Olli Timperi joins to talk about Salesforce Certificates.
Main Points
- Salesforce Certificate paths for four different roles
- Guest’s goal to achieve technical architecture certificate
- The recommended way to prepare for Salesforce certificates from the guest How to learn Salesforce from zero knowledge
- Trailhead
- Typical mistakes of customers using Salesforce
- How to build and document customization – Some best practices of using the platform
Links
Contact Me
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Transcript
AI-generated, unedited.
[00:20] Hello, everybody. This is Xi from Finland, and this is our actually first episode of Salesforce Way podcast. Today I'm honored to have Salesforce Guru with me. So his name is Olli Timperi, right? Yes, Olli Timperi. Okay. So could you firstly briefly introduce yourself? Yes. So so my name is Olli. And I work at Beat as a Solutions Director, and I've been working with Salesforce platform for over five years now, and. And I have currently eleven certifications, and I've been working with many many kinds of projects at Salesforce, and seen many solutions there. Okay, so you had more than five years experience already with Salesforce, and before that you also had some other CRM related. Yeah, I used to work with other products like Oracle-based CRM for more than eight years before that. So actually, I did your LinkedIn. The first thing really surprised me is the long list of Salesforce certificate. So you're actually the first guy who I know in person who has more than ten certificates under the belt. So then I thought, okay, this guy is really expert. Then that's why originally I want to invite you to this podcast to share your experience. Yeah, thank you. So maybe since you have so many certificates already, so you you probably have some insights
[01:51] around the certificate. So, like me, I want to be a Salesforce developer. I decided to be one two months ago. I'm pretty, you know, a beginner here. So maybe you can share some thoughts around certificate thing. Yeah. So basically, Salesforce provides certifications in for different types of roles. So there are certifications for developers. That's more focused on implementing Lightning components or custom. Logic with code, okay. So that's one area. Then there are other areas. Are for example Salesforce administrators who make the configurations, maintain users. And so on. So that's another area. Then third area for the certifications is for consultants. So if you are working as a sales cloud consultant or service cloud consultant or community cloud consultant. Then those guide how Salesforce has thought that those products should be used and and how the business process should be modeled into Salesforce. So it has a slightly different perspective, not so much on technical, but like on the. Interface between the business and the technical solution. Okay, three clear defined categories. Yeah, then there's there's one more, which is the architect certifications. Okay, and they are mostly focused on designing large scale scalable solutions that work for bigger enterprises
[03:21] or. Or even for smaller companies that you have a lot of data or very large Salesforce implementation with many modules in use, so how to make sure that the that the solution that is built works in the long run? Okay. So I understand if I want to be a developer, I definitely should go along this developer path, right? The certificates. Yes. And do I need to also acquire some admin-related certificates? It's not a requirement if you want to be a developer in in Salesforce that you know the or get the administration certification, but definitely knowing how those things work. Helps you because then you can identify, for example, in which cases you should implement something with code and in which case you can do it by configuration and what's the best solution for each, each place. So even if you wouldn't do that configuration yourself, it's good to know what the options are. It's like a basic skills. Yes, and and also there are some like shared areas. For example, how to create objects or new fields in Salesforce. They are covered in the administration part, but of course they are very important for a developer to understand the data model and the capabilities in that area. Okay, clear. And you also mentioned we have the architect parts. Yes, that's more like a technical architect. There are two well, there's like a one end goal is to get certified
[04:53] technical architect credential, but that's made of two different paths. One of them is application architect, which focuses mostly on the features that you do by configuration or like local development. Okay. For example, how to do effective data management, how to do sharing. Visibility structures, how to do community cloud and things like that. The other part then is system architect or system architecture. And that focuses very much on the technical things, like how to do integrations, how to do identity and access management. How how to run the development process and deployments and continuous integration these type of topics. So so there are two paths within the architecture and then take combine or reach the reach the top and then then you will get the technical architect certification. It's like a master of yes architectural. Yeah, there are only I think few hundred in in the world that have that. Certification. Actually, saw one guy in LinkedIn with this so-called the master, the master architect. I don't know if that's. I think that's something else. Okay, okay, okay. So, what what is your path? What what do you want to achieve in this certification area? Well. I'm currently going for the technical architect
