Salesforce Certification Series: Advanced Administrator

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:

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:

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.

Advertisement

Go to Smartblog Theme Options -> Ad Management to enter your ad code (300x250)

Comments are closed.