lastly, it’s helpful to set a target date and then tailor your study around this so you’ve got something to work towards. Make sure you review your notes in preparation for the exam and are feeling confident about what could come up in the exam itself.

On the test day, get some last-minute revision in and fingers crossed, you’ll be a Certified Slack Administrator before you know it.

Resources

• Slack Community 
• Slack Events
• Trailmix: Prepare for Your Salesforce Administrator Credential (Prep Course)
• Salesforce Certified Slack Administrator (Exam Guide)