The document discusses passing the Salesforce Certified Advanced Developer certification and shares stories from three individuals on their journey to achieving the certification, including preparing for the multiple choice exam, programming assignment, and essay questions. It provides an overview of the certification process and encourages those interested to pursue the certification to improve their development skills on the Force.com platform.

1. I Passed Advanced Developer
Certification

2. Safe Harbor
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forward-looking statements.

3. Chris Alun Lewis
Application Developer, Desynit
@ChrisAlunLewis
Leah McGowen-Hare,MSEd
Master Developer Instructor, salesforce.com
@LeahBMH
Barry Hughes
Developer, Blue Wave Group
@barryhughes
Peter Chittum
Developer Evangelist, salesforce.com
@pchittum

4. Agenda
Certified Force.com Advanced Developer Overview
Chris’ Story
Leah’s Story
Barry’s Story
Q&A
Resources

5. Salesforce.com Certification Program
Administrator Track
Manage and Configure
Salesforce
Implementation Expert
Track
Design Sales & Service
Cloud Solutions
Developer Track
Architect Track
Develop Custom Force.
com Apps
Architect a Complete
Force.com Solution
Prerequisite: Salesforce.com
Certified Force.com Developer
Prerequisite: Salesforce.com
Certified Administrator
Prerequisite: Salesforce.com Certified
Administrator
Prerequisite: Salesforce.com
Certified Force.com Developer
Learn more: certification.salesforce.com

6. Salesforce.com Certification Program
Learn more: certification.salesforce.com

7. Test Taker Agreement
You agree to this when you create a test taker account
You are prohibited from disclosing, copying, or publishing exam
questions and the assignment scenario.
Would compromise the certification exams
Degrades the value of the Certification

8. Salesforce.com Certified Advanced Developer
GOAL
Step 0: Certified Developer
▪ Demonstrate your mastery of Apex,
Visualforce, and Testing
Step 1: Test
RECOMMENDED EXPERIENCE
▪ 8+ months experience on the Force.com
platform
Step 2: Assignment
Step 3: Essay
Maintenance

9. Agenda
Certified Force.com Advanced Developer Overview
Chris’ Story
Leah’s Story
Barry’s Story
Q&A
Resources

10. Achieving the Advanced Developer Certification
A Journey through the Force.com platform
Chris Alun Lewis

11. Who was I?
▪ Working on Force.com 2.5 years
▪ Certified Developer
▪ Keen to Achieve More

12. The Advanced Developer Certification

13. Part 1: Multiple Choice Exam
Emphasis on code and practical scenarios
▪ Read, read, read (Apex guide)
▪ Don’t be afraid to experiment
▪ Know key concepts / processes

14. Part 1: Multiple Choice Exam
Key concepts – use your fridge!

15. Part 2 : The Assignment
A practical exercise in building / enhancing an application
▪ Don’t dive in
▪ Your experience helps
▪ Keep it simple & native

16. Part 2 : The Assignment
Don’t have a mad panic!
Lesson Learnt : Controlled iteration, small steps
Improved development practices

17. Part 3: Essay style questions
A review of your assignment, what you did and why?
▪ Salesforce wants you to succeed
▪ Common Sense
▪ Lightbulb moment?
Don’t be afraid to debate

18. I passed! – Who I am now?
▪ Certified Advanced Developer
▪ Better understanding of Salesforce
▪ Passion for learning

19. In summary
Not just a Certified Developer, a BETTER Developer
It’s a Journey, Don’t stop believin’ ;)

20. Agenda
Certified Force.com Advanced Developer Overview
Chris’ Story
Leah’s Story
Barry’s Story
Q&A
Resources

21. Tales of Certification and Person Hygiene
Or What Happens When You Just Give It a Go
Leah McGowen-Hare

22. My Flare..

23. December 2012
•On a whim took the Advanced Multiple Choice Test
• Hooray!! Know more than I knew
• Oh SA%$!! I have to do the Programming Assignment

24. January-March 2013
▪ Read Apex Developer’s Guide
▪ Read Visualforce Developer’s Guide
▪ Spent many of nights curled up with a book

25. March 2013
• 3/28/2103 :7:28 pm, Received project assignment.
• After reading 20 page specifications and requirements
• Cried and panic attack

26. March 2013
• 3/28/2103 :7:28 pm, Received project assignment.
• After reading 20 page specifications and requirements
• Cried and panic attack

27. April 2013
• Went into super developer mode
• 3 Weeks straight coding
!!
• Husband ran an intervention
e
Sup
er
Cod
r
th
• April 19 completed Essay portion
th
• April 20 , submitted project
YOU
NEED

28. June 2013
• June 28, 9:18 pm received the email with four letter word
• Celebrate

29. Today – Now What?
The sexiest thing in the entire world is being really smart.
And being thoughtful and being generous. Everything else is
crap. I promise you. It's just crap that people try to sell to you
to make you feel like less. So don't buy it. Be smart. Be
thoughtful and be generous.
-Ashton Kutcher
• Therefore sexy = smart
• Therefore…

30. Advanced Developer Cert
Makes you too Sexy for your shirt!

31. Agenda
Certified Force.com Advanced Developer Overview
Chris’ Story
Leah’s Story
Barry’s Story
Q&A
Resources

32. A step-by-step approach to a new certification
And what I learned in the process
Barry Hughes

33. My Background
Lotus Domino / IBM Notes Certified Developer for 15 years (R5+).

34. My Mission: 16 months to get all 3 credentials….

35. My Approach
• No formal training
• Pass the exam mindset
…… get into study mode.

36. December 2011
Tutorial videos via the Premier Success Plan Help & Training.
Home study (7 days)
Exam guide

37. December 2011
March
2012
January 2012 – March 2012
1-2 days per week study
Tutorial videos
March 2012: sat and failed multiple choice exam.
Too heavily focused on video tutorials
Realised that Developers guides are crucial
DEV501 Salesforce Course is excellent!

