Development

Top Salesforce Developer Certifications for 2021

Salesforce is one of the most powerful business technologies on the market, which makes Salesforce certifications a great way to gain expertise and enhance your career as a developer. At Oktana we are committed to the professional growth of everyone on our team. That’s why we have a specialized training team that guides and prepares our entire squad to tackle new challenges and to help them build expertise across the Salesforce ecosystem and across a range of languages, frameworks, and platforms.

During recent months we have published many articles about Salesforce certifications. They are compiled here to help you figure out which option is the best to boost your career:

1. Salesforce Certified Administrator

Overview:

Exam Duration: 105 minutes
Questions: 60 multiple-choice questions + 5 non-scored

The Salesforce administrator certification helps you better understand Salesforce CRM fundamentals and demonstrates your expertise and abilities in the platform. You should be able to maintain a Salesforce org, support common business requirements and inquiries, and last but not least, execute Salesforce administrative tasks.
Not sure what Salesforce admins do? Start with this Trailhead module: Salesforce Admin: Quick Look. (10 min)

2. Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I

Overview:

Exam Duration: 110 minutes
Questions: Content: 60 multiple-choice questions + 5 non-scored

Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I is probably one of the most important and complete certifications that Salesforce offers. Additionally, it is a prerequisite for many other certifications such as the Salesforce Certified Platform Developer II and it is the first step to becoming a system architect. It is an excellent way to demonstrate to your peers and customers that you have the required skills to complete a successful development project.

3. Salesforce Certified Platform Developer II

Overview:

Exam Duration: 120 minutes
Questions: Content: 60 multiple-choice questions

The Salesforce Platform Developer II certification exam may seem daunting at first, but with some studying and determination, you’ll have that certification under your belt in no time.

It’s important to mention that to achieve this certification you must have already obtained the Salesforce Platform Developer I certification. During your preparation for this certification, you will learn how to leverage the advanced programmatic capabilities of the Salesforce platform and data modeling to include more complex business logic and UIs in applications.

4. Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud Consultant

Overview:

Exam Duration: 90 minutes
Questions: Content: 60 multiple-choice questions

This certification enables you to design and implement solutions that are maintainable, scalable, and meet nonprofit business requirements. During your preparation for this certification, you will build a solid understanding of data management and database concepts, understanding of internet technologies and cloud computing, and more. If you are interested in earning this certification, you must first become a Salesforce Certified Administrator.

5. Salesforce JavaScript Developer I

Overview:

Exam Duration: 105 minutes
Questions: Content: 60 multiple-choice questions

The Salesforce JavaScript Developer I certification, introduced in 2020, is an excellent way to demonstrate experience developing with one of the most popular web programming languages. JavaScript developers work with front-end and back-end development and even related technologies like Salesforce’s Lightning web components. This credential is a great way to further your development career.

6. MuleSoft Certified Developer – Level 1 (Mule 4)

Overview:

Exam Duration: 120 minutes
Questions: Content: 60 multiple-choice questions

MuleSoft streamlines the process of integrating various systems, like new APIs, Salesforce, ERP, or legacy applications. It is a unique technology that makes it easier to integrate systems and manage the entire lifecycle of your APIs, including building, testing, deploying, and managing.

Even though there are no prerequisites for this certification, our team recommends having background knowledge of REST API services, the basics of web concepts, HTTP requests, and knowing how these work from a server perspective.

7. Tableau Desktop Specialist Certification

Overview:

Exam Duration: 1 hour
Questions: 30 multiple-choice questions

Tableau is a visual platform that transforms the way we use data to solve problems. It empowers people and organizations to make the most out of their data. In 2019, Tableau was acquired by Salesforce, but its mission remains the same: to help people see and understand their data.

Our team highly recommends this certification. Companies like Amazon, Experian, and Unilever trust Tableau business intelligence (BI) and analytics software to explore, visualize and securely share data in the form of workbooks and dashboards. Tableau is very user-friendly with drag-and-drop functionality. Tableau Desktop Specialist allows you to quickly clean, analyze, and visualize your data.

8. Informatica Specialist

Overview:

Duration: 90 minutes
Questions: 70 multiple-choice questions

Okay, it’s not an official Salesforce certification, it’s more like a complementary certification. Informatica enables you to migrate data from different data sources and transform the data according to business requirements.

Informatica certification is in heavy demand by enterprise companies that have large databases they would like to connect to Salesforce. If you work with Salesforce, this certification will expand on the methods you know to integrate Salesforce plus enable you to provide additional value to your internal teams or clients.