[06:23] certification path. Okay. I have got the application architecture certification already, application architect certification. Okay. Last year, and now I started doing the system architect certifications. I've gotten one of them done, and two of them remaining. Still, so does that mean you complete the remaining two, and then the system architect automatically is enabled? Yes. Yeah. Then, then I will also get the system architect. Then the to get the technical architect certification, that's probably the toughest certification in that Salesforce has. Okay. Basically, it's a half a day on site. Visit to one of the Salesforce premises, and there is like a hypothetical scenario. They give you like some kind of requirements, what the customer needs, and then you have about an hour, a bit more to prepare for presentation. And then you give kind of half an hour presentation how each of the Salesforce design areas should be done for that customer. And then they ask questions after that, and of course, since they know the scenario inside out, the questions are likely to be quite challenging. Yeah, so basically, you have to know very well all the Salesforce areas because you have a quite limited amount of time for a challenging scenario to come up with. With the right solution, and also you have to present
[07:53] it in the right way because that's part of being an architect. That you also need to be able to communicate that solution to different kind of stakeholders, from business to to IT. But you don't need to write good documentation, do you? Well, of course not. Yeah, in real life, yes. But in in that certification exam, no. It's it's a presentation, and you can use slides or you can draw on a flip board. Okay, slides is probably recommended way because then then you don't forget things when you are presenting. Right. Okay. Good luck with that. Yeah, I think you will make it. Yeah. Let me know once you got it. Yeah. Yeah, but I have also done the other tracks. So basically, when I started my Salesforce path, I start with the administration certifications. So I took the Salesforce Administrator, Advanced Administrator, and back then it was called Force.com Developer. Nowadays called App Builder. Which is they are they are focused on the configurable features how you how you implement things in Salesforce without coding without coding yes so so that those were the first three that I took and then I also quite rapidly within the first couple of months. Took the Salesforce certification, which I think for me that was fairly easy because I had worked with CRM for so many years, and basic business concepts are still the same. And then it's more like learning how they fit into Salesforce and how you
[09:23] should do those. That's part of the consult. Yeah, that's part of the consultant track. So I did that and and also the service cloud consultant, which is part of the. Consulting, so those I did in the first couple of months, and I think that gives a very good baseline to start building your Salesforce knowledge on. So you haven't taken any developer-related certificate? I I have taken as well. Oh my God! So I have taken the the platform developer certification, which is basically how to do. The automations with code and how to build custom user interfaces in in Salesforce. Okay. Wow. I don't know what to say now. So it's kind of a long journey, right? You spend like five year of some of majority of your spare time to study this. No, no, not really. Okay, okay. I would say that okay in the beginning, I was lucky that when I started working at Salesforce, they gave a chance to study. During their their working days, and of course, I did some additional things on the side. But so that was the first part. Then, then for the rest, I have, but basically, I have worked with many of the areas, at least. To some extent, so so then learning those is easier once you have have a bit of experience. And of course, in hindsight, when you study certain things, you can see maybe I could have done something differently in the past. But but then it's easier, of course, when
[10:53] you have experience on Salesforce platform to learn something. Some other other areas, some new areas there. Okay. So so typically, like, I take some time to to study or read the materials. Maybe a couple of days to to go through the. Materials needed for the exam, and I also like to practice a bit myself. So I do in my own developer org or in the Trailhead environment. So I I do things there, try out how they actually work, and maybe I have an idea which. Which I have done or or could do for a customer, so I try to like make it a bit more real life, so then I can get the concepts better because I can relate it to something that could actually exist and not just reading the materials. Okay. So you were also using Trailheads to help you prepare for the yes yeah, I think everybody in Salesforce understand what Trailheads. It's it's super super useful at least for me. I try to get yeah. It's really good good online like learning tool and you can do like the basic like small modules there and then if you take the super badges for example, then you actually have to think yourself how to solve problem and it's not so straightforward how to how to do those exercises and I think they are very good. Um,
