Overview
The Salesforce Advanced Administrator Certification is intended for Salesforce experts who leverage the advanced administration capabilities of Salesforce, optimize and extend Sales Cloud and Service Cloud applications, and design advanced reports, dashboards, and business process automation. In order to attempt this exam, you must have already passed the Salesforce Administrator certification.
The Advanced Administrator certification, also called ADM211, is an enhanced version of the Administrator certification. It signifies your ability to take the Salesforce platform to the next level from an administrative perspective. By passing the Advanced Administrator certification, it ensures you have an advanced knowledge of the Salesforce platform.
As of Summer ’13:
- 60 question, multiple choice exam (includes multi-select questions)
- 65% is the passing score (39 questions correct)
- 90 minutes to answer all questions
- $200 fee with $100 retake fee
- Prerequisite: Administrator certification
Personal Experience
I passed my Salesforce Advanced Administrator certification on the Winter ’13 release. This was my third salesforce certification, after both my Salesforce Developer certification and my Salesforce Administrator certification.
From my experience, I found the Salesforce Study Guide to be pretty accurate for all of the exams. Also, if you are a partner, you can find training videos in the Partner Portal which contains all of the videos listed under “Recommended Training and References” in the study guide. Watch these videos. Also, it never hurts to know the Force.com Fundamentals. For this specific exam, I would have a very good understanding of:
- Sharing
- Role Hierarchy
- Reports and Dashboards
- Native CRM functionality – Understand objects like Opportunities, Leads, Accounts, etc.
- Objects – Know the difference between standard and custom
- Capabilities of Chatter
- User Configuration
- Validation Rules
- Data Loader
- Page Layouts
- Record Types
- Understanding the Debug Log
- Salesforce Knowledge
- Salesforce Ideas
- Salesforce CRM Content
- Deployments
- Approval Process
- User Profiles
- Advanced Currency Management
Note: These are just some things to focus on, there will be questions outside of these particular topics. Focus on the Exam outline in the Study guide.
Tips and Tricks
It is important to understand how the Salesforce certification process works and how Salesforce in general works. Salesforce has 3 releases a year, Winter, Spring, and Summer. Each release adds new questions to the exam. From my experience, new features are typically tested more heavily.
Now, while taking the test it is important to do a few things:
- Mark every question you aren’t 100% certain on. Remember, you only need 39 questions correct to pass, so if you only mark 15, you are good to go!
- Eliminate any ridiculous answers from the multi-select options. Remember, you only need to select the specified amount of correct answers.
- Read each question carefully. While I don’t think there are trick questions on the test, the questions do sometimes come in paragraph form and it is crucial to have an understanding of the entire question before you answer.
- Take your time. You have more than enough time to finish this exam. Don’t be surprised if you finish with half of the time left. Utilize that time to review and ensure you selected the answers you intended.
Standard Information
Some aspects of the Salesforce certification process are the same no matter what certification you are attempting:
- All Salesforce exams are on the Webassessor platform
- The only information you get at the end of the exam is Pass or Fail
- If you need to contact Salesforce certification support:
Maintenance Exams
As with all Salesforce certifications, you must maintain the certification upon every release of Salesforce. This means you must pass a maintenance exam three times a year. It costs $100 a year for each path, with Salesforce certifications falling under two paths:
- Admininstrator
- Advanced Administrator
- Sales Cloud Consultant
- Service Cloud Consultant
- Developer
- Advanced Developer
As you can see above, the Advanced Administrator certification is part of the Administrator tree. This means you must complete 3 Administrator maintenance exams a year to maintain your certification. It is important to note that these exams will also maintain your Administrator certification. The maintenance exams are relatively simply, usually 10-15 questions related to the latest release. Your best bet is to read the release notes and watch the release webinar.
Final Thoughts
An Advanced Administrator is able to take the Salesforce platform to the next level. In my opinion, to be able to administer a Salesforce org on an enterprise level, this is a certification you simply must obtain. It proves you understand the platform at an advanced level.
This article is part of my Sales Certification Series. For more information on the other certifications, please check them out.
Hi Jesse,
Awesome stuff!!
I’m a Marketo Certified Expert, Salesforce Certified Administrator and Developer.
I was actually looking forward to go for Salesforce Advanced Administrator and Sales Cloud consultant examinations.
Do you happen to have any reference guides/dumps for the same?
If yes, please reach out to me at neeraj.pumba@gmail.com
Thanks a ton in advance and keep up the good work.
Cheers!!!
Hi Jesse,
Im planning to give my advance admin 301 certification on 21st may 2015.Im very nervous and confused.
Have mixed thoughts whether im preparing right and doing correct practice exams.Please I would appreciate if you can send me dumps of practice questions for the same.
I see many practice exms online but most of them are of 2013 and 2013.
It would be great if you can help me out with this.
Thanks
Sandy
Hi Jesse,
I am planning to take my advance admin 301 certification.
I see many practice exams online but most of them are of 2013 and 2013.
It would be great if you can send some study materials and dump for the same.
Thanks in advance for your support.
Thanks
Kogila
As an additional step, I would recommend to go through Salesforce ADM-211 exam simulation available here https://exambraindumps.com/ADM-211.html Really amazing tool to check your knowledge.
Has anyone used Anotonio’s suggestion? I have been working with Salesforce for the past 6 months and I have my ADM 201 exam but I keep failing the Adv ADM 211 exam. I have used the study guides etc. Worst thing is I don’t know where I’m going wrong.
I should also mention that I have Studied and completed the Online Course: Administration Essentials for Experienced Admins and I have used Quizlet.
From my experience I have found that the online course only covers 60% (if even) of what is on the exam which I find to be very frustrating. Having spent hours online looking at blogs etc. I subscribed to Quizlet which seems to be highly recommended. Word of warning, the questions on Quizlet are NOT anyway similar to the actual exam questions. In fact I would go as far as saying that if you can get 100% of the answers correct on Quizlet you will still fail the exam.
I have looked at the sample questions in http://www.exambraindumps.com and they do not resemble the questions on the exam that I have just taken. So can anyone backup Antonio’s suggestion? Sorry Antonio, I don’t mean to be in anyway ungrateful or disrespectful to your suggestion above but I just want to be sure.