Interview Set2

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1.

Describe how Salesforce CRM is used by


organizations?
At its core, Salesforce is a customer-facing CRM system. It is used to record customer
details and the organization’s interactions with them. Salesforce’s most popular product
is Sales Cloud. This is used by organizations to record initial interest from customers
(Leads) and follow through a sales cycle, taking them through various steps to win their
business.

On the other side of the coin, you have Service Cloud, which is designed to support
customer service teams from within a business. Service Cloud helps agents deal with
customer queries, as well as solve issues.

Sales and Service Cloud are Salesforce’s two main products, but over the years,
Salesforce has been able to support all kinds of internal teams within an organization,
including Marketing, Analytics, Portals, Integration, and Collaboration (Slack).

Read More: What is Salesforce & Why is it so Popular?


2. What are the main benefits of a cloud
solution like Salesforce?
Salesforce is a Cloud SaaS platform (Software-as-a-Service), which means you access
it through your web browser, as opposed to a desktop application. Cloud systems have
major benefits over legacy computer systems that require huge amounts of server
power to run. This is why most applications you access today, in your business or
personal life, will be cloud-based (Spotify, Gmail, Office365, Dropbox, etc.).

Some of the biggest benefits of cloud computing solutions include:

 Cost: Older on-premise solutions required a huge upfront investment in


infrastructure. You would need to buy all the servers, install
them, and maintain them. With Cloud computing, you are essentially
outsourcing the maintenance of the infrastructure to a provider such as
Salesforce.
 Upgrades: Instead of managing upgrades to your software yourself, Cloud
computing providers take care of this for you. Salesforce will upgrade your
solution to the latest version three times a year. This comes with new features
and improvements to the system without you having to lift a finger or pay
additional fees.
 Mobility: Cloud computing tools can be accessed from anywhere. As long as
you have a device and an internet connection, you can access any information
that is stored in Salesforce. This is particularly handy if you travel frequently
for work or meetings.
3. Can you describe the main differences
between Sales Cloud & Service Cloud?
Sales and Service Cloud both act as the core CRM platforms for Salesforce and will be
used by the majority of organizations. While both share some similarities, they are
distinctly different products that contain different sets of features for their specific
function.

 Sales Cloud: This product is designed to support businesses with their sales
cycle – taking a potential customer on a journey, from qualifying them through
the Lead object to converting them into an Opportunity where the main sales
cycle takes place. Sales Cloud also has a number of other features to support
this process, from quoting to forecasting.
 Service Cloud: Service Cloud, on the other hand, helps organizations with their
customer support process. Customers initiate a support process by emailing,
calling, or submitting an online form. Once this case has been created in
Salesforce, agents can use features such as a knowledge base to help find
answers to questions and milestones to ensure SLA (Service Level
Agreements) are met, as well as features like live chat to talk to customers in
real-time.
Read More: Sales Cloud vs Service Cloud – What Are The Differences?
4. Apart from CRM, what other products do
Salesforce have in their offering?
Over the years, Salesforce has built up a huge portfolio of other products to help serve
its customers. One of the most attractive selling points is the fact that they can
seamlessly integrate with each other, creating a full 360-degree view of their customers.

Some of Salesforce’s other products include Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud,


Experience Cloud, MuleSoft, and Slack. For a full overview of Salesforce’s products,
check out the link below.

Read More: Ultimate Guide to EVERY Salesforce Product in 2021

5. What is the Salesforce Platform


(Force.com), and how does it help
organizations?
One of Salesforce’s biggest selling points is its platform (previously called Force.com).
This enables you to create powerful customizations on top of Salesforce’s products,
which allow you to completely tailor the applications to your organization’s exact needs.
This is made even more attractive by the fact that you can create customizations with
clicks, not code.At a basic level, this allows you to create custom fields and objects to
store unique information related to your organization. One of the most popular
customization possibilities is automation. You can create automation to do pretty
much anything in Salesforce – update a field, create a record, send an email, etc.
These types of customizations can end up saving users a lot of time.
Read More: Workflow Rules vs. Process Builder (Feat. APEX & Flow)
6. Can you provide an example of a custom
app you could build on the Salesforce
platform?
Taking customizations one level further, Salesforce enables you to build custom
applications on the platform. Think about how the Sales and Service Clouds are set up
with their various features designed for a certain purpose – this can be recreated for any
team function.

