I am Salesforce Certified Application Architect

By clearing Sharing & Visibility Designer exam, I became certified Application Architect. Of course I am a Certified Platform Developer 1 & Platform App Builder (these are needed to be awarded as an Application Architect, see diagram below).

http://certification.salesforce.com/architectoverview

This is one of my great achievements. I definitely enjoyed preparing for these exams, learnt lots of new stuff. The thought of continuing this 'flow' came to me and I decided to study for the other track - System Architect. Watch out for my next posts on how I passed 😉

I have written 2 separate blogs on how I passed the 2 designer exams:

• I passed Salesforce Certified Data Architecture & Management Designer
• I passed Salesforce Certified Sharing and Visibility Designer

Instead of rewriting the topics and explaining them again, I have given the blogs which have these information. No reinventing the wheel please!

If you are not ready for the exams, I (strongly) suggest you all to go through this wonderful thing called Resource Guide for each of these exams. Salesforce team has done a fantastic job of putting together all the helpful resources in one PDF. Apart from links to articles and videos, it also has a practice material to ensure you get hands-on experience. How cool is that?

I passed Salesforce Certified Sharing and Visibility Designer

Next up, in my journey to Application Architect, is Sharing & Visibility Designer. The whole topic of security/sharing is very dear to me. The exam had lot of scenario based questions and confusing options/answers. Though the topic is very close and I was very confident, it wasn't so easy for me. Lot of other folks said that it was one of the easiest. May be, they got the easier set of questions 😋😉

Like my previous post on Data Architecture & Management Designer, I will give you various blogs that I went through and various topics that I noted post the exam.

• How to Prepare For and PASS Sharing and Visibility Designer Exam by Maciej, by now my go to blog for designer exams.
• Salesforce Certified Sharing and Visibility Designer Exam Preparation by Sathish. His post has cross posts/reference to Maciej' and Santanu's blog too.
• Prepare for Salesforce ‘Sharing and Visibility Designer’ Exam by Binod.
• Tips for passing Salesforce Certified Sharing and Visibility Designer by Santanu.
• I highly recommend watching these 2 webinars:
• Secure Development on the Salesforce Platform - Part 1
• Secure Development on the Salesforce Platform - Part 2
• Glanced over this quizlet for revision.

Topics I noted down post the exam:

• Use cases for Apex Managed Sharing, also what happens when owner changes
• Territory Management - Uses of Type, Type Priority, Hierarchy, Model State
• Capabilities of Platform Shield
• Usage of Crypto class
• With Sharing keyword - what is enforced. Using Schema.DescribeSObjectResult and  Schema.DescribeFieldResult to enforce/check
• Cross-site Script (XSS)
• Parallel Sharing Rule, Defer Sharing Calculations, Granular Locking - scenarios on when to use what
• runAs() usages
• Best practices for storing passwords (Named Credentials, Protected Custom Setting, etc.)
• Report sharing options
• Options available for Filtering and sharing list view
• Usages of External OWD.

Section-wise weightage and # of questions. Do refer to the latest study guide for any change in weightage.

	Weightage	# of questions
Performance	8%	5
Programmatic Sharing	25%	15
Declarative Sharing	67%	40

The exam was fantastic opportunity to know some of the new topics and to strengthen the current knowledge.

All the best :)