Interested in working on Salesforce projects? We are now hiring! Check out our open positions on our careers page.

Oktana YouTube: Embed & Share Videos in Salesforce

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million. That’s why we are proud to announce Oktana YouTube, our newest Lightning Web Component for Salesforce.

Videos can be a strategic ally when it comes to communicating complex and important messages. Think about training the team on that new app you just purchased to increase sales productivity or that anniversary message from the CEO that cheers everyone up. Both are messages that need to be understood clearly and that have a greater impact when they feel more personal. Oktana YouTube makes your life easier by creating a place in your Salesforce org to embed and share YouTube videos to communicate with your team.

No code needed: Oktana YouTube is all about simplicity

Oktana Youtube is based on the Lightning Web Component technology. It is easy for Salesforce admins to install it from the AppExchange and to enable it on any Salesforce page. Drag and drop the component and you will be all set.

Alexis M. – Developer @Oktana Peru

Simplicity is at the core of Lightning Web Components and Oktana YouTube is no exception. Installing it from the AppExchange takes three (3!) clicks. Once the component is installed, you just enable it on the Salesforce page of your preference. The Lightning App Builder makes this easy for you. Drag the component and drop it wherever you prefer. As you can see, no coding skills are required to add Oktana YouTube to your org.

Admins have full control

As an admin, you get to decide whether to embed a corporate video for all of your users or let them decide what to watch according to their needs. That’s up to you. If you need them to watch a specific video (let’s say a tutorial, a demo, or a message from the team lead), paste the YouTube ID in and you are all set. If you prefer them to be able to search, just leave the YouTube ID blank.

Oktana YouTube means flexible layout

As you create a new page in Salesforce, you also decide where to place your components. We recommend the upper right corner as the best spot, but you can move it according to your needs. Oktana YouTube also allows you to adjust the title and the height to fit your expectations. Good enough? You get the same flexibility on desktop and mobile. It doesn’t matter where you are, you can always watch your embedded videos.

Search videos

As a Salesforce admin, you can allow your users to search YouTube videos from within your org. How does this work? Exactly as YouTube does. Enter keywords and the Lightning Web Component will retrieve related videos. Every user has their own viewing history stored, making it easier to locate previously watched videos. And you can always clear your search history with a simple click.

Oktana YouTube is useful for everyone because it provides YouTube functionality in an intuitive way. If the admin allows it, users can visualize, share, and search any video they need. Anyone can use Oktana YouTube with other components in the same panel/screen. This way, users can access important videos without leaving Salesforce.

Juan C. – QA Analyst @ Oktana Peru

All of this functionality makes Oktana YouTube a useful component you should definitely try. We leverage the YouTube API to embed and share tutorials, demos, or any other important message to your team right in your org.

Install Oktana YouTube and give yourself another channel for your internal communication strategy. At Oktana, we care about your efficiency and experience in Salesforce, so if you think this is a good match for your company, install the Oktana YouTube Lightning Web Component for free from the AppExchange.

We create Salesforce products, check them out.

Why become a Salesforce Developer in Bolivia

Thinking about a tech career? There are a lot of different directions, but the Salesforce developer path is one that will enable you to quickly get started and expose you to numerous technologies as you work with companies to integrate and customize Salesforce. While a coding background is definitely helpful, Salesforce is a really good place to start your tech career.

You can explore this career path from the perspective of two of our Salesforce developers, Erwin and Sergio. They’re both new to Salesforce development, having joined Oktana Bolivia in 2020. They deserve an extra round of applause since their team started remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic!

In Bolivia, very few people know about Salesforce which surprises most of our team because they can see it’s a platform with a lot of potential. Because of its size and complexity, with so many different products, learning Salesforce on your own can be intimidating, but Erwin and Sergio have found that the learning materials and coaching provided by their trainer made everything much easier.

Since childhood, both Erwin and Sergio showed a strong interest in technology, especially video game creation. This passion eventually led them both to software development. Before they joined Oktana, they had never worked with Salesforce, but had gained experience with different languages like Angular, C++, and Java.

Similarities with common programming languages

Now that they have been working with the platform for several months, they have found some similarities with common programming languages:

Salesforce uses Apex, a proprietary language very similar to Java. The syntax is Java, but simpler.
The same happens with Lightning Web Components. They have a Java base, making their creation easier for Java developers.
The way Salesforce manages data is by storing everything in metadata. You can manipulate it using SOQL, which is similar to SQL.

