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Cert++

  1. Home
  2. Study Resources
  3. Platform Data Architect
Resource Pack
·Study Checklist

Platform Data Architect

4-Step Path to Passing

  1. 1
    Complete the
    Data Architecture Trailmix
  2. 2
    Look at the
    Study Checklist
    Every concept you need to know for your exam, available for free to check off as you learn.
  3. 3
    Attempt
    Practice Exams
  4. 4
    Schedule Your Exam

Core Resources

  • Cert++ Practice Exam

    Free practice questions with detailed explanations. $10/mo for access to all questions, features, and certifications.

    certplusplus.com

  • Daily Certle Game

    Practice your Salesforce certification knowledge daily with a challenge inspired by Wordle.

    certplusplus.com

  • Focus on Force: Data Architect Study Guide (Paid)

    Paid study guide and practice questions for the Data Architect exam.

    focusonforce.com

  • Official Trailmix

    Salesforce's curated Trailmix for the Platform Data Architect credential, covering the official Trailhead study path.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Official Exam Guide

    Official exam guide with topics, objectives, sample questions, and recommended resources.

    help.salesforce.com

  • Avoid Account Data Skew for Peak Performance

    Engineering blog post on record-locking skew and sharing-calculation skew with Account records.

    developer.salesforce.com

  • Parent-Child Data Skew

    Developer guide section on parent-child skew, performance implications, and mitigation strategies.

    developer.salesforce.com

  • Approaches for Tuning Force.com Performance

    Engineering blog post on skinny tables, custom indexes, and long-term LDV performance tuning.

    developer.salesforce.com

  • Loading Large Data Sets with Bulk API

    Developer reference on Bulk API batch sizing, parallel jobs, and large-scale import patterns.

    developer.salesforce.com

  • Cert++ Discord

    The Cert++ community discord for Salesforce professionals. Exam prep, resource sharing, study groups, and more. Free and open to all.

    discord.gg

  • r/salesforce

    Community discussions on passing architect exams, data architecture patterns, and exam strategy.

    reddit.com

  • Trailblazer Community

    Connect with other Salesforce learners for peer support, mentoring, and study groups.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • SFXD Discord

    Large Salesforce community discord server with channels for admin topics, career advice, and technical help.

    discord.gg

  • Salesforce Certification Score Calculator

    Check your exam score based on section results. Estimates your total score from category percentages (community-maintained third-party tool).

    scuvanov.github.io

Exam Overview

From the official exam guide

Questions

65

60 scored5 unscored

Duration

105 min

1h 45m

To Pass

65%

Min. score

Pricing

$200 registration · $100 retake

Delivery

Online proctored or at a testing center

Experience

5+ years recommended

Prerequisites

No prerequisites required

Exam Topics

Each topic section shows the topic weight, learning objectives, and links to study resources.

Data Modeling/Database Design25%

Object relationships and their implications for sharing and cascade delete, junction objects, field types, formula fields vs. custom metadata types, big objects use cases and constraints, data skew types and mitigation, and schema design for multi-cloud orgs.

  • Compare and contrast various techniques and considerations for designing a data model for the Customer 360 Platform.
  • Given a scenario, recommend approaches and techniques to design a scalable data model that obeys the current security and sharing model.
  • Compare and contrast various techniques, approaches and considerations for capturing and managing business and technical metadata.
  • Compare and contrast the different reasons for implementing big objects versus standard/custom objects within a production instance.
  • Given a customer scenario, recommend approaches and techniques to avoid data skew.

