Career / Certifications / News

How to Take Your Salesforce Maintenance Exams

By Lucy Mazalon

You need to take Salesforce maintenance exams to keep your Salesforce credentials valid. This is a positive thing – ensuring that you keep your knowledge up-to-date in line with the ever-changing Salesforce platform. Salesforce maintenance exams were moved to Trailhead (in 2018) which brought the following changes:

  • Cutting the number of maintenance exams individuals need to take each year (one per certification).
  • Offering optional ‘no/low code’ and ‘code’ badges. In addition to the maintenance badges you have to maintain, you should definitely take advantage of all the available badges for all certification paths to expand your knowledge with the latest Salesforce functionality. These include hands-on challenges and are made available three times per year.
  • Improving the exam interface. Accessing maintenance requirements through your single Trailblazer login is simpler.
  • The interactive, gamified modules are ready for you to dive into. I found the notifications are more transparent and with much less friction involved (previously hosted on the WebAssessor platform).
  • Made exams free of charge – ditching the $100 fee (per exam) was certainly welcomed!

With new certifications added every year and more ‘tracks’/pathways opening up, Trailblazers can upskill without spending a fortune or becoming overloaded.

How Do I Maintain My Salesforce Certification?

In a nutshell, head to your trailblazer.me profile, and scroll down to the certification section.

For each of your Salesforce certifications, you will see either a green “Active” or red “Maintenance Due” icon.

Note: You must link your Webassessor and Trailhead account together.

Follow the links to the Trailhead modules, which are “open book” (i.e. you are free to look at any resources), with the aim for you to learn while you sit the short exam:

You can also access maintenance Trailhead Modules by using the Trailhead search bar.

Don’t panic about remembering to check regularly. When new maintenance exams are due, you will receive a clear email notification.

Salesforce Architect Maintenance Exams

Architect (and Designer) certifications have their own maintenance modules which will cover all related certifications (Data Architect, Sharing and Visibility Architect, etc) rather than an individual module by certification like the Admin or CPQ Specialist ones.

How Much Does it Cost to Maintain a Salesforce Certification?

Salesforce maintenance exams are free.

Important! If you fail to maintain your certifications after a certain amount of time has elapsed, they will expire – yes, this means you will have to take the full certification exam again plus pay the $200/$400 bill to sit the exam.

READ MORE: How Much Does a Salesforce Certification Cost?

How Do I Check My Salesforce Maintenance Exam Status?

Visiting your trailblazer.me profile is the best route, however, you can also verify using the Trailhead credential verification service. This can be used by both certified professionals and prospective employers:

Inputting your email address (linked to your Webassessor account) will trigger an email outlining the status for each of your Salesforce certifications.

Summary

Keep your knowledge up-to-date in line with the ever-changing Salesforce platform (the carrot) and don’t lose your hard-earned credentials (the stick).

Personally, I learned my lesson the hard way, accidentally letting my Pardot certification expire (yes, bad luck for me as I was working as a Pardot consultant).

The streamlined process for Salesforce certification maintenance (that’s also easy on your/your employers pocket) was so welcomed when it was introduced – especially as Salesforce professionals are gaining an increasing number of certifications per person (thanks to the successful Salesforce certification program). We can explore the new certifications and alternate certification ‘tracks’/pathways without having to make sacrifices because of monetary constraints.

Note: all certification exams remain hosted on theWebassessor platform, proctored either onsite or online. You can check the fee for each of the exams here.

READ MORE: How Much Does a Salesforce Certification Cost?

The Author

Lucy Mazalon

Lucy is the Operations Director at Salesforce Ben. She is a 10x certified Marketing Champion and founder of The DRIP.

Comments:

    Tasnim
    July 28, 2018 7:51 pm
    Hi Ben, I linked the Trailhead and Webaccessor account and later completed the Summer 18 maintenance for Admin. I cannot see it reflected on webaccessor? Should it appear?
    Tasnim
    July 28, 2018 7:51 pm
    Hi Ben, I linked the Trailhead and Webaccessor account and later completed the Summer 18 maintenance for Admin. I cannot see it reflected on webaccessor. Should it appear?
    Stephanie Peck
    August 01, 2018 8:22 pm
    Hi Ben, Same thing is happening to me. My trailhead and Webassessor accounts are linked and I completed the trail for the admin Summer 18 maintenance exam two days ago, however when I check my credentials it shows 1 exam behind....
    Vishnu
    October 19, 2018 7:33 pm
    Hi Stephanie & Tasnim, Were you guys able to sort the issue out? I made a blunder. Took the maintenance exam on trailhead first and THEN linked it to webassessor. Now, I dont see any proof of the summer 18 maintenance exam completion on webassesor and am presently hoping it will happen in due time. Your response will be highly appreciated. Thanks!
    Manu Shimoga
    December 12, 2018 7:54 pm
    I have linked Webassesor account with Trailhead. After that I have cleared Summer 18 Admin maintenance exam in Trailhead. But I did not get any mail notification for the completion of the same. Could you please update the same?
    K Joseph
    March 11, 2023 6:08 am
    I have only one certification and attempted my very first maintenance test today. I got thru with all the 500 points. My profile does not reflect the status and still displays as "Maintenance Due". Is this a glitch or does it take a few hours/days to reflect the status in the profile?
    Christine Marshall
    March 16, 2023 11:40 am
    I would contact Salesforce about this as it may be a glitch or it may just take a while to update.

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