Benefits of Salesforce

As a Salesforce developer, you help businesses by helping them integrate with a secure and scalable platform that’s easy to customize and upgrade without anything breaking. From the point of view of our Oktana Bolivia, here are some additional benefits of Salesforce:

Efficient: With just clicks, you can create a structure very quickly. Comparing it with other programming languages where you have to create the database from scratch, using Salesforce is much easier because the database structure is already created for you. Also, the way Salesforce organizes your information is great. If you have to make a change in Salesforce, and if you setup your metadata correctly, it is simpler to reorganize it, saving a lot of time.
Drag & drop page layouts: Salesforce lets you move fast by dragging elements and following defined steps which allows you to focus on other development.
Mobile: Salesforce offers a mobile application that lets you work like you would in the browser. When you build functionality for Salesforce, it can be made immediately available on the Salesforce app, so you don’t need to build a separate mobile app.
Platform: The Salesforce platform is very intuitive. Salesforce teaches you to think about the easiest way to solve a problem, so it’s quite easy to follow this trend. For example, if you start working with Lightning Web Components, when you get some practice, you learn to create components one on top of the other and that interact within the same page, understanding how the components communicate with each other.
Environments: Salesforce already has everything hosted for you. It’s easier to develop in a sandbox environment, then upload it later to production. You don’t have to deploy, just take it to a sandbox to upload it later to a host and then production.

Salesforce best practices

On the other hand, working with Salesforce forces you to learn good programming practices like:

When you develop with Salesforce, it forces you to be more orderly and develop in the most optimal way possible, so your code is not chaotic. It’s really how you should program on any platform in any language.
Likewise, all the out-of-the-box tools are very well made and give you ideas of how you should develop if you aren’t working in Salesforce.

“I consider that the creators of Salesforce are THE BEST, they thought it through very well, and you learn from this.”
Erwin M – Developer

Challenges while learning Salesforce

Maybe the toughest thing is the declarative part of the flows. Salesforce has tools to automate data management. One is the Process Builder where you can develop with clicks, also with the Flow Builder, which allows you to create complex solutions all with clicks, too. In the beginning, it can be a bit complicated to select the right tool for each type of request, but with practice, you get to know everything that Salesforce offers and can do.

Plus, at Oktana, with the onboarding training and experience on different practice projects, you have an excellent base to get to know Salesforce much better.

“There is a lot of information about Salesforce, so it is difficult to know everything, but with practice, you gradually get used to using this platform”
Sergio Z – Developer

Why should you become a Salesforce Developer?

Erwin and Sergio highly recommend taking this career path, because it allows you to create different types of solutions, learn good practices and it’s a great way to start learning a different form of programming. Also, there is a lot of demand related to this career.

It’s not necessary to have previous knowledge of Salesforce before starting this career path. If you know the basics of programming, that is enough. But, it does facilitate learning to have prior knowledge of web development, JavaScript, or basic Java (or C#).

What it’s like working with other cultures

Erwin and Sergio think it’s great, and fascinating, to work with people across several countries – every day they learn about the customs, food, culture, and places they would love to visit in Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and the United States. They also learn many of the similarities between countries.

Something funny Erwin found when he started working at Oktana was that he had thought Salesforce was a simple and straightforward CRM tool, but after training and working with it, he was completely surprised by the size and potential of the platform. For Sergio, when he started working at Oktana, it was the first time he had worked with a Mac as a working tool. He thinks it isn’t as bad as some comments he’s heard from those who don’t use Macs, it has quite interesting and useful things.

It has been interesting getting started at a new job, learning new technologies, during COVID. For example, for Erwin, it was interesting several paid events around the world that used to take place in person, are now broadcast over the internet for free, allowing people to know and learn much more about Salesforce and new technologies for developing software. In the case of Sergio, working completely from home has great advantages. The fact of literally getting out of bed and taking a couple of steps to be in your work area, instead of taking a bus to go to the office, is really motivating. It’s also really relaxing too, at the end of the day, simply log your hours and close your Mac to be at home and rest.

We’re still growing! If you’re interested in becoming a Salesforce developer in Bolivia, check out some of the Salesforce Certification articles we’ve put together and our current open Salesforce developer positions in Bolivia.

Why become an Android Developer?