38. December 2011
March
2012
Fill in the gaps
-
Apex Developers Guide
Visualforce Developers Guide
More focus on workbooks and project work
May 2012: Passed multiple choice exam.
May
2012

39. Preparing for the Assignment
June 2012
Signed up for the Assignment from a rental car
while I was on family holidays in Spain
Certified as a Salesforce.com Instructor
FREE salesforce.com You Tube videos and Podcasts
▪ Very good videos on Force.com development.
▪ Chris Barry’s podcast
▪ Codetalk – weekly Q & A with Sandeep and the gang.
▪ Design Pattern videos also very useful.
▪ VideoCache iPhone app

40. Assignment Progress
Obtain understanding family….
Salesforce blogs Rule!
(I owe many people many drinks).
50-60 hours to complete the assignment.
▪ Coding trigger and VF page ➔ 40% of my time.
▪ Preparing for the Essay exam ➔ 10%
▪ Rest spent testing code.

41. Helpful Tips
Focus on the functionality required…
Not the visuals or security
Provide anonymous block code to create test records.
Comment your code!
▪ Explains your thinking and techniques to the person grading it
▪
A huge help when preparing for the essay exam.
TESTING!!!
▪ Positive, Negative, Profiles, Bulk

42. Essay Exam
Preparation
How did you approach the assignment?
Who, What, Why, Where, How ….. Especially How!!
Scheduling
- Sit it when you have development nearly finished
- International Candidates beware of dates and times of submission
There were 5 questions:
▪ designed to allow you to talk about what you did.
▪ Commenting your code – this gives you a good study guide.
A GOTCHA
▪
▪
Essay exam software a little difficult to type out the answers.
Copy and Paste between questions does not work!

43. Getting the Results
Results email received on March 5th 2013.
▪ Strengths I displayed in my assignment
▪ Areas I need to develop
What did it mean?
▪ Huge sense of accomplishment
▪ My MD was very happy
▪ My LinkedIn account has gone mad!
▪ My knowledge of and confidence using the Force.com platform has been greatly enhanced
▪ Massive appreciation for a world-class product.

45. Agenda
Certified Force.com Advanced Developer Overview
Chris’ Story
Leah’s Story
Barry’s Story
Q&A
Resources

46. Chris Alun Lewis
Leah McGowen-Hare
Barry Hughes
Developer
Desynit
@ChrisAlunLewis
Senior Instructor,
salesforce.com
@LeahBMH
Developer
Blue Wave Group
@barryhughes
Visit the Certification website:
http://certification.salesforce.com/developers

47. Agenda
Certified Force.com Advanced Developer Overview
Chris’ Story
Leah’s Story
Barry’s Story
Q&A
Resources

48. The Obvious Stuff
Download the Study Guide: certification.salesforce.com/developers
Sign up for training (instructor-led or self-paced online training)
Practice in a free Developer Edition Org: www.developerforce.com/join
Register for the Exam: www.webassessor.com/salesforce
Join the Salesforce.com Training & Certification Group
in the Success Community.

49. The Not So Obvious Stuff
Follow the MVPs on Twitter find them here: http://developer.force.com/mvp
Read the Article: http://bit.ly/AdvDevCert
Dig into Salesforce Stackexchange: http://salesforce.stackexchange.com

50. The Bottom Line
Prepare, Perspire, Persevere!
Every experience is different
Be prepared for the certification journey to improve your skills

51. We want to hear
from YOU!
Please take a moment to complete our
session survey
Surveys can be found in the “My Agenda”
portion of the Dreamforce app

53. Appendix

54. So I’m Certified, Now What?
Display your certified logo proudly!
Join your local Developer User Group: bit.ly/user-groups
Get active on the Discussion Boards: bit.ly/devboards

55. Session
Survey
Ready for
hands-on training?
Follow up with an instructorled course, we suggest:
Don’t
forget...
Tell us what
you think with
the session
survey
Have Premier?
Apex
Force.com Code (Apex)
and Force.com Page
Controllers
Try these online courses:
Managing Development
with Force.com
Visualforce Controller
Salesforce
Success
Community
Join the
community to
collaborate with
customers,
employees, and
peers.
Simply log in to
Salesforce,
click Help &
Training,
then click
Collaboration.

56. Need Help, Contact Us
Search the Knowledge Base certification.force.com/pkb
Open a Case
certification.salesforce.com/open-a-case
Salesforce.com Training & Certification Group
Salesforce.com Certified Professionals Group
facebook.com/SalesforceCertification
@SalesforceCert

57. How do I register for the exam?
Create a test taker account and register for the
exam at: www.webassessor.com/salesforce
Log into your test taker account to register for
additional exams and view your transcript.
Locate a testing center at: kryteriononline.
com/host_locations
Online proctoring is available
▪
▪
Review system requirements at: www.
webassessor.com/downloads
Apple computers not recommended

58. How Do I Maintain my Credential?
30 minute release-specific online Developer exams are available for
each major Salesforce release
▪ You will be notified via email when release content and exams are available
▪ Cost: $100 for every 3rd release exam (includes access to Release Training
and the associated maintenance exams for one year)
Each release exam is available for two release cycles
If you do not pass the release exam by the deadline, all credentials
will expire (do not lose your Advanced Developer Certification!)
The exams are open note, so you can refer to the online training and
release notes during the exam
Certification Exam Release Schedule: certification.salesforce.com/schedules