If you are familiar with Trailhead, you may have already created a few custom
applications that will give you a good answer to this question. If not, here are a few
ideas:
 An HR application to help internal teams manage jobs and job applicants.
 A finance system that can track invoices.
 A goal-setting app that can help managers set targets and goals for their team.

7. Can you describe the differences between


declarative and programmatic
customizations?
When it comes to Salesforce customizations, there are two main types: declarative and
programmatic.

Declarative customizations are point-and-click. These allow non-developers to build


powerful customizations by using a wizard to create custom fields, automation, and
tables of data. One of the latest developments Salesforce has brought out is MuleSoft
Composer, which allows integrations into other systems to take place using only clicks!
Programmatic customizations, on the other hand, are built with code. Whilst you can
do almost anything with declarative customization, there is a limit to more complex
solutions. Apex is Salesforce’s coding language and may be needed if the requirement
is particularly complex.
Lightning development, on the other hand, is Salesforce’s UI coding language, which
can be used to create completely custom screen layouts. In addition, it’s common that,
in most integrations, some level of coding experience using APIs will be needed.

8. Can you explain how Salesforce releases


work?
As a SaaS platform, Salesforce delivers updates to your system automatically. The
major releases happen three times a year, with some other, much smaller updates
delivered in between.

The major releases are labeled, Spring, Summer, and Winter, with the fiscal Salesforce
year following the name, e.g. “Salesforce Winter ’22 Release”. Each release will have a
huge amount of features and updates included across most Salesforce products.

It’s important to stay alert around release time. Whilst Salesforce rarely breaks anything
whilst updating your org, it’s important to test everything and ensure that it works as
expected.

9. What is the Salesforce Lightning


Experience, and how does it help
organizations?
Salesforce Lightning was primarily a new UI that was released in 2015 – it took
Salesforce’s UI, which was mostly unchanged since 1999, and brought it into the 21st
century. Salesforce centered the design around a modular experience that allowed
Salesforce Admins to easily control the layout of all pages.

This resulted in a rise in user productivity with the help of new features, as well as an
easy-to-navigate UI. Pretty much every single page of Salesforce Lightning Experience
is fully customizable. You can customize the homepage and record layouts, and you
can create dashboards to suit your specific needs.

Check out the slideshow below to see the evolution of Salesforce…




10. Can you describe an example sales


process that a company might implement?
Sales Cloud is Salesforce’s most popular product – it’s more than likely that you will
need to support this product. This is why it’s more important than ever to be able to
recommend and support a company’s sales process.

When someone refers to a sales process, they are referring to the process that a
salesperson will follow in order to sell a product or service to a potential customer. This
is then translated into the “Lead Status” and “Opportunity Stage” fields.

At an extremely basic level, that could look like the following: Qualify > Discover >
Analysis > Proposal > Negotiation > Closed Won (or Lost).

Here is an example below that includes a full Sales process, from entering the
organization at the Lead stage, all the way through to its closing.
11. Can you describe an example service
process that a company might implement?
Similar to the above questions, it’s important for Salesforce professionals to understand
how a customer support organization works and the different stages they go through to
solve a case.

Unlike a sales process that is split across the Lead & Opportunity objects, service
processes are contained on the case object.

Here is an example of a Service process: New > Working > Waiting on Customer >
Escalated > Closed.
12. What are objects in Salesforce and how
are they used?
In normal database terms, an object in Salesforce is simply a table of data. A table of
data will contain various fields and, in turn, these fields contain information like an email
address, phone number, or company name.