Android, Inc. was founded in 2003 and, as you may or may not know, acquired by Google in 2005. Android is an operating system and programming platform now developed by Google for smartphones and other mobile devices like tablets. Given this, many developers have chosen to specialize in Android. We talked with Amancaya, one of our Android developers, about why she chose this career path.

Amancaya was always interested in technology and started her development career in Sucre, Bolivia. At that time, many different tech communities existed, and one, GDG Sucre, invited her to join. As a participant in their community, Amancaya started to learn and share new technologies she discovered. (Fun Fact: Erwin, another member of the Oktana Bolivia family, is also part of this community.)

Since joining Oktana, Amancaya has contributed to a project involving Android app development for a leading US-based weight-loss program.

Why become an Android developer?

If mobile is what you like, you won’t regret becoming an Android developer. In the case of Amancaya, it was frustrating to learn JavaScript because it isn’t so flexible and she appreciates a very well-established structure. Kotlin, on the other hand, combines object-oriented (a paradigm in which you have to think about objects at the time of development) and functional programming features that are more comfortable to her style. Java is also a good starting point for an Android developer.

When she started to learn about Android development, the only information she found was about other web developers and frameworks. In Sucre, Bolivia not many people do mobile development, everything is more web-oriented, so this further complicated her path at the start. Now there is a much stronger global community of Android developers sharing tricks and tips, so it’s much easier to feel supported and get answers when you need them.

The most important thing in getting started is that you feel comfortable with Kotlin or Java.

Kotlin vs Java

Kotlin was designed with Java interoperability in mind, you can include Kotlin code in your Android app in any way you want. Java can be called from Kotlin in a natural way and vice versa. Both languages are very similar, that’s why both are the favorites of the developers, but there are some differences:

Kotlin provides the ability to extend a class with new functionality without having to inherit from the class or use design patterns such as Decorator. This is done via special declarations called extensions.
Any chunk of code written in Kotlin is much smaller compared to Java, as it is less verbose.
Kotlin compiles the code into a bytecode which can be executed in the JVM. So, all libraries and frameworks made in Java can be moved and run in a Kotlin project.
Kotlin is not as popular, so the developer community is sparse compared to other well-established languages like Java.

You can read more about Kotlin and Java here.

Android developers in Bolivia

In Bolivia, the Android community is gradually growing, and exists in different communities across many cities in Bolivia, including Kotlin User Groups en La Paz, Cochabamba and El Alto, GDG Android Bolivia. These communities host regular talks and workshops to help more people learn about mobile development and Android development, to grow the Android developer community in Bolivia.

Another group of developers exists that is starting to specialize in Flutter, which is a new open-source mobile software development kit that can be used to build native-looking Android and iOS applications from the same code base.

Also, if you are interested in learning more about mobile development, read about one of our latest projects.

At Oktana, our team of mobile developers is growing, check our current open positions. In Amancaya’s words:

“The people who work on my project are very good. I have learned a lot and every day I learn more. My team explains things to me when I need them to, it’s been a great experience.”

Manage API Users with MuleSoft Anypoint API Community Manager

Oktana is one of the first Salesforce consulting partners to work on MuleSoft Anypoint API Community Manager (“MuleSoft ACM”) integration projects. We are one of the few with experience on MuleSoft ACM. Our team is currently working on six different implementation projects having completed more than five already. These MuleSoft ACM integration projects have been across a wide range of industries. Such as aviation, financial services, healthcare, interior design, and high tech.

Why MuleSoft Anypoint Platform™?

Many organizations turn to the MuleSoft Anypoint Platform. Because it provides the tools to develop, deploy, manage and secure the APIs that help them run and extend their businesses.

Digital transformation in any industry brings challenges. How do you regulate and manage access to APIs while providing clear and open information to your developer community on usage? Security is exceptionally important. For example, when you’re creating a new digital ecosystem, you want third-party developers working with your systems to also be able to develop rapidly and effectively.

Organizations that need to scale their network of partners and customers through expanded communities can now leverage MuleSoft ACM. Which essentially provides MuleSoft customers with the ability to manage their API users in a community. The community is based on the Salesforce Experience Cloud (previously known as Community Cloud). This enables them to improve communication and provide more context to their API users. Managing access and security and also providing detailed information on API usage is essential when exposing core information related to customers, accounts, transactions, payments, and credit cards.

The length of each of these projects has varied based on the complexity of the organization’s requirements but generally takes 4-6 weeks. Obviously, it can take more time based on the number of customizations required. Customizations can include custom signup and approval processes, custom objects, special security and permissions configurations, and enabling custom domains.

