Salesforce is acclaimed to be the World’s #1 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform. There’s a strong reason behind this tagline. You can find numerous companies using Salesforce as their CRM in most industries.
All of Salesforce products run entirely using the latest cloud technology, enabling users to work anywhere on their devices. Salesforce calls their platform the Customer Success Platform as their clients have achieved success by having a higher engagement rate with their customers.
What Is Salesforce?
Salesforce is acclaimed to be the World’s #1 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform. There’s a strong reason behind this tagline. You can find numerous companies using Salesforce as their CRM in most industries.
All of Salesforce products run entirely using the latest cloud technology, enabling users to work anywhere on their devices. Salesforce calls their platform the Customer Success Platform as their clients have achieved success by having a higher engagement rate with their customers.
Using Salesforce for Ecommerce?
In 2016, Salesforce Demandware acquisition was the hot topic. Salesforce acquired Demandware, a cloud-based provider of e-commerce services to all businesses, for $2.8 billion.
E-commerce has been rising exponentially over the years and major competitors such as Oracle and SAP has tapped into e-Commerce. Salesforce felt the urgency to allow users using Salesforce for eCommerce. Hence, the reason for the hefty acquisition figure of $2.8 million. Demandware Salesforce, now better known as Salesforce commerce cloud, is Salesforce’s wall breaker for sales, service, and marketing.
Features of Salesforce
How did Salesforce become the king of the jungle in the CRM industry? Below are a few prominent features that you should know of with regards with Salesforce.
Opportunity Management
One of the more popular features of Salesforce is the CRM pipeline, better known as Opportunity Management. Users are able to view their prospects and clients’ full details such as deal stages, activity history, discussions, and issues. These features simplify the process of understanding and tracking the deal’s milestones seamlessly among users.
Reports and Dashboards
With time being the essence of any business, Salesforce provides users with a clear and real-time view of their business’s progress in a single glance. The real-time dashboards allow users to easily compound various business metrics into charts, graphs, tables etc. Users can generate and customize reports like sales forecasting and team performance reports with their drag-and-drop function.
Salesforce Mobile
This is probably one of the reasons why Salesforce is one of the most popular CRM systems in the market out there. Unless you’ve been living under a rock like a certain starfish, you should have noticed that our smart devices are becoming predominant in the workforce. With Salesforce1 – the mobile application for Salesforce, users can literally run their business from their phone. Users are able to access all of Salesforce’s features on Salesforce1, and even log their emails seamlessly from the app.
Types of Salesforce Certification
Getting back on track, a Salesforce developer salary is indeed high and may seem questionable when it comes to hiring one. A certified Salesforce developer can get a 40% higher average salary compared to an uncertified developer. The statistics don’t lie and it just proves that a certified Salesforce developer has much more worth than an uncertified one.
Hence, let’s have a look at the types of Salesforce certification available. There are a total of 8 types of certification, but instead, I’ll focus on the top 3 types of Salesforce certifications to look out for when hiring a Salesforce developer.
1. Administrator
The Salesforce admin certification is a MUST to look out for when hiring a Salesforce developer. All qualified Salesforce developer starts off from this certification as it lays down the Salesforce Foundation. There are 2 tiers available in this certificate: Salesforce Certified Administrator and Salesforce Certified Advanced Administrator.
Salesforce Certified Administrator
A certified Salesforce Administrator must be able to perform the following tasks:
- A basic level of understanding on the management of users and data
- A basic understanding of customization on Sales Cloud and Service Cloud
- Building reports, dashboards and even workflows to provide your organization the business visibility they need
Salesforce Certified Advanced Administrator
For this advanced certification, there’s a prerequisite to take and pass the Administrator examination before attempting the advanced level. As a result, an Advanced Administrator should be able to execute the following task:
- Show advanced skills in the administrative tasks of Salesforce
- Optimization and extension of Sales Cloud and Service Cloud
- Understand deeper into generating advanced reports, dashboards and business process automation
2. Architect
The Architect certification is one of the certification types with the most certificates. Technical Architects are considered the pinnacle certification to have and they are often known as the Salesforce elites. In this article, I will only go into details for the middle and upper tiers: Domain Architect and Technical Architect respectively, as these are the certifications to look out for.
