The Salesforce Certified Advanced Administrator certification is intended for experienced Salesforce Administrators who are proficient in understanding the administration best practices, skilled in utilizing the Salesforce features and functionality to solve various business issues, and competent in Salesforce configuration maintenance. Such specialists are able to work with advanced management, configuration and app extending options within the Salesforce platform. To add more, candidates are to pass the Salesforce Advanced Administrator exam to become certified professionals.
Since this is an advanced designation, you should obtain the Salesforce Administrator credential first. It proves your skills in supporting Salesforce implementation by dealing with its common features and functionality. Only then, you can take steps towards the Salesforce Certified Advanced Administrator designation. For that, you should complete the course offered by the vendor Administration Essentials for Experienced Admins, in brief, ADM 211, or get the corresponding knowledge and skills. Besides, checking the official prep material will also contribute to the success.
The exam content is divided into 7 topics that check definite skills. The first one covers security and access. In this section, you should demonstrate your skills in dealing with grant access, sharing model, report and email folder access, Territory Management. In addition, you should be able to define the implications of user authentication, compare the capabilities of permission sets, custom profiles, and delegated administration, along with such complex business models as Account, Contacts, and Person Accounts.
The second topic is dedicated to objects and applications. Here your skills in implementing the suitable solution to enhance objects and the UX/UI with apps will be measured. Thus, you should be skilled in dealing with a junction object, record type, object creator, schema builder, master-detail, lighting app builder, app manager, lightning page analyze button.
The third topic is all about auditing and monitoring. This section checks your skills in defining the suitable tools to provide troubleshooting system activity. Besides, you should be able to describe how to sensitive data is secured to support a legal/business/suitable use case in various environments, such as production and/or sandbox. In addition, you should be able to troubleshoot security settings that can change the system access.
The fourth topic aims to check your skills in cloud apps. Thus, you should be able to explain Salesforce features that help Sales users carry out the sale process and provide cooperation between customers and support agents. Your proficiency in understanding the capabilities of Territory and Forecasting Management, creating Salesforce Knowledge, Service entitlements, and their processes, will be checked.
The fifth topic is centered on data and analytics management. In this part, you are expected to be capable of describing the tools to evaluate and improve data quality, use the suitable methods to access, connect, backup data outside of the Salesforce platform. You also, should show your skills to satisfy complex reporting requirements by defining the best analytic tools within the given scenario. To add more, your ability to import data into Salesforce by applying the appropriate methods and tools will be assessed.
The sixth topic focuses on your skills in working with environment management and deployment. This means that you should be able to work with AppExchange, sandboxes, and change sets. In addition, you should perform a solid comprehension of best practices used to transfer metadata between environments.
And the seventh section evaluates your competence in process automation. Within this topic, you will be given scenarios within which you will be tested on utilizing the best tool to define the solution or solve a business problem or choosing the best method for fixing declarative automation. Besides, you should be able to describe the limitation of each declarative automation.
The Salesforce Advanced Administrator exam will contain 60 multiple-choice questions and 5 unscored items, which you are to complete within 105 minutes. You will succeed in the test, when you score at least 65%. Before enrolling in the certification procedure, you are to pay $200 of the exam fee. Since the exam is a proctored one, it can be taken in an online proctored environment or at a testing center.
According to the Payscale website, the annual salary of the Salesforce Certified Advanced Administrator is about $96,331 per year, but developing your skills by getting more experience, your paycheck can increase up to $136,000 per annum.