How to Prepare for Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I

The Platform Developer I certification exam is a foundational exam for anyone working on the Salesforce platform. While it is a key exam if you are on the path to become a Salesforce Developer, the framework of knowledge gained by preparing for this exam is beneficial for all roles, including Admins, Architects, Business Analysts, Product Owners and Project Managers.

The Salesforce Platform Developer I Certification exam covers a broad range of platform, declarative and programmatic topics. There are no official prerequisite certifications. The official Trailhead Exam Guide can be found here.

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS (MCQ) PATTERN.

60 multiple-choice/multiple-select questions
120 minutes allotted to complete the exam (time allows for unscored questions)
68% is the passing score

TOPICS THAT NEED TO GO THROUGH TO PASS THE CERTIFICATION.

Process Automation & Logic: 40%

1. Be comfortable with declarative process automation. Given my recommendations that you’ve completed the Platform App Builder certification, this should be review. You should understand how to use declarative automation and Apex together when necessary. Check out the Process Automation Specialist Superbadge on Trailhead to validate your knowledge.

2. Start with the basics of Apex. Understanding variables, constants, methods and classes is your first step. Check out Women Code Heroes: Learning to Code by Kieren Jameson. This site is perfect if you are starting from scratch. Demystifying Code For Admins: The Last Step to Apex presentation by Adam Olshansky is helpful.

You will also find a lot of resources on Trailhead. Search “Developer Beginner” and also keyword “Apex”. Start with the Developer Beginner Trail and Object-Oriented Programming for Admins.

3. Know the building blocks of a trigger. What each of them is, where they are used and what they do. Also, understand the proper structure of a trigger as well as best practices. You will find examples of best practices in your studies but learning these also come from exposure through blog articles, virtual and in-person dev groups.

You will be asked to review snippets of code and determine what they will do. The answer might be a particular error message or a particular outcome like a number value. These snippets are not complex and they test you on some of the basic Apex structures but they can be tricky. Just one character in the snippet can change the outcome.

Starting from square one? Check out David Liu’s Apex Academy and build your first trigger! Other resources to consider are Trailhead Apex Triggers and Apex Hours: Introduction to Apex.

4. Gain hands-on experience with SOSL, SOQL and DML. Think about how you can use SOSL and SOQL in your current Salesforce environment. Working in a context you are familiar with and objects, data and use cases that are familiar will help you understand the concepts. Besides SOQL for Admins on Trailhead, there are a multitude of recorded webinars and blog articles that dive deep into these concepts such as this one from Houssam Saoudy.

5. Understand Apex testing, unit tests, code coverage. There is a lot here to digest. Start with understanding the need for unit tests and code coverage and the building blocks of Apex testing. Then get hands-on with writing a simple unit test. Check out Unit Testing on the Lightning Platform on Trailhead.

6. Commit the order of operation to memory. Beware: Make sure you are referencing the most up to date Order of Operation information. You can always find that here in the Apex Developer guide. You will find many unofficial graphical representations with a Google search but you can’t be sure they are up to date.

Some presentations such as this 2020 Apex Hours: Order of Execution in Salesforce presentation will help you digest it, but be sure to always reference the Apex Developers guide as new items have been added since then. Besides generally memorizing the order, try to understand WHY things run in this order.

7. Platform Events / Publish & Subscribe. Start with Platfor m Events Basics on Trailhead.

8. Understand Security Vulnerabilities and how to prevent them. This is mainly just understanding what some of the main vulnerabilities are like cross-site scripting and SOQL injection and being able to recognize them in a given scenario.

Check out Security Guidelines for Apex and Visualforce Development from Salesforce Help and Security Tips for Apex and Visualforce Development in the Apex Developer Guide. These both provide examples of what to look for so you can recognize the code.

9. Study with the Platform Developer I Certification Prep: Process Automation & Logic module in Trailhead.

User Interface: 23%

Understand the basics of Visualforce. Use of Visualforce is giving way to LWC, however it is still on the test, and there are still a lot of Visualforce pages in use today. Understand the controllers and extensions and get hands on. For this section, I found it useful to talk to a mentor to get examples and decision making logic on what to use when. Some helpful Trailhead modules include Visualforce Basics, Visualforce & Lightning Experience and Quick Start: Visualforce.

Dive into Lightning Components. Lightning Web Components and Aura Components. If you are new to coding, this section can get overwhelming. Remember, you will not be asked to write a component on the exam, but you do need to understand the usage and the framework. Yes there are still questions about Aura even though LWC’s are the current component of choice! Also this is an area where it is helpful to talk to a mentor or a dev co-worker. They can help you understand any areas that are not clear.

Start here with a presentation by Adam Olshansky- LWC 101, then check out Trailhead.

Aura Components Basics, Lightning Web Component Basics.

Quick Start: Lightning Web Components. Also, Apex Hours: Introduction to Lightning Web Components.

Study with the Platform Developer I Certification Prep: User Interface module in Trailhead.

Testing, Debugging, and Deployment: 17%

Check out all of the Developer tools. Get hands on with different environments and tools and understand when to use them. Salesforce DX, Salesforce CLI and Dev console. Command-Line Interface and Developer Console Basics from Trailhead can help you. Debugging, Testing, and Deploying Apex from the Apex Developer Guide covers this topic nicely also.

Understand Apex Testing and Code Coverage. Check out Apex Testing in Trailhead and review Testing Best Practices and Code Coverage Best Practices from the Salesforce Apex Developer Guide.

Study with the Platform Developer I Certification Prep: Testing, Debugging and Deployment module in Trailhead.

Data Modeling and Management: 13%

Know the data model options, examples, and limitations. If you don’t have a lot of data model design experience then hit the Trails and gain exposure to different scenarios and why they were built that way. Check out Data Modeling on Trailhead and DFW Developer User Group – Dev Up Session 1 Objects and Relationships.

Study with the Platform Developer I Certification Prep: Salesforce Fundamentals, Database Modeling and Management module in Trailhead.

Salesforce Fundamentals: 7%

Understand Multi-Tenant Architecture. Check out Understand the Salesforce Architecture on Trailhead.

Know the design frameworks of MVC and Lightning Components. You can find a good overview of MVC here from Shrey Sharma and an overview of the Lightning Component Framework here.

BELOW ARE THE LINKS THAT I HAVE REFERRED

I read all of the Salesforce documentation. In doing so, I recognized many of the questions within the documentation. These guides are more accessible and understandable than you might expect.