Salesforce Platform Foundations Certification: 7 Reasons to Get It

You’re at a meeting, someone mentions “we’ll handle this in the platform,” and everyone nods. You nod along, too. However, in truth, you’re still unsure about the boundaries of the platform, or how Salesforce exists within it. This is precisely the uncertainty that the Salesforce Platform Foundations Certification helps you address. It is the fastest way to go from “I’ve heard of Salesforce” to “I know how Salesforce works and can prove it.” Here are the seven reasons why you need to take this certification, and how to prepare for it without wasting weeks on incorrect materials.

Is This the Right Starting Line?

1. It asks nothing of you up front. There's no prerequisite certification, no coding requirement and no admin experience needed. If you can read a business email, you can start. For a first Salesforce credential, that's about as low-risk as it gets.

2. It gives you the common language. Salesforce has a distinct language, such as clouds, objects, flows, the AppExchange, and the platform. You won’t know what people who do talk about until you learn it. This certification hands you the words, and more importantly, the picture of how the pieces connect.

So far, so friendly. But does it do anything for your career?

Does Salesforce Platform Foundation Certification Lead to Opportunities at Work?

3. It is difficult to bypass your resume. There will be a point when people looking to hire someone will look for evidence that you took it into your own hands and developed an understanding of the tools used by their teams on a daily basis. And, if you are working in sales, marketing, support, or operations, where the use of Salesforce underlies half of your tasks, then it is a big plus.

4. It can serve as a base, but never an endpoint. Role-based certifications such as Administrator, Platform App Builder, and others are based on the assumption that you have already understood the fundamentals. If you pass it successfully, then the next test won't seem like a stretch because you already understand the way the platform works.

5. You get better at the job you do now. Yes, not everything will necessarily bring you new employment opportunities. However, after gaining some experience with the certification, you will be able to raise right questions and find possibilities for automating processes that normally take up to two weeks to fix.

What's Actually on the Salesforce Platform Foundations Exam?

6. The exam is brief and narrow. The Salesforce Platform Foundations exam is meant for beginners. It consists of 40 multiple-choice and multiple-selection questions with no prerequisite knowledge needed. The exact number of questions, time allowed, and cost are changed from time to time, so make sure to check them in Salesforce's exam guide. The Salesforce Platform Foundations exam topics fall into four broad areas:

• The Salesforce ecosystem and platform overview, including the product portfolio and the AppExchange
• Navigating Salesforce, from Lightning Experience to standard objects and search
• Data management basics, such as the data model, relationships and reports
• Customization and automation basics, including custom fields, validation rules, permissions and Flow

Let's be straight: passing doesn't make you an administrator. It proves you understand the foundations, and that's exactly the point. Also, knowing the topics is one thing. Knowing how they get asked is another.

How to Prepare for the Salesforce Platform Foundations Exam Without Guesswork

7. Preparation is predictable. Since your focus is limited and the format is known, preparing for the Salesforce Platform Foundations certification exam is easy, a straightforward pattern of learning a subject, testing yourself, and then reviewing any mistakes. Begin by acquiring a good Salesforce Platform Foundations exam prep guide; there is one created by Salesforce itself, along with Trailhead modules that deal with all of the four topics mentioned above. Then put the knowledge to test through questions. It may seem like you understand validation rules until asked about them in a different way.

A good practice test will tell you the wording used in Salesforce Platform Foundations questions, where options can fool you, and what topics you believe you know but really don’t. Do one at the start of your preparation to identify your weaknesses and one a week before the exam date to make sure you’ve fixed those weaknesses. If you need practice questions prepared in advance, CertBoosters has Salesforce Platform Foundations practice questions based on the exam topics. Doing them under time pressure will give you a feel for how the questions are worded and where you need more practice among the four topic areas. Going over the same set of questions a few days later will tell you if you really understand the concepts, rather than just recognizing the answers.

Salesforce Platform Foundations Certification: Take the First Step

Being part of a meeting only half listening to the Salesforce discussion need not be your norm. With knowledge of who the exam is targeted at, what it entails, and how easy the preparation process could be, things look much easier than they did ten minutes ago. Choose a date, cover the four subject areas, and sit your first practice test this week.