Aviation

The work done to integrate MuleSoft ACM for our aviation industry partner was complex. It required creating and integrating external objects. That had to then be shown in permanent categories in the MuleSoft Anypoint Platform ecosystem. Our team was able to integrate these external objects using Apex.

Healthcare

Our partner, a healthcare provider, required a unique process for user approvals. They needed to add an additional step for the usage of specific APIs and the method by which API keys are distributed. MuleSoft provides solutions specifically for healthcare. Designed to streamline manual processes, enable cross-collaboration, and unlock healthcare data in a secure, reliable manner.

Financial

For this specific project, our team started with the implementation of MuleSoft ACM. Installation and configuration were followed by significant work managing additional security requirements. To allow efficient management of access to the APIs, we created a new self-service registration service for developer partners. The team use Apex, Aura Components, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS to create the registration service. Ensuring developer partners have managed registrations allows our customers to personalize partner pages and create a fully branded experience. MuleSoft ACM is able to leverage the Salesforce Content Management System (CMS). It publishes materials for each API, like documentation and marketing information. Also, MuleSoft allows them to manage access and provides developers the ability to test APIs without code.

Certainly, companies looking to improve how they manage their APIs will find MuleSoft has solutions specifically targeted to eight different industries. Financial Services, Government, Healthcare, Higher Education, Insurance, Manufacturing, Media & Telecom, and Retail. But, companies from other industries, like our Aviation partner, can also successfully leverage the platform to accelerate development. If you have an API strategy firmly established on the MuleSoft Anypoint Platform. It will be easier to enable developers (internally and externally) to use your APIs responsibly.

Ruby on Rails and Salesforce

How you can integrate Ruby on Rails and Salesforce? This question and more will be resolved in this article. Let’s start! Ruby on Rails (Rails) is an open-source web application framework, written in the Ruby programming language, that is used in many big-name applications, like GitHub, Airbnb, Hulu, Zendesk, and more. And as with all open-source projects, you can always contribute code.

The Rails Doctrine

Rails has some interesting pillars that every developer should know:

Optimized for programmer happiness – “Ruby is designed to make programming not only easy but also fun” (Yukihiro Matsumoto)
Convention over Configuration – The environment in which you work assumes many logical situations by default, so if you adapt to them rather than creating your own rules each time, programming becomes an easier and more productive task
Rails is ‘omakase’ – Omakase is when you don’t know what to order in a restaurant and let the chef choose. In Ruby, this is the practice of letting others assemble your stack for you.

Check out the official site of Ruby on Rails and go deep into Ruby.

Integrating Ruby on Rails (Rails) with Salesforce

Salesforce, as the leading CRM, is constantly working to innovate, making it a great platform to integrate your applications with. Rails, like many other platforms, is frontend agnostic, giving you the flexibility to choose the tools and technologies that make the most sense for your project. Salesforce brings a robust set of APIs into the mix, letting you make use of the data and logic in Salesforce within your Ruby application.

Pick the Right API(s)

This is the one area where you’ll need to make some choices, depending on what you need your application to do with Salesforce. Knowing which APIs you need will help guide which gems to install.

SOAP API – Create, retrieve, update or delete records, such as accounts, leads, and custom objects. Allows you to maintain passwords, perform searches, and much more. Optimized for real-time client applications that update a few records at a time. Indeed you can use it for processing many records, but when the data sets contain hundreds of thousands of records, SOAP API is less practical. Process data from a few thousand to millions of records very simple with the Bulk API.
REST API – Powerful, convenient, and simple REST-based web services interface for interacting with Salesforce. Based on the same underlying data model and standards objects as the SOAP API. (Other REST APIs that may be of interest: User Interface API, Connect REST API.)
Bulk API – This is based on REST principles and is optimized for loading or deleting large sets of data. You can use it to query, queryAll, insert, update, upsert, or delete many records asynchronously by submitting batches. Salesforce processes batches in the background. Also, another benefit of the Bulk API is that it has higher record limits.

Get Authenticated

Salesforce leverages OAuth 2.0 for authentication. There’s no need to code any of this from scratch, just leverage the Ruby gems (ruby software packages) restforce and omniauth-salesforce. Check out connectSFDC for a rails project with omniauth-salesforce installed and ready to interact with a Salesforce Connected app.

Integrate Your Application

If your application needs real-time access and is only updating a few records at a time, you can make use of the Restforce gem to access the REST API.