Salesforce Certified System Architect
The Salesforce Certified System Architect’s role is similar to a software developer. They are adept at running and testing the system. They basically know the system inside out and are able to perform API integrations with third-party systems.
The prerequisites for this certification requires a number of certificates from the lower tier and developer side, making it difficult to attempt without any strong knowledge in the CRM system.
Salesforce Certified Application Architect
The Salesforce Certified Application Architect knows the native Salesforce features and functionality at the back of their hands. They are capable of modeling a role hierarchy, data model, and sharing mechanisms.
The prerequisites for this certification are similar to the System Architect. It comprises a few certificates from the lower tier and developer side.
Salesforce Certified Technical Architect (CTA)
The Salesforce CTA is at the apex of the Architect pyramid. They are the ones that every company sought after. As they are acquainted with numerous development platforms, they are also skilled and experienced in accessing what the customers require. They can design a secure and high-performance technical solution that optimizes your organization’s Salesforce system. Note that the prerequisites for this certification are the toughest of all.
- Salesforce Certified System Architect certificate
- Salesforce Certified Application Architect certificate
3. Developer
The certificate with one of the highest level of difficulty. Salesforce certified developers are your IT whizzes as they utilize a strong command over programmatic and declarative knowledge to extend and customize applications on the Lightning Platform.
Salesforce Certified Commerce Cloud Digital Developer
The Salesforce Certified Commerce Cloud Digital Developer is an expert when it comes to fully utilize Commerce Cloud to create an e-Commerce solution. Packed with an all-round development experience in using Salesforce Commerce Cloud Digital, they are able to build you your desired e-Commerce platform.
Here’s a list of programmatic tasks they are required to do to get their certificates:
- Diagnose and resolve file synchronization complications between UX Studio and the sandbox domain
- Be familiar with product data models for products and inventory management
- Modifying site search to allow specific product attributes searches
- Build JavaScript controllers for script leveraging and template/JSON rendering
Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I
The Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I is equipped with the skills to generate custom applications on the Force.com platform. A certified platform developer is capable enough to develop, design and deploy applications and websites to Force.com with the use of development tools. They are supposed to understand and execute the following during the examination:
- Visualize the data model, domain logic, UI and secure custom applications
- Build and customize applications for mobile usage
- Design reports and dashboards
- Execute the development lifecycle with ease
Salesforce Certified Platform Developer II
The Salesforce Certified Platform Developer II are experts that are able to execute advanced programmatic capabilities of the Force.com platform. Competent in data modeling practices, they can develop complex business logic and interfaces on the platform.
Here’s what a certified Platform Developer II is required to do to pass the examination:
- To engage in the full process from developing to deploying programmatic solutions
- Operate and execute the Apex design paradigm and object-oriented programming (OOP) method
How Do I Pick a Suitable Salesforce Developer?
In case you missed it, here’s a recap of the top 3 types of Salesforce certification.
- Administrator: The basic certification. Able to understand how Salesforce works and build reports, dashboards, and workflows. Can be upgraded to Advanced Administrator to handle complex tasks.
- Architect: 3 tiers of certification. System, Application, and Technical. A certified Technical Architect is the Architect that MNCs sought after. They are usually the cream of the crop among any Salesforce developers.
- Developer: The brainchild of Salesforce, they are able to do various customization for your applications and websites. A Commerce Cloud Digital Developer can build you your desired e-Commerce platform.
These certificates are readily available at Salesforce’s website, and you can refer to the credentials stated there to find your ideal developer. E.g. If you’re looking into incorporating your e-Commerce website with Salesforce, you can hire a Commerce Cloud Digital Developer as they are competent in e-Commerce integrations.
Author bio :
Anastasia Stefanuk is a passionate writer and a marketing manager at Mobilunity. The company provides professional staffing services, so she is always aware of technology news and wants to share her experience to help tech startups and companies to be up-to-date.