There are two types of objects in Salesforce: standard and custom. Standard objects
are those that come out of the box with Salesforce products. For example, in most
Salesforce products, Accounts & Contacts come as standard. In Sales Cloud, you will
get objects such as Lead & Opportunity, whilst in Service Cloud, Cases & Entitlements
will be standard.
Custom Objects, on the other hand, are created by you. These are the objects that can
be created as your foundation for building custom applications.
13. Salesforce has an App Store similar to an
iPhone. What is this called? Can you name
some apps you have used in the past?
One of Salesforce’s selling points is the AppExchange. This has nearly enough similar
functionality to the iPhone App Store or the Google Play Store. You can install pre-built
apps directly into your Salesforce org to easily add additional functionality. Some of the
most popular apps include e-Signature, Document Generation, and Form tools.
There is a near certainty that any Salesforce company you join will be using at least one
AppExchange app – this is why it’s important to have an understanding of how to use
these applications.

Check out some of the most popular apps in the post below and remember that most
apps have a free trial, so there is no harm in getting stuck in.

Read More: Best Salesforce Apps in 2021


14. How are changes tested in Salesforce
before being deployed to Production?
A fundamental concept of any IT system is that changes should never be made in
Production. They need to be tested in a safe environment to ensure nothing breaks and
user processes are not disrupted.
Salesforce provides a feature known as Sandboxes. These replicate your Production
configuration, giving you a safe environment to test changes and implement new
features.

Sandboxes come in different flavours, ranging from a Developer sandbox that only
contains your custom configuration, all the way through to Full Copy Sandboxes, that
contain all your configuration and data.

Read More: What is a Salesforce Sandbox? A Beginners Guide


15. Can you describe some of the main
differences between Salesforce editions?
(e.g. Professional & Enterprise)
Salesforce has a few different versions of its products including, Essentials,
Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited. It’s important to understand some of the
differences, at least from a high level. If you join an organization that has a lower tier
than you are used to, it may reduce the functionality you can implement. Here are a few
of the main differences:

 Functionality: Most Salesforce editions will contain core CRM functionality


including Account & Contact fields, email integration, and the mobile app.
However, some of the lower editions will not include automation, API
availability for integration, or some advanced features such as Flow.
 Limits: All Salesforce editions have some kind of limits, these can include daily
API calls, data storage limits, custom apps, or the number of custom objects of
fields. Higher-level editions will have higher limits.
 Cost: As you might have guessed, the more advanced versions can cost a lot
more. You can expect the Essentials version to cost $25/month per user and
the Unlimited one to cost $300/month.
16. How do you move changes between
Salesforce environments?
Once changes have been implemented and tested in a Salesforce sandbox, they need
to be moved to another sandbox and, ultimately, the production environment.

There are many ways to move changes between environments. However, the most
common way is to use change sets. Change sets are a packaged set of components
that can be created in one environment and moved across to another.

If you want to really impress your interviewer, learn all about Salesforce DevOps, the
next generation of deployment tools.
17. What is the difference between Data and
Metadata?
Metadata relates to the fields, configurations, code, logic, and page layouts that go into
building the information architecture and the look and feel of your Salesforce
environment.

Data relates to the records that a business relies on, such as Users, Accounts, and
Contacts, to name a few. On the other hand, Metadata is the data that describes other
data.
Read More: What Is Salesforce Metadata? A Beginner’s Guide
18. What is a Queue in Salesforce?
A lot of objects in Salesforce have to be owned by an individual. For example,
Accounts, Opportunities, Contacts, and Campaigns must be owned by a user in
Salesforce.

However, there are certain objects where it is useful to be owned by a Salesforce


Queue. Queues are like holding areas in your CRM where records wait for a user to
pick them up, assign them to an owner, and work on processing them.