Add ‘restforce’ or install manually with ‘gem install restforce’)
Instantiate your client object and authenticate using OAuth.
‘Client = Restforce.new’
Query away. (See the official Restforce documentation for all your options.)

For the SOAP API, use Soapforce.

Add ‘soapforce’ to your Gemfile or install manually with ‘gem install soapforce’.
Instantiate your client object and authenticate using OAuth.
‘client = Soapforce::Client.new’
Query as needed. (See the Soapforce Github page for options.)
Log out.
‘client.logout’

For the Bulk API, use SalesforceBulkAPI.

Add ‘salesforce_bulk_api’ to your Gemfile or install manually with ‘gem install salesforce_bulk_api’
Authenticate using restforce with OAuth.
‘client = Restforce.new(…’
Instantiate using the Restforce client.
‘salesforce = SalesforceBulkApi::Api.new(client)’
Query as needed. (See the SalesforceBulkAPI page for options.)

Much of the groundwork has been done for you with these gems. The robust Salesforce APIs make it easier to bring the functionality and data into your Rails app. (Not into Ruby? You could always check out our article on Python with Salesforce.)

Let us know how you’re approaching your Ruby on Rails and Salesforce projects.

Salesforce Classic vs Lightning: More than a pretty interface

When we first published “Lightning Experience vs. Salesforce Classic: Is the Lightning Experience Revolutionizing Salesforce?”. Over two years ago there were many features missing from the Salesforce Lightning Experience. Making the conversation about the UI and what was missing. Certainly, over the last two years, Salesforce has significantly closed those gaps. Now, only discussing the Lightning UI misses many of the benefits it has introduced.

User Experience

Often the most controversial part of any redesign, the user experience in Lightning is significantly different than Classic. It’s common for users of a product to resist changes to their experience. Lightning brings benefits for those that do. Whether your users are selling, helping, collaborating, or marketing, there are improvements to help them get their work done faster. Salesforce worked to simplify the user experience and create more efficient navigation. That allows you to not only change records quickly but change applications.

Significant work has gone into refreshing record layouts, dashboards, and report views. When Lightning was first introduced, admins and users were finding themselves having to switch back to Classic for specific tasks. Now that happens far less often. With the Lightning App Builder, it’s easy for admins to create new custom page layouts. The benefits aren’t limited to administrators. Here are a few areas the experience has improved.

Salesforce Lightning Experience

Home

Salesforce has transformed the way you start your day by adding an intelligent Home page. Sales reps can monitor their performance to goal and get insights on their key accounts, with an assistant providing the complete list of things to do. Admins can use the Lightning App Builder to create custom Home pages.

Opportunity Workspace

The new design allows you to help your sales reps work their deals faster. Lightning enables you to showcase key record details in the new highlights panel at the top of the page. Also, get key coaching details with a customizable Path to support your sales process. And, see a wealth of related information on hover using a quick view.

Accounts and Contacts

Lightning has optimized the layout for accounts and contacts, organizing the content by their primary use case: reference. Your sales team can locate important data efficiently, get the latest news for your customers, work smarter, keeping the data clean with field-level duplicate matching, among other functions.

Reports and Dashboards

Now users can create their filters while viewing a report. Also, if you already have reports from Salesforce Classic, the transition is very easy, because the reports are automatically viewable in the new interface.

Architecture

Meanwhile, when someone says Lightning, it’s common for people to think just about the new user experience. Wrong, Lightning brings even more. Lightning as a platform has improved the experience for users, administrators, and developers. With new frameworks, Salesforce has made it significantly easier to create new pages and applications and made data access easier to manage.

The new Lightning architecture takes advantage of modern web stacks that are now more standards-based, with Lightning Web Components providing a layer of specialized Salesforce services. You no longer need a proprietary component model, proprietary language extensions, proprietary modules, etc. For example, there are many significant benefits such as:

Common component model
Common programming model
Transferable skills and easier-to-find / easier-to-ramp-up developers
Interoperable components
Better performance because core features are implemented natively in web engines instead of in JavaScript in framework abstractions

Developing in Lightning requires a mind shift, but opens doors. Salesforce Classic was built around a page-centric model, while Lightning is based on an app-centric one. Basically, now that Classic Visualforce is only one (older) option, it’s possible to build web applications that are mobile-ready and run natively in browsers, even faster. Furthermore, the new lightning component architecture gives you two programming models: the Lightning Web Components model and the original Aura Components model.

in addition, if you are currently developing Lightning components with the Aura programming model, you can continue to do so. Both can coexist and interoperate. But, in the future, we recommend you consider migrating your Aura Components to Lightning Web Components. Start with the components that would benefit the most from the performance benefits of Lightning Web Components.

