Platform Development Lifecycle and Deployment Architect
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Core Resources
Exam Overview
From the official exam guide
Questions
65
Duration
120 min
To Pass
63%
Pricing
$200 registration · $100 retake
Delivery
Online proctored or at a testing center
Experience
2-3 years recommended
Prerequisites
No prerequisites required
Exam Topics
Each topic section shows the topic weight, learning objectives, and links to study resources.
Application Lifecycle Management8%
Development methodologies (waterfall, agile, hybrid), ALM maturity model, governance strategy selection, and risk-based trade-offs between delivery speed and process control.
- Given the project risk and customer requirements, explain how to assess the benefits and risks of the different development methodologies and recommend the appropriate governance strategies based on the customer maturity.
Resources
Planning13%
ALM maturity assessment, environment risk identification, governance framework design, and Salesforce seasonal release risk mitigation strategies.
- Given a complex customer scenario, assess application lifecycle management maturity and identify the people, technology, and processes required.
- Understand customer environment risks and articulate appropriate mitigation strategies.
- Given a customer scenario, analyze and recommend the appropriate governance framework.
- Given a customer scenario involving a new Salesforce release (Summer, Winter, Spring), recommend the appropriate strategy to mitigate risks.
Resources
System Design15%
Org strategy design, agile tooling for architecture, sandbox types (Developer, Developer Pro, Partial, Full), environment topology for multi-stream projects, and deployment strategy selection.
- Explain the advantages of using agile tools to support an agile development process.
- Given a customer landscape and their requirements, evaluate business, technical, and architectural considerations that support the defined org strategy.
- Given a customer scenario, define an environment (sandbox) strategy that utilizes the correct sandbox types (for example, multiple project streams, training requirements, staging, production, and hotfixes).
- Given a scenario, compare, contrast, and recommend the components and tools of a successful deployment strategy.
Resources
Building14%
Source control branching strategies (GitFlow, trunk-based, feature branching), org-based vs. package-based development models, scratch org workflows, Apex test data strategy, and code quality practices.
- Given a customer scenario, explain how to use source control branching/versioning/merging, and recommend appropriate strategies.
- Describe the appropriate approaches to building test data strategy and unit test to ensure successful code (positive, negative, permission-based, large data volume).
- Given a customer scenario, describe the appropriate development model (org-based vs package-based) and development environment (scratch org vs sandboxes).
- Describe the methods to ensure the delivery of quality code, such as coding standards, pull requests, code review, and static code analysis.
Resources
Deploying14%
Metadata API vs. Tooling API capabilities and limitations, pre/post-deploy steps, items unsupported by APIs, technical reference data deployment, and Change Set limitations.
- Given a scenario, describe the capabilities, limitations, and considerations when using the Metadata and Tooling APIs for deployment.
- Given a scenario, describe approaches to handle pre and post-deployment steps, including items not supported via the APIs.
- Given a scenario, describe approaches to manage and deploy technical reference data.
Resources
Testing13%
Testing methodology (unit, integration, UAT, regression), test execution and Apex coverage requirements, test data strategy (SeeAllData=false, data factories, Data Mask), and sandbox-based testing environments.
- Given a customer scenario, describe and recommend an appropriate testing methodology.
- Given a customer testing strategy, describe the appropriate test execution methodology and coverage requirements.
- Given a customer scenario, describe and recommend a unified test data strategy that utilizes representative data in a secure manner throughout the development lifecycle.
Resources
Releasing13%
Managed, unmanaged, and unlocked package types and trade-offs, sandbox-to-release plan mapping for multi-stream projects, and release management strategy design.
- Given a scenario, analyze and explain the use cases and considerations when using managed, unmanaged, and unlocked packages.
- Apply map sandbox strategy to a specific release plan, taking into consideration multiple project streams, training requirements, staging, and hotfixes.
- Given a customer scenario, describe and recommend an appropriate release management strategy.
Resources
Operating10%
Implications of direct production changes, integrating ad-hoc production changes back into ALM, and artifact management across multi-org environments.
- Given a detailed customer environment scenario including a specific request, explain the implications of incorporating the request directly in a production environment.
- Given a customer scenario where changes are made directly in production, explain the implications on the development lifecycle and steps to integrate changes into application lifecycle management.
- Given a multi-org customer scenario, compare and contrast approaches for managing common release artifacts.
Resources
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