76th Rule of Acquisition - Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies.

Change of plans; I am going to get the consulting certifications first. I will still get the developer certification, just not right away. I have a new job and they put more emphasis on the consulting certifications. The company is a Salesforce partner and I have access to the training materials, so I hope to get them in short order. Then I will circle back to the developer certifications. I think/hope this will give me more time to actually learn how to code vs. just passing the exam. 

Eventually I'll need the PD1 certification to be an architect (certification wise), but I am not a hurry to get it. Certifications are often used to get a new job and in my case, that job is an internal position.  My future posts will be about getting the NPSP Consulting and my continuing journey from Consultant to Architect.

As part of working for a partner I had to link my Webassessor and Trailhead accounts to their partner account. The actual process was simple but I learned two things:

1) Not all badges are created equal. I had assumed that I had three more badges than I really did. There are 'Event/Community' badges that you earn as part of doing things that may not be directly related to modules. TBH, I have no idea how I earned them but apparently they don't show up on public profiles. So when I linked my Trailhead to my Partner account I was three badges short. Below is a screenshot of the badges that the support folks told me did not count.

2) A new maintenance module was just released. When I linked my Webassessor account it said I was behind by one release on three of my four certifications. (The Administrator certification covers three of my certifications)  I had been checking the verification steps every few months and it always said I was caught up. This news was alarming since my employment is contingent upon maintaining my certifications. At the time the latest maintenance module was not released publicly. I submitted a case to Trailhead and they indicated that there was a high volume of cases due to issues with the maintenance modules. I checked the maintenance schedule and there were not any new ones released. I clicked through to the module and it was marked as completed. I did this a few times over the past week and eventually it said I was not current, i.e., there was a new module. I completed the module and the next day everything was synced up.

I took the job to learn more about Salesforce. I did not think this would what I would learn. I also spent some time creating engagement templates for NPSP, which I will discuss in a later post. I created enough of them that I think I can answer any question they throw at me. But to be double sure I will post something about it.

I think moving forward I will post concepts that I learn. I found in the past that training others for the certification helped me learn the material. At the new place everyone knows the stuff, so training them is probably not in the cards, so this will be the next best thing...lol

The Gamesters of San Francisco

I am at 182 badges. I did a search for Apex to find modules that would help me with studying for the PD1 exam. I found this one the other day (link) on how to prepare for the exam. It listed relevant modules and had some practice exam questions. I think it is relatively new and I don't think too many people know about them. I am going to post the link on Linked In -Ohana bro...

Most people I know struggle with the exam question format and not the concepts. Hopefully Salesforce has recognized this and the modules are a way to address the issue.

Out of Order

One of the influencers that I follow, like a lot of people, is David Liu. Recently he posted a video on how many certifications you should get and the order based on your career path. Interestingly, for all roles the first five or six were the same. After the usual suspects he suggests the Sales and Service Cloud certifications. 

One thing I wished I had learned sooner is that he believes in getting PD1 later in the architect journey. On LinkedIn I have seen a few people get this certification towards the end of their architect certification journey. It's too late for me since I am pretty far into studying and think that if I put it aside I will need to start from scratch. But after that I need to seriously consider the two main consulting certifications. 

Here's the video below..

79th Rule of Acquisition - Beware of the Vulcan greed for knowledge

Also true for Salesforce professionals and Trailhead badges. I am currently at 174 and closing in of 175. When I first started, Trailhead was a great way to learn the platform. Not enough to get certified, but enough to understand the material in the study guides. Over time I drifted away from it. A lot of the badges on the recommended certification trails I had already done and once I hit Ranger status, the gamification aspect sort of fizzled out. 

It did not help that one of the last badges I did was called Catter. It's real and it's no longer available but here's the proof. As the name suggests it's about cats and as an owner of between 2 -3 rescue hounds at any given time, it is not my most valued badge.

Fast forward to about a year or so ago when I started to learn Apex. The Apex badges were very difficult for someone with no coding experience and not very helpful. They were configured for developers wanting to learn Apex. I left the trail for resources listed in previous posts. I figured I would circle back to them once I had a better understanding of coding.