“Lightning offers us the opportunity to use Lightning Web Components, these allow us to perform faster tasks with custom components, which can be used in different pages with just a drag and drop. It has great compatibility with different browsers which allows us to work without problems on desktop and mobile devices.”
Alexis M, Developer

“With Lightning Web Components I have been capable to develop reactivity, responsive and scalable solutions, thanks to its state-of-the-art web architecture that integrates features like Lightning Design System and MCCV model, leading to smoother development and a more comfortable user experience.”
Christian R, Developer

Check out one of our latest workshops. Mateo H, developer, shares one of the latest components our team has been working on:

If you want to discover more about Salesforce Lightning, we recommend you check out this module on Trailhead. That is to say, if you want to go deep into the main differences check out the Salesforce help page: Compare Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic.

Our team has also worked with different organizations and their projects. We are Salesforce platform experts and we offer custom development to help you build your platform and solve the right problems. If you want to know more about our work, go check out our latest success stories.

Innovation, an important tool for boosting business

The concept of innovation gained popularity in the business world in recent years. If you’re a business person or an entrepreneur who regularly follows talks, events, workshops, or internet content for getting some inspiration; you may be inspired by this idea. But what does innovation mean? Well, Michelle Greenwald, a Forbes contributor, mentioned that “Innovation is one of the most bandied about terms in global business today, but exactly what it means can be nebulous.”

We agree. Innovation is about approaching things in a different way. However, since disruption is part of this concept, every company or human can incorporate innovation into their real environment. Does it make things more difficult? Taking an innovative approach may be challenging initially, but it can be an advantage for growing your business.

We also innovate the Oktana way. We like doing things differently. We apply innovation for our customers (such as the offline app we built for an energy company) Here are some strategies to boost your innovation.

1. It’s not about perfection

If you are looking for perfection, we’re sorry to say this approach may not be right for you. At Oktana, we prefer taking the path less traveled so we can get different results and solutions. We understand that sometimes it’s about the minimum viable product, or as some call it, the “minimum lovable product”. In these situations, we know it’s about delivering the best product possible within the project’s constraints, not delivering perfection. Even when we deliver an amazing product and our customers are satisfied, we know there is always a different way it could have been approached. The next step is about exploring those possibilities. That’s why we are constantly working on new lightning web components, new versions of our digital products, and hunting for new and challenging projects. If you want to innovate, don’t aim for perfection. Aim for disruption.

2. Face your assumptions

Do you remember René Descartes? Yes, that French philosopher who has influenced the world since the sixteenth century and who has placed doubts in the middle of his thinking. We are not asking you to doubt everything, but we do recommend you determine if all of your assumptions are still useful. Why? We all have ideas that we take for granted. Ideas are so entrenched in our minds that they tend to shape the way we approach things, and that’s not always a good practice. (Remember when remote work was not a “good idea” for many companies, then a pandemic showed us what was possible?). Take the time to question your assumptions. Compare them to the current situation. If you feel they really don’t make sense then it’s time to innovate!

3. Innovation is for doers.

Creativity is an important stage of innovation, but what happens if we don’t stop thinking? All of our great ideas stay in our minds and never come to life. That’s why innovation is for doers, for people who dare to take action after a planning process. If you are having trouble bringing your ideas to life, don’t worry. It happens to everyone and we believe it’s part of the innovation process. What do we recommend? Write your ideas on paper, share them with your teammates, and ask for feedback. All of these actions are small steps but your ideas are now living outside of your mind. After this first step, congratulate yourself and start planning. Your idea will grow until you have a great product in your hands.

4. Mistakes are part of innovation

What would the world be like without mistakes? Failures are probably one of the best teachers humans may have. If you fail in your attempt at creating a new product, then you have another opportunity to do it. More importantly, you now have a better understanding of what you are doing. Don’t get us wrong. Mistakes on their own don’t deliver value, it’s your attitude that really matters and how you use your personal experience to enhance your solutions. Noah, one of our engineers in the US, shares a very interesting perspective:

“For me, innovation means changing the norm for the better. A change is not automatically positive or negative. If a change is made but the overall outcome is negative, that’s fine because the change does not have to be permanent. You can roll-back the changes until you find something that works well. Innovation is trial and error a lot of the time. Because of that, innovation does not always mean improvement. But innovation paves the path for improvement.”
Noah B. Engineer at Oktana US

As Salesforce partners, we learn a lot from our customers and the projects we deliver. These recommendations are just a part of it. We encourage you to share them with your team so you can all have the same mindset. Also, if you want to innovate the Salesforce way, here are a couple of trails that might be worth reading: Innovate the Salesforce way and Innovation Customer Discovery. Now, sharpen your mind and use innovation in every level of your projects.

