The Salesforce Platform Developer I Certification was introduced in 2015. During this time, a huge number of people have already passed through this challenge. Today, the possession of this certificate is a necessity for any Salesforce Developer. Every day Salesforce attracts more and more new customers and employees to its ranks, and therefore obtaining this certificate in 2023 remains an urgent and popular issue. Today we want to share with you fresh experience and relevant tips on how to prepare for the Salesforce Platform Developer I Certification in 2023.
1. Start by studying the official “Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I Exam Guide”
This is an important point because Salesforce delivers hundreds of innovative features three times a year during seasonal releases: Spring, Summer, and Winter. And exam questions are constantly updated in accordance with these releases. That is why it is important to study the requirements for a candidate there.
While studying this guide, you may notice requirements that are intimidating at first glance, for example: “The Salesforce Platform Developer I generally has one to two years of experience as a developer and at least six months of experience on the Lightning Platform and has invested time in studying the resources listed in this exam guide”.
However, don’t be afraid! The main requirement for a candidate is a clear understanding of the most basic things in Salesforce, and even if you aren’t a guru in some of the points, this will not prevent you from successfully passing this test. Moreover, I want to encourage you that the passing score isn’t so high - 68%. With proper preparation, you can easily step over this bar.
Also in this guide, you will find a lot of useful tips and links that may be useful for you. For example recommended training and references, additional articles and resources, Trailhead Academy, Trailhead trails, and much more.
2. Explore the “Prepare for Your Salesforce Platform Developer I Credential” trailmix
Although this trailmix doesn’t contain an absolutely complete list of materials, the study of which is guaranteed to allow you to pass the exam, it still contains most of the required information. The trailmix contains useful links, modules, and tasks, the implementation and study of which will allow you to gain basic knowledge - which will be a huge step towards obtaining a certificate.
Also, we want to honestly admit to you that we didn’t perform all the trailhead modules, but only those that our developers considered necessary, for example, Badges related to Apex Development and, of course, obtaining a “Superbadge Apex Specialist”.
Tip: Don't focus all your attention on getting all the Badges from this list, no matter how beautiful they are. Of course, it's very cool when you add to your collection of Badges in your Trailhead Profile, but their fulfillment isn’t a prerequisite for admission to the exam. You can always come back to them later.
3. Study the theory from the official Salesforce documentation first
Only in the official Salesforce documentation, you can be guaranteed to find up-to-date and well-developed primary sources, for example, “Apex Developer Guide” or “Object Reference for the Salesforce Platform”.
Of course, you can and should read additional sources of information, especially when you have already studied the documentation and could not find the right answer to your question.
There are a huge number of popular articles on the Internet, authoritative resources (for example “Salesforce Ben”), and profiles of experienced developers with 100+ years of development experience. The main thing is always to remember that these are only additional sources of information that express the author's approach, opinion, and experience. Need the truth? Go to the documentation!
This is important because sometimes one replaced or accidentally omitted word can completely change the meaning of the entire interpretation. And remember earlier I talked about regular Salesforce updates? The information posted outside the documentation may also become outdated and lose relevance.
4. Practice as much as possible
Firstly, it is an excellent associative way of remembering information. Secondly, this is the only way you can see and realize how everything really works! Sometimes the documentation can be written so dryly and ambiguously at first glance by a beginner that it can drive you to a dead end. Therefore, we definitely advise you to test the theory in practice! And in no case should you cram theory without understanding — this is the wrong way.
We will give an example of a case from JET BI’s developer training, on the basis of which you will be able to clearly understand what we are talking about.
Question: A lead object has a custom field Prior_Email__c. The following trigger is intended to copy the current Email into the Prior_Email__c field any time the Email field is changed (picture below) Which type of exception will this trigger cause?
Answer options:
- a limit exception when doing a bulk update
- a DML exception
- a null reference exception
- a compile-time exception
An experienced developer will only laugh and immediately answer - B. “a DML exception”, and will be absolutely right.
When JET BI”s developer first answered this question, he still didn’t fully understand the principle of the trigger and didn’t know that in this case, in a before-update trigger, you don't need to explicitly call update on the records you want to modify. You are working on them before they go into the database, so you simply need to set the field values you want and that's it. But at that moment he knew about the limits and remembered well that you can't use DML operations inside loops, as this can lead to exceeding the limit of 150 DML operations in one transaction. So he answered A. “a limit exception when doing a bulk update” and was upset to see that it was wrong. Then developer console was launched, he created a trigger exactly like in the question, launched it, and saw the following error:
System.DmlException: Update failed. First exception on row 0 with id 00Q0900000JtWW2EAN; first error: CANNOT_INSERT_UPDATE_ACTIVATE_ENTITY, LeademailTrigger: execution of BeforeUpdate caused by: System.SObjectException: DML statement cannot operate on trigger.new or trigger.old
After that, our developer clearly understood how it works, and most importantly remembered this situation very clearly. But the main charm of this one is that during the exam you will come across a question similar in meaning and will answer it successfully without a single doubt.
5. Practice training tests “Salesforce Platform Developer I Certification” Online
At JET BI we have eLearning Tool - a specialized online portal for self-preparation for passing various exams, passing tests, and training (you can read more about eLearning Tool here). And moreover, there are additional stages of control of the candidate's knowledge, only after which the candidate is allowed to take an external exam. For example, one of these stages is an internal oral exam taken by the best developers of the JET BI company, the delivery of which is aimed at revealing a deep understanding of the subject, and not just passing the test successfully.
However, we understand that you may not have the same opportunities. But we want to please you that to successfully obtain a certificate, you will have enough publicly available online resources, for example Salesforce CRT-450 Exam. Here are training tests with answers and comments from many other people.
However, we will immediately note that these are only training tests, and sometimes there are mistakes. Always be attentive and stick to critical thinking. If you are not sure of the answer and cannot clearly explain it, be sure to double-check! Look for documentation, and look for other options for this issue.
Tip: Create a separate document with all the analyzed questions, where in addition to the correct answer, you will give detailed explanations and attach links to the answers on the Internet as proof. Although it requires additional time, it will greatly help you in preparing for the certificate test. Not only will you understand the subject more deeply, but you will always have a document handy for you to repeat. For me, this approach turned out to be critically important. According to my feelings, it accounted for almost 50% of my success in obtaining a certificate.
6. Study the information about how the exam will be held
This is an equally important point for passing the exam successfully. At Salesforce, trust is the #1 value, and therefore the exam conditions are very strict. It is unacceptable to try to cheat. In the case when you take the exam online, it takes place in a special browser “Respondus LockDown Browser OEM”, which introduces certain restrictions on your PC and allows the proctor to see everything you do, including video monitoring, screen monitoring, and even keyboard button control. If you are suspected of violating the exam conditions, the exam will be stopped immediately and recognized as a failure. Therefore, it is very important to comply with all the requirements described here.
Be honest and everything will go like clockwork!
Conclusion
In conclusion, we want to say that this test is more than feasible and, in fact, not so difficult. The main difficulty lies in determining and adhering to the right tactics for preparation. Of course, this path will be unique for each person. But we are sincerely sure that these tips will help you get the desired result.
Finally, we want to say the obvious thing. Be confident, have a good rest and sleep on the eve of the exam and start the exam in a good mood. And we are sure that everything will work out for you! Good luck!