At some point I came across the Object-Oriented Programing for Admins and SOQL for Admin badges. I took a look at them and they were exactly what I was looking for. I am not sure if they were intuitive based on the hours of watching Apex videos or if they just did a better job of explaining things, but they drove home some key concepts. Based on these modules and the studying I have done, I am more confident about learning to code and passing the Platform Developer I exam.

I do wonder if at some point you can have too many badges and conversely is there any benefit to getting more. I see a lot of multiples of Ranger status (e.g., 4X Ranger) and wonder if anybody cares about that sort of stuff. Much like too many certifications can sometimes be a barrier to things, especially if you can't back up the certifications with experience, I wonder about too many badges. When I pass 200 badges, I may note it on my profile, but I won't use a multiplier...probably

 

44th Rule of Acquisition - Never confuse wisdom with luck

I feel the same way about certifications and experience. I have four and hope to soon have five. My biggest concern with the number of certifications is that they will lead my experience. I can justify all of my current certifications based on experience and have a good ‘story’ lined up for the next two.

I view certifications as a curated learning plan. Just like in school, you get a syllabus, you absorb the material, you take a test and you get a grade. It doesn’t make you an expert in the class but it shows you are familiar with the topic. Over time you will not remember everything but you will know where to find the information and what it means when you see it again.

I can explain each certification in the Solution Architect path based on my experience (as I get them)  but I can’t explain the Solution Architect Certification that you get when you pass all 4. At first I was disinclined to take the consulting certifications but I recently saw a presentation on someone’s journey to becoming a CTA. \

The individual failed the first time and when studying for the second time took the ‘other’ certifications to keep current with the material. I am debating if it makes sense to take the consulting certifications and let my experience catch up.

The architect also mentioned there were two paths to pass the exam:

1. Theoretical knowledge and coaching - Luck

2. Practical experience being an architect - Wisdom

While it would be nice to be a CTA by either method, long term I think the best approach is gaining practical experience.

23rd Rule of Acquisition - Nothing is more important than your health… except for your money (How I Study)

 My pre-covid study routine was to go to the local Starbucks on Saturday and Sunday and:

1. Take a Focus On Force practice exam

2. Create flashcards on the topics 

3. Review the material 

I would do this every weekend until I was getting above 90% on all the exams in the course. I would then schedule the exam and then start taking the exams during the week. I would shift from picking the right answer to eliminating the wrong answers. Usually I would take the Friday off before the exam to study and then take the exam on Saturday. As a general rule, I try to never tell anyone that I am taking the exam. 

With the local quarantine restrictions, I have to stay at home. I realized that while I can set aside the same amount of time if not more to study, the coffee house atmosphere was very conducive to studying. I can’t explain it since there are probably more distractions at the coffee house than at home. I find that I am taking longer to get the next certification as compared to my pre-COVID path.

Of the many things I am looking forward to when we can go outside again, is being able to study for exams at a Coffee House. I may try to find other non-chain places to study at. BTW - English Breakfast tea, unsweetened is my beverage of choice when I study.

In Theory

One of my favorite Star Trek TNG episodes is - In Theory. It’s the one where Data learns about love. This post has nothing to do with that, but I like the title because I used to think In Theory the Schema Builder was great, but in practice it left much to be desired. I think it is good for trying to understand the relationship between objects in an org. I never really used it to create objects and fields.

A few weeks ago I watched a presentation on Building Artifacts from Requirements and it gave me some new appreciation for the Schema Builder. Building artifacts seems to be a common theme on the journey to being a CTA. I need to learn and start building artifacts if I am going to be an architect and one way to practice is to build the artifacts for existing orgs. This helps me with my day job by understanding the data model and gets me used to building them. 

The advantage of doing it on the existing org is that I know what it will look like when I am done.  It’s like being assigned a homework problem and having the answer in the back of the book. It might also help me find ways to improve things. I am seeing a push to start doing things off-platform from Salesforce and the artifact might help identify areas where this might be an option.

The first step is to figure out which tool to use. I have access to Visio for work, but I do a lot of stuff on my personal laptop so I need something that is free. The presentation suggested Lucid chart or Draw.io.

I am going to explore Draw.io first since it is free. Just because something is free, doesn’t mean it is bad. Remember the 82nd Rule of Acquisition - The flimsier the product, the higher the price.