My Experience with the Salesforce Platform Developer I Certification

• Lookup and master detail relationships and security information
• Usage of External ID fields
• Import / Export data concepts
• Operation (Create / Delete) of Schema builder
• Evaluate the impact of schema design and its modifications, on Apex development

Logic and Process Automation

Tips:

• Almost all questions will be scenario based or code snippet based!
• Save execution order of apex triggers (Very very important!!). Questions will be tricky.

Topic Content:

• With sharing and without sharing concepts (Container class / Inner class)
• Container class, inner class and interfaces
• Describe call information
• Representation of picklist, multi-select picklist values in Apex
• Exception handling
• Sharing setting information with Anonymous block execution
• Use of collections – List, Set, Map
• Best practices of development, such as avoiding queries inside a loop; and avoiding DML operations inside a loop
• Usage of normal DML operations/Database DML operations
• Error handling concepts
• SOQL and SOSL –  return type of both queries
• DML statements and associated query limits
• Workflow rules, validation rule, roll-up summary field, formula field, process builder (Note:  Using process builder, we have the ability to update child records!)

Visualforce (User Interface)

Tips:

• Force.com page execution life cycle: basic questions would be there around what executes first

Topic Content:

• Visualforce email template tags
• Usage of standard controller, standard set controller, custom controller, custom extension and sharing information
• Usage of Controller constructor or component constructor
• Usage of Controller constructor or Apex: page action method
• Merge fields, data binding between your VF page and Controller properties and methods
• Usage of custom setting

Lightning

Tips:

• If you have completed your trailhead badges on basic lightning experience, you are good to go! If not, well, what are you waiting for?

Topic Content:

• Controller logic
• Resource bundle
• Benefits of lightning components

Testing

Tips:

• Scenario and code snippet based questions
• Best practices of test code development

Topic Content:

• Considerations for test code development while carrying out production deployment of apex code
• Test code for an inbound email handler class
• Access modifiers of test classes, importance of @istest, @istestvisible, startTest and stopTest methods
• Creating & Accessing Pricebook and product data in test methods
• Process to store test data and load them in test method for bulk testing
• Different places to run test classes and check their results

Debug & Deployment

Topic Content:

• Usage of Sandbox and different types of Sandbox
• Different ways for Deployment
• Go through the log filters, know how to set the filters on apex classes & triggers
• Usage of checkpoint window and debug log tab in Developer console
• Possible source & destination in a change-set, deploy / rollback in a change-set, deployment connections

Important Reference Links

• Apex Developer Guide –
  1. https://resources.docs.salesforce.com/sfdc/pdf/salesforce_apex_language_reference.pdf (PDF format)
  2. https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.apexcode.meta/apexcode/ (Online)
• Visualforce Developer Guide –
  1. https://resources.docs.salesforce.com/sfdc/pdf/salesforce_pages_developers_guide.pdf (PDF format)
  2. https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.pages.meta/pages/ (Online)
• Apex Workbook –
  1. https://resources.docs.salesforce.com/sfdc/pdf/apex_workbook.pdf (PDF format)
  2. https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.apex_workbook.meta/apex_workbook/(Online)
• Visualforce Workbook –
  1. https://resources.docs.salesforce.com/sfdc/pdf/workbook_vf.pdf (PDF format)
  2. https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.workbook_vf.meta/workbook_vf/(Online)

There are both scenario based questions as well as code snippet based questions. Most of the code snippet based questions were fairly straightforward without much twists.

Pro Tip: If you get stuck, try to reverse engineer from the answers available and match it back to the flow of code to see which option is the right fit for the given code.

Out of 105 minutes, it took me close to 75 minutes to complete all the 60 questions. I took 15 minutes to revise all the answers, ensured I didn’t leave any question unanswered, and focused on the questions I had marked for review. Please make full use of the time available to review and confirm your correct answer.

What’s Next?

This exam is prerequisite to the Salesforce Certified Platform Developer 2 exam so I have already started my preparation for that! Be assured folks, I am going to keep you posted!

ALL THE BEST