There is an amazingly high demand for Salesforce experts in IT, and earning this marvelous certification can give you the instant returns such as a handsome salary. The ever-evolving Salesforce ecosystem expands its scope far past the cloud-based CRM platform and offers the professional credentials for product managers, system administrators, developers, and integration architects.
Earning Salesforce Certified Administrator certification is a great way to validate your skills and expertise and draw the attention of the companies that are on the lookout for Salesforce experts. The jobs affiliated with Salesforce require at least one credential, and the starting point is Salesforce Certified Administrator certification. So, here are the basics of ADM 201 exam for you to achieve your Salesforce credential.
To read more about Salesforce and its certification program, follow the links:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salesforce.com
- http://certification.salesforce.com/credentialoverview
- http://www.prepaway.com/salesforce-certification-exams.html
What are the prerequisites for Salesforce ADM 201 exam?
There are no prerequisites for ADM 201 exam, but Salesforce highly recommends to take certain courses before taking the test. One of them is Administration Essentials for New Admins (ADM 201) course. Salesforce University offers this training at a whopping price of $4500 despite the course lasts only 3 days.
Other courses recommended by Salesforce include Administration Essentials for New Admins and Certification (ADM 201C), New Admins in Lightning Experience (ADX-201), Preparing for your Salesforce Administrator Certification (CRT-101), and Salesforce Proficiency Pack for Admins.
My personal experience with ADM 201 exam
I took ADM 201 exam and passed it after only a 3-month period of studying. Prior to that, I had just a little grasp of Salesforce, to be honest. This is a clear indication that you can make it too if you are committed to achieving your certification goal.
So how did I make it? Well, in my first month, I had approximately 16 hours each week for studying. My new schedule in the second month was 2 full days of studying plus an extra 2 hours every day for the remaining 5 days.
And believe me, by the beginning of the third month I had exhausted everything and turned to a thorough revision. The schedule was more or less the same, but I majorly focused on practice.
How to prepare for ADM 201 exam
As mentioned earlier, ADM 201 exam contains a lot to be covered. It is essential to set a goal for yourself and book the test in advance in order to meet your deadline. Besides, you should also prepare a schedule. Successful exam takers will tell you that it is vital to use all the available resources to prepare adequately for this test.
One of the most reliable resources is the official exam guide. It is necessary to be well conversant with the exam guide because it gives you a full understanding of the topics covered by the test. Here are some of them:
- Introduction to Salesforce: Navigation, Data Model, and Lightning Experience
- Data Access and Security
- Customization of the Fields
- Automation
- Data Management
- Dashboards and Reports
- Support Process Management
Get more details about ADM 201 exam objectives here:
And by the way, have you heard of the Trailhead before? This is the formal Salesforce free online learning tool. It offers a hands-on approach to learning Salesforce. The subjects are divided into trails and modules which you can complete at your own pace and earn badges each time you finish a module. It might be very good, but the Trailhead platform is only a starting point and focusing on it alone will not earn you the certification.
Practice questions for ADM 201 exam are also available to aid your preparation. You can put your knowledge to the test to find out if you are ready for the actual test. Other resources to aid your exam preparation include the Salesforce Success Community, Salesforce Help Documentation, reliable ADM 201 exam dumps that you can find on ExamSnap, ExamCollection, Exam-Labs websites.
What does ADM 201 exam entail?
It is my belief that you can easily develop a study plan if you understand the exam format. ADM 201 is a 105-minute duration test consisting of 60 multiple-choice questions and 5 additional unscored questions.
The passing score is 65%. You can take the exam at a nearby test center or from your own location. The onsite proctored exam can be taken at your own schedule. Salesforce works in partnership with Kryterion, a reliable exam provider, so you can take the test when and where it is convenient for you.
It is advisable to register for your exam in advance in order to secure your preferred date and time. Would you like to save on travel expenses? If so, then the online proctored method can be your best option.
The test is monitored by a proctor via the webcam, and you are expected to download the software to let the examiner view your screen as you take the test. You can enroll for the test and take it on the same day – very convenient.
The exam fee is $200 (plus local taxes). But what happens if you don’t pass the test? Well, in such a case, you will need to pay a retake fee of $100 for another trial. Every question has one mark in the test. Partial marks for multi-select questions are never given despite the test contains some questions that require two or more correct answers.
The exam questions are often scenario-based, and certain questions are longer than others. As opposed to other exam types, ADM 201 allows you to mark questions you cannot answer immediately to review them later. This is a highly effective tool to increase your chances of success in the test.
Tips for passing
If you are certain about the answer, it is advisable to answer the question and move on instead of dwelling too much on it. Similarly, if you are not sure of the correct response, mark the question for review and answer it later to have sufficient time for answering the ones you know.
I guess you don’t want to spend extra money and time on retaking the exam. If so, then try using all the time allotted for the test while paying keen attention to each question and being concentrated all the time. You should aim at completing all the questions in 70 minutes and have the next 20 minutes for tackling the challenging questions you had marked for review. This is necessary to increase your chances of passing the test.
So, in case you find yourself spending more than one minute on a single question, you should know it is time to increase your speed. Carrying hardcopy materials or any notes may not serve you well since this is not an open-book exam.
All the candidates before 2017 would only earn either “Pass” or “Fail” results once they completed the exam, but that policy has changed, and now there is Section-Level Feedback Results system. The result presented as a percentage of correct answers from each section of the exam. The new method lets you know your strong and weak areas, that is why it has unsurprisingly received lots of plaudits from many candidates.
If you pass the exam, you will receive your results through an email notification. In addition, you will get two links to the formal “Salesforce Certified” badge and your certification. You can attach the badge to your social media accounts or any other relevant platform and have the privilege to brag about it if need be.
And as if these are not enough, you will also receive an official invitation to the Salesforce Certified Success Community. What a pleasure! And did I say your certification may be shown at the Salesforce official verification website? But you can always opt out or in before taking the exam.
Visit PrepAway: http://www.prepaway.com
Conclusion
So, you can see how pleasurable earning Salesforce Certified Administrator certification can be. But again, the whole process is never going to be a walk in the park. You need to put an extra effort and have your certification goal in mind in order to create your own path to success.