[12:24] good, very good learning platform. Okay, good. And and then just before I go to exam, I usually kind of when I'm reading things, then I'm taking notes, and then I read my notes before I go to exam. Oh, that's really good. And then then I usually like, if if there are some questions that require memorizing, then I kind of recap those. But the focus, of course, is not. In passing the exam, but it's to to actually learn those things exactly. I mean, I was preparing my first the certificate. This admin certificate, it has a lot of content. So I need to understand the data module, understand securities, how to configure this, configure that. I've done a lot of trailheads, but it's easy really to forget a lot of them. So I think I also need to know and to repeat something, right? Yeah, yeah, definitely. I recommend like. Taking notes while while studying and reading, or making drawings of certain structures, for example, how the different visibility components related to each other, and then then recap those before the exam. Okay. Another question I got a lot of people ask me how to enter Salesforce world. Let's say they could be just a graduate from the school, and they want to learn Salesforce. So I always recommend them to start with the Trailheads. If you can complete let's say twenty badges, then contact
[13:54] me. Let's chat about. Then you understand a bit more the Salesforce, and then you can decide whether you want to jump in or not. So that's how I recommend my friends if they want to join Salesforce. Do you think that's a good idea? Yeah, definitely. I would also recommend getting into, into Trailhead, and then depending on what type of Role you're interested in, you can pick certain paths or trails. There, for example, if you want to be a developer, you can take the developer beginner. Trail there, which will basically give you the introduction to the development part, and and then you can see and because also in in Trailhead you get the access to the environments, you can actually play around in your own own playground environment there, and that gives you better view at how it actually is. Not it's not just like. Slide where, but you actually can go ahead and see yourself. Yeah, and even you can validate your result if it's correct or not. Yeah, yeah, it validates. It's kind of gaming feature. Give you points. Yeah, and then you then you progress in the ranks as well. So yeah, they ask you always to take the next one, take the next one. Yeah, yeah. But I think like a gamification, it it works quite well. Yes, yes. At least I like it. Yeah, I I heard from one of my colleagues, if you get hundred bet, you can get this. Like a Salesforce jacket. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You do get this Salesforce trailblazer
[15:24] hoodie. Okay. Okay. For for achieving the Ranger status. Okay. Which is 100 badges. Again, 23. Still a long way to go. Yeah. All right. I think we just discussed about certificates. We talked a little bit about trailheads. Maybe you can share more of your experience with like how to work with the Salesforce customers. What kind of challenges or How customers usually use Salesforce in a good way or in a bad way, right? Do you think that's a good topic? Yeah, that's quite a broad topic, of course. Anything you think is good to talk about? Yeah. So, so let's say like Salesforce started with the. CRM functionality, sales cloud. CRM is like a customer relationship management. Yes, that was the, where it started back in the. 19 end of 1990s. Okay, okay. Like most of the customers are using Salesforce for either managing their sales or customer relationship management functionality, or service cloud or marketing cloud. So, so those are the like typical customer cases. They usually start with one of those. For example, for a customer, they they need to improve their sales processes and and improve how getting more revenue. So then they start investigating maybe, like
[16:55] getting the best tools in place would support that. Of course, there's a lot of other things too. How you manage the sales, what kind of processes you use, how you market your products, and and so on, so on. But usually it starts with one of those those three three main clouds. But then then customers usually like Salesforce. And then they start like realizing that okay they want to expand it to other areas, so it might be one of these other like standard areas, or they want to build something else on Salesforce platform. And and Salesforce is like really flexible platform as well. You can basically build any kind of applications there. There either you can create them yourself, you configure the new objects and the new user interface there, or you can purchase some ready-made applications from this Salesforce AppExchange marketplace. Okay. So usually it starts from one of those, and then it expands to to other areas. The other like tendency is that usually in the very first phase, when customer takes Salesforce into use. It's more or less a standalone implementation, but then they start want to integrate it with some other applications, like back back back end back end ERP or or other systems. And and then then once you get the integrations and then you start to like develop it further and you
[18:25] make more functionalities, automations and so forth. Then then you need to start also paying attention to the how you maintain the solution in the in the long run and do the implementation in the right way so that you keep the. Create flexibility that Salesforce has, and not make make it so that it it would take a lot of time to implement some new feature or take a new feature that Salesforce comes up into use. Is that kind of like architect, that can help you do, you know, design this stuff? Yeah, there I would say that there's architect parts, but there are also like for For example, from certification point of view, there was Salesforce certification, and that's an example that there you learn how Salesforce should be used for that purpose. And then, one important point is that, for example, when you take opportunities functionality in Salesforce into use, that then you use the opportunities for the purpose they are meant for. So potentially revenue generating events, basically deals that end in a like either won or lost stages. But but you shouldn't you be using those for something completely different, because then later on if you want to actually take the opportunities into use where they were meant to, or some opportunity features, then if you use them for something else or some other way that they are not meant to be used, then it it might block you from taking that into use. Okay.
[19:55] So Salesforce, the sales cloud has already default functionalities, which is like a industry best practice. Yes, and some customers they don't think it had. Well enough, and then just use. Or is it more, not maybe that they don't think that it's good enough, but they have their own way of doing things, and then they want maybe continue using it in the same way that they used some other application before. Okay, but when taking it to Salesforce, it's important to evaluate that. What's the way how you want to do things? Because if you do the same thing again in a different application, probably the result is is the same. Right. So you should actually like because Salesforce has a very good out of the box functionality for for these areas, and and many of the Salesforce customers are very successful in implementing them. Exactly. So so you should kind of reevaluate that. Maybe that's your own process. Think about changing that as well. Yeah. Like if companies from manufacturing, field, if you have your own heavy customized process, you might think to simplify that to make it maybe fits Salesforce the standard way or the industry standard way, right? Yes, so so exactly so that you would basically. For example, then use opportunities for opportunities, and then if you are doing
[21:25] configuring, for example, if you are manufacturing machines which have some configurable features that are. Tailored by customer by customer, then then you would use the say for CPQ functionality for doing the configuration and pricing. Okay, and and for example, this way that you kind of use those functionalities that exist in for the purpose that they are meant for. And if you do have, which sometimes happens, that you have like some things that are not. They're out of the box. Then it's usually better to build your own solution for that, but not try to bend the out of the box application into a use that it's not meant for, because that might block you from going further. You create your customized solution, isolated. Yes, or not isolated, but connected to the standard process. But you kind of okay don't don't. Use the standard part for something else, but in general, of course, it's highly recommendable to use the standard functionality because then, if you, for example, start with sales part and then you want to take service cloud for your customer service, or field service functionality, then if if you have used the standard components, then they automatically link. For the other new features and and for example, then the sales people can see the customer service case is directly under the same customers and collaborate around them and the other way
[22:55] around that they. Customer service can see the sales opportunities and maybe comment there if the customer calls calls and has some feedback. Then they can take it into an account for the next. So it kind of brings all the different teams together. But if yeah, so those clouds they are sharing the same Force. com platform or the Lightning platform now. Okay, Lightning platform and data can flow among them. Yes. Yes. So, so for example, the customer information, which is stored in Salesforce accounts, that shared among all of the clouds. Okay. So then you can. But one of the ideas, of course, is to collaborate around the customers and focus your business around the customers. Okay. Good to hear. Um. So what else shall we discuss now? It's really good. Well, yeah. Well, one one other thing is maybe from more technical point of view, where the architects can help. Okay. So, cross sales force is very easy platform to configure. So you, if you want to create a new field, it's. Couple of clicks and one minute and it's there. Okay. And this, of course, very cool thing. But with that comes the kind of responsibility that you have to use that that flexibility and the capabilities. In a way that you don't do too many customizations or customizations that have lots of dependencies between each
[24:25] other that might or that might conflict with each other, or that you don't document what you are doing, and then after two years you come back and then you need to change something but you don't have anything there. How how did it work and why was this field created? So. It's important also to establish guidelines and rules how you do the development and how you document it. There are some good tools available out of the box. For example, for most of the configuration part, there's always there's a description field where you should put why you created this field, what what is used for, what what are the possible dependencies. Because then when you have the documentation directly in place. Then next time when you go there and do some changes, you can immediately see it, and since you see it, you are more likely to update it there than if you had a separate document somewhere else that someone might or might not remember to update. So, so it's really important to to document things there directly. The same applies for things that you develop with code. That of course you should comment your code and write a description what. Each class and each method does, and also from the user interface point of view in Lightning components, you should put there the description what it's for and then comments within the component and the client side controller. That
[25:56] same way that how it works, what was it meant meant to be used for? Okay, so the kind of comments or documentations are in line. In the in your code, yes, that we can update it whenever we want. Yes, and basically you could also generate with tools from all your code like similar documentation as you have for JavaDocs. Okay. So then you kind of get your, yeah, because usually customer wants to see the documentation. Yes, but it should be like generated from the source and not kept as a separate documentation because that. Makes it easier for you to maintain it. Then there are some other best practices on the platform that you should use. For example, if you have a lots of data, then you make need to make sure your queries are effective. And if you have a lots of data updating in parallel, then you need to consider how to. Make sure that you don't run into locking situations that two different applications or integrations are trying to operate the same same data. And there are many like once you start customizing it with code and do integrations, then many of the typical software development practices. Are very valid in Salesforce as well. Okay, so so that that's something to remember that once you go out of the configuration part, then then you really need to pay attention to many of the. Software development aspects as well. This
[27:26] stuff did you learn from certificate exam, or do you learn more from your work? Well, I would say both. Initially, when I started working with Salesforce, I was, in a way, lucky that I I got to work with very experienced people. Okay, so basically. I got mentoring and learning from from people who knew, and and they were doing like the overall architecture design first, and I was more in supportive role. Okay, and then then from there I could expand my my role and take more responsibility for the overall architecture. So so I would say that I learned. First from there, but then then I also started studying. Maybe not through certifications, but Salesforce also has lots of. Like other blogs for developers or architects or webcasts or videos in in YouTube or reinforce videos, so you can learn quite quite a lot of things things from those as well. Now now Salesforce changed the or launched the new. Architect certification parts in the Dreamforce 2016. Then, then the for that they collected all the or not all but the most relevant materials for certain areas into the study guides and they are basically a very good collection of best practices how to do
[28:56] certain things. Okay, and and then you get the. Kind of overview and and the dependencies between the things and what you should consider when doing this. So things and the documentation knowledge are already publicly available. Yes, you collect them, learn, and spend your time. Yeah, yeah. But then of course there's so much material that it's good that they have been filtered. That which are the kind of most important for certain area. Okay, cool. So before we closing our episode, do you have your like your contact information? Do you use like a Twitter? Something or do you have your personal website or how? I I use mostly LinkedIn for my professional okay website so so that can be found okay with my name okay so Olli Timperi. There's only one of them I think in LinkedIn because my last name is not so common. But yeah, maybe I in our this episode show notes I can also attach your LinkedIn. Yeah, sure. Account over there, cool. So, do you have still something else to say before we close this episode? Well, if you want to get into Salesforce, as as you mentioned, Xi, it's good to first check the Trailhead, browse the materials there, do do some pass and get your own environment, play around. Okay. And then, if you if you see that this is the path you want to follow and want to become a Salesforce. Expert or working in the Salesforce field,
[30:27] then then definitely would recommend their certifications and. One at a time. Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Olli. Thank you. That's it.