Resources

  • Superbadge: Data Categorization and Access

    Define and configure data access levels based on sensitivity and compliance requirements.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Data Modeling

    Objects, fields, relationships, lookup vs. master-detail, and Schema Builder.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Custom Metadata Types Basics

    Custom metadata records, formulas, default values, and deployment behavior.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Custom Metadata Types Advanced

    Programmatic access, manageability settings, and packaging custom metadata.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Big Object Basics

    Big object use cases, index design, SOQL constraints, and querying with async SOQL.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Strategies for Big Data Architecture

    Relational vs. non-relational storage, big object vs. standard object trade-offs, and solution comparison.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Scalability with Salesforce

    Platform scalability concepts, multi-tenant architecture, and data management at scale.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Data Security

    Org-wide defaults, profiles, roles, permission sets, and record-level sharing for architects.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Accounts and Contacts

    Account-contact relationships, person accounts, and contacts to multiple accounts modeling.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

Master Data Management5%

MDM implementation styles (registry, consolidation, coexistence, centralized hub), golden record survivorship rules, external ID strategy for cross-system identity, data quality and deduplication, and data enrichment from external reference data.

  • Compare and contrast the various techniques, approaches and considerations for implementing master data management (MDM) Solutions.
  • Given a customer scenario, recommend and use techniques for establishing a golden record or system of truth for the customer domain in a single org.
  • Given a customer scenario, recommend approaches and techniques for consolidating data attributes from multiple sources.
  • Given a customer scenario, recommend appropriate approaches and techniques to capture and maintain customer reference and metadata.

Resources

  • Import and Export with Data Management Tools

    Data Import Wizard and Dataloader.io hands-on: insert, update, upsert, and export records.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Superbadge: Data Protection

    Address data corruption events and implement proactive data protection measures.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Data Quality

    Assessing, measuring, and improving the quality of data across Salesforce objects.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Duplicate Management

    Duplicate rules, matching rules, and merge behavior for Account, Contact, and Lead.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Manage Data as a Salesforce Admin

    End-to-end trail: data modeling, import/export, data quality, and picklist management.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Picklist Administration

    Picklist field types, managing values, global value sets, and dependent picklists.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Salesforce Data Mask

    Masking sensitive data in sandbox orgs to protect PII while testing MDM workflows.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Connectors for Data Integration

    Integration connectors for multi-source consolidation: Salesforce Connect, MuleSoft, and archiving.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

Salesforce Data Management25%

License type selection and object access, single view of the customer across systems, Salesforce Connect and external objects for data virtualization, data consistency patterns, and consolidating data across multiple Salesforce instances.

  • Given a customer scenario, recommend appropriate combination of Salesforce license types to effectively leverage standard and custom objects.
  • Given a customer scenario, recommend techniques to ensure data is persisted in a consistent manner.
  • Given a scenario with multiple systems of interaction, describe techniques to represent a single view of the customer on the Salesforce Platform.
  • Given a customer scenario, recommend a design to effectively consolidate and/or leverage data from multiple Salesforce instances.

Resources

  • Quick Start: Salesforce Connect

    External data sources, external objects, and indirect lookup relationships with OData.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Salesforce Licensing

    License types, permission relationships, editions, and add-ons for object and feature access.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Quick Look: Informatica

    Overview of Informatica as a third-party MDM and data integration tool with Salesforce.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Data Cloud One

    Data Cloud One architecture for connecting and sharing data across multiple Salesforce orgs.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Org Performance at Scale

    Factors affecting org scale, mitigating failing data loads, and streamlining search and reporting.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Salesforce & Heroku Integration

    Heroku Connect, data sync patterns, Salesforce Connect, and REST API integration with Heroku.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Data Detect: Quick Look

    Locate sensitive data across your org to minimize exposure and support governance programs.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Data 360: Govern and Secure

    Tagging, data spaces, policies, and data sharing controls across multi-org Data 360 deployments.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

Data Governance10%

GDPR compliance design (field encryption, right to erasure, data residency, anonymization vs. deletion), Shield Platform Encryption key management and trade-offs, enterprise data governance programs, data classification, California Consumer Privacy Act basics, and Privacy Center.

  • Given a customer scenario, recommend an approach for designing a GDPR compliant data model.
  • Compare and contrast various approaches and considerations for designing and implementing an enterprise data governance program.