Learn more about Salesforce Administrator Certification Exam

This Salesforce Administrator Certification will help you have a better understanding of Salesforce CRM fundamentals. Also, demonstrate your expertise and abilities in the platform. You should be able to maintain a Salesforce org. Respond to frequent business requirements and inquiries, and last but not least, execute Salesforce administrative tasks. You will have knowledge of the features available for end-users as well as the configuration options available. Learn more about the Admin role and the skills they need to succeed. Start completing this 10 minutes module on Trailhead.

Kevin, who has recently joined Oktana, became interested in Salesforce before joining our team. He had heard of Salesforce on another job, but he never really understood what Salesforce was. Time passed and he decided to finally study and get his first certification. Now he has completed this certification and believes that it is a great start for a Salesforce career path. Even though this is not a certification that requires development. It motivates you towards achieving even more certifications, such as Dev I.

About the exam:

The Salesforce Administrator Certification consists of 60 multiple-choice questions. And 5 additional non-scored questions to be answered in a 105 minutes exam. The passing score is 65% and the registration fee is USD 200, according to the laws of your country, extra applicable taxes may be required.

Certainly, there are no official prerequisites for this certification. However, it is highly recommended to complete the Salesforce Trailhead Trailmix Prepare for Your Salesforce Administrator Credential before scheduling the exam. In this trail, you will find almost everything you need to know to pass the exam and ensure you’re an expert in the area. Additionally, we encourage you to complete the Study for the Administrator Certification Exam Trailmix to review your knowledge and learn more about the exam itself.

Also these Trailhead Superbadges can also be used before the exam to help prepare:

Security Specialist: Flex your security muscles by locking down permissions and tracking changes.
Lightning Experience Reports and Dashboards Specialists: Design powerful reports and an eye-catching dashboard to shine a light on your data.
Business Administration Specialist: Brighten up a new business unit with the Salesforce tools the team needs to succeed.

Exam structure:

The exam is structured around 12 main features and functions:

Organizational Setup – 3%
- Salesforce Platform Basics
- User Authentication
- Preparing the Salesforce org for users

User Setup – Weighting 7%
- User management
- Customization of an org to support new business units

Security and Access – 13%
- Data Security
- Identity Basics

Standard and Custom Objects – 14%
- Data modeling
- Lightning Experience Customization
- Customization of Salesforce Objects

Sales and Marketing Applications – 14%
- Accounts and Contacts for Lighting experience
- Lead and Opportunities for Lightning experience
- Products, Quotes, and Contracts
- Campaign basics
- Customization of a Salesforce path for a team

Service and Support Applications – 13%
- Service Cloud for Lightning experience
- Cloud Efficiency
- Knowledge Basics for Lightning experience
- Build a community with Knowledge and chat

Activity Management and Collaboration – 3%

Data Management – 10%
- Data Management
- Import and export with Data Management tools

Analytics—Reports and Dashboards – 10%
- Reports and Dashboards for Lightning Experience

Workflow/Process Automation – 8%
- Lightning Flow

Desktop and Mobile Administration – 3%
- Lightning App builder

AppExchange – 2%
- Appexchange basics

Final recommendations

Kevin shared that the hardest topics for him were Service and Support. Why? Because he did not have background expertise in the area. He also suggested paying extra attention to the reports-related modules because there is a wide variety of topics and can easily confuse you. He recommended not underestimating this certification. Also, take extra time to review all features and functions before taking the exam to ensure that you have the knowledge you need to pass.

Even though the Salesforce Administrator Certification is in the career path of Quality Assurance and Devs, most usually start with the Dev I Certification. Kevin, on the other hand, recommends taking this certification first to get a solid foundation in Salesforce. It will help you take future certifications.

At Oktana, after new employees complete their one-month onboarding process they are ready to sit for this exam. We provide all the resources mentioned above as well as exam mockups and additional tips to ensure success.

We are now hiring! Check out our open positions here.