Associate Certification

The Salesforce Certified Associate exam is for candidates who may be new to the Salesforce ecosystem and have an interest in understanding and using the Salesforce Customer 360 Platform. Salesforce Certified Associate candidates desire to learn the Salesforce platform and common business use cases.

​This credential encompasses the fundamental programmatic capabilities of the Lightning Platform to develop custom business logic and interfaces to extend Salesforce using Apex, Visualforce, and basic Lightning Components. To achieve this credential, a candidate must successfully pass the Salesforce Platform Developer I exam. This exam is also a prerequisite to the Salesforce Platform Developer II Multiple Choice exam

​Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Describe the key topic areas of the Platform Developer I Certification.

• Access resources that help you prepare for the Platform Developer I Certification.

Exam

This exam covers these key topics, each making up a certain percentage of the exam. A candidate should have hands-on experience developing custom applications on the Lightning Platform and have demonstrated the application of each of the features/functions below.

Salesforce fundamentals: 7%

• Given a set of requirements, determine, create, and access the appropriate data model including objects, fields, and relationships.

• Describe the capabilities of the various relationship types and custom IDs and the implications of each on record access and development.

• Describe the options for and considerations when importing and exporting data into development environments.

• Describe the capabilities and use cases for formula fields and roll-up summary fields.

​Process automation and logic: 40%

• Describe the capabilities of the declarative process automation features.

• Declare variables, constants, methods, and use modifiers and interfaces in Apex.

• Given a scenario, use and apply Apex control flow statements.

• Given a scenario, write SOSL, SOQL, and DML statements in Apex.

• Given a use case and following best practices, write Apex classes and triggers and use Apex interfaces.

• Given a scenario, identify the implications of governor limits on Apex transactions.

• Describe the relationship between Apex transactions, the save order of execution, and the potential for recursion and/or cascading.

• Implement exception handling in Apex, including custom exceptions as needed.

• Use programmatic techniques to prevent security vulnerabilities.

• Given a scenario, use declarative functionality and Apex together to automate business logic.

• Given a scenario, identify the appropriate publish/subscribe logic for platform events.

User interface: 23%

• Given a scenario, display content or modify Salesforce data using a Visualforce page and the appropriate controllers or extensions as needed.

• Incorporate Visualforce pages into Lightning Platform applications.

• Describe the Lightning Component framework, its benefits, and the types of content that can be contained in a Lightning web component.

• Given a scenario, prevent user interface and data access security vulnerabilities.

• Given a scenario, display and use a custom user interface components, including Lightning Components, Flow, and Visualforce.

• Describe the use cases for Lightning Web Component or Aura Component events.

• Given a user interface requirement, describe interactions between Apex and various types of page components, including Lightning Components, Flow, Next Best Actions, etc.