Resources

  • Superbadge: Data Stream Fundamentals

    Configure Data 360 data streams, formula fields, and data model objects for unified data governance.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Shield Platform Encryption

    Encryption at rest, key management, tenant secrets, and limitations on encrypted fields.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Shield Platform Encryption: Quick Look

    Overview of Shield Platform Encryption features, supported field types, and key concepts.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Privacy Center

    Data management policies, right-to-erasure requests, and data lifecycle management for GDPR.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • California Consumer Privacy Act Basics

    CCPA requirements, data subject rights, and how they map to Salesforce data practices.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Data Governance Strategies

    Tags, data classifications, governance policies, and policy framework setup.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Secure Your Apps with Salesforce Shield

    Full Shield trail: Platform Encryption, Event Monitoring, Field Audit Trail, and Shield features.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Real-Time Event Monitoring

    Event log files, threat detection, and monitoring user behavior for data governance.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Permission Set Groups

    Bundling permission sets, muting permissions, and granular access control for compliance.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

Large Data Volume Considerations20%

LDV data model design, skinny table eligibility and provisioning, custom index eligibility and null-value limitations, SOQL selective query design, data archiving and purging strategies, big objects for historical data, virtualized data options, and asynchronous processing for large record sets.

  • Given a customer scenario, design a data model that scales considering LDV and solution performance.
  • Given a customer scenario, recommend a data archiving and purging plan that is optimal for the customer's data storage management needs.
  • Given a customer scenario, decide when to use virtualized data and describe virtualized data options.

Resources

  • Superbadge: Flow Data Collections Optimization

    Troubleshoot and optimize data collections in Flow for large-volume scenarios.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Large Data Volumes

    Data model design for LDV, skinny tables, custom indexes, bulk loading, deletes, and extracts.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • SOQL for Admins

    SOQL syntax, relationship queries, aggregate functions, and building selective queries.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Archive Basics

    Salesforce Archive product: data archiving concepts, storage optimization, and retention policies.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Amazon DynamoDB Data Access

    Salesforce Connect adapter for DynamoDB: external objects and data virtualization without ETL.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Apex Triggers

    Trigger patterns, bulk trigger design, and avoiding governor limits with large record sets.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Backup & Recover Basics

    Data backup and recovery solution: backup configurations, scheduling, and monitoring.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Asynchronous Apex

    Batch Apex, Queueable Apex, future methods, and scheduled jobs for large-volume processing.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

Data Migration15%

Data quality at load time (field mapping, validation, deduplication), Bulk API 2.0 vs. SOAP API performance trade-offs, parallel vs. serial DML modes, batch size tuning, external IDs for referential integrity, and data export strategies.

  • Given a customer scenario, recommend appropriate techniques and methods for ensuring high data quality at load time.
  • Compare and contrast various techniques for improving performance when migrating LDVs into Salesforce.
  • Compare and contrast various techniques and considerations for exporting data from Salesforce.

Resources

  • Improve Data Quality for a Recruiting App

    Cross-object formulas, validation rules, and roll-up summary fields hands-on.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Superbadge: Data Quality and Validation

    Apply validation rules, duplicate rules, and data quality practices in a hands-on scenario.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Data Management

    Data Import Wizard, Data Loader, export options, and import/export tool selection.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Platform API Basics

    REST, SOAP, Bulk API 2.0, and Pub/Sub API: when to use each for data integration.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Validation Rules

    Field validation syntax, best practices, error messages, and bypass strategies.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Formulas and Validations

    Formula fields, roll-up summaries, and validation rules for enforcing data consistency.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Apex Basics & Database

    DML operations, SOQL and SOSL queries, governor limits, and database interaction patterns.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

  • Data Management Fundamentals

    Data strategy, information needs, quality assurance, and governance concepts for migration planning.

    trailhead.salesforce.com

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