Read More: Everything You Need to Know About Salesforce Queues


19. What is Salesforce Customer 360?
For a few years now, Salesforce has been trying to create a suite of products that allow
users of its platform to see a 360-degree view of their customers. This means that users
of Salesforce can see every interaction with a customer, from the first inquiry via the
website, to which products they have bought and what issues or queries they have with
their products.

This helps businesses by allowing them to serve their customers better – by knowing
everything about them, and by ensuring the businesses are working off a single source
of truth.
20. Where can you view Salesforce system
status & scheduled maintenance?
Salesforce has three releases each year and occasionally has scheduled maintenance
such as org migrations to different servers. On very rare occasions, Salesforce can also
‘go down’ for a limited period.

You can access all information pertaining to scheduled maintenance and downtime,
at Salesforce Trust. You can also sign up for notifications to be kept up to date with your
server status.

Admin Salesforce Interview


Questions
This section contains fundamental knowledge of the Salesforce platform. No matter
your role in the ecosystem, everyone should learn these Salesforce Admin concepts
that will be found in your Certified Administrator Certification.

Here are our Admin Salesforce interview questions…


21. Can you describe the differences between
a Role and a Profile?
Roles and Profiles are two fundamental concepts of the Salesforce platform. They
control what users can see and do on the platform.

Profiles control what a user can do on the platform – for example, they control what kind
of access rights a user has to a certain object, such as create, read, edit, or delete.
They also control individual permissions such as “Export Reports”, “Create Dashboard
Folders”, or “Modify All Data”.

Roles, on the other hand, are used to control what users can see. They are designed to
open up access through a hierarchy so that more senior members of the organization
can see more records. For example, someone at the bottom of the hierarchy, like an
Account Executive, might be only able to see their own accounts. But the VP Sales US
would be able to see all accounts owned by individuals below them.

*It’
s worth noting that even if the Salesforce Admin is below the CEO in the hierarchy. The
“Modify All Data” permission will allow them to see all data in Salesforce.
22. What are some of the automation tools
available to admins, and how can they be
used to help businesses?
Automation tools in Salesforce are an admin’s best friend. They are designed to be
easy to use and enable businesses to automate complex processes. This, in turn, helps
users to be more productive, allowing them to focus on revenue-generating activities
instead of manual admin work.

For example, once an Opportunity is closed-won, you could easily create automation to
create a case, which prompts the customer success team to get in touch with the
customer to begin onboarding.

Examples of automation tools include Workflow, Process Builder, and Flow. Salesforce
are currently in the process of retiring both Workflow and Process Builder, so Flow will
be the best automation tool to use going forward, with Salesforce only introducing new
features for this tool.

Read More: Process Builder Vs Flows – Become the Ultimate Admin


23. What are the main types of relationships
you can create between objects in
Salesforce?
Creating relationships between Salesforce objects is a fundamental skill. It’s important
to create them in a scalable way, ensuring you pick the right relationship for the right
solution.

The most common types are the Lookup and Master-detail relationships. Lookups can
be defined as loosely coupled, meaning that you can relate records easily to other
records in a one-to-many fashion.

Master-detail relationships, on the other hand, are tightly coupled. This means that a
child record cannot exist without a parent record, and if a parent record is deleted, the
child also gets deleted with it. For a full overview of all seven Salesforce relationships,
check out the article below…

Read More: The Types of Relationships in Salesforce


24. Describe the differences between Page
Layouts and Record Types
Page Layouts and Record Types are some of the first features that a Salesforce
professional needs to learn. They control the user interface in various ways and can be
used in conjunction with each other to create customized experiences for your users.

Page Layouts determine which fields are displayed to your users on a record. They also
allow you to add fields, sections, custom buttons, and other features. The “Details” tab
(in the image below) contains a lot of the elements that are controlled by the page
layout.
Record Types, on the other hand, let you offer different business processes, picklist
values, and Page Layouts to your users. For example, one of the most common use
cases of Record Types would be to create two different sales processes on the
Opportunity object. Each with different sales stages and Page Layouts.

This means that with Record Types you can now apply multiple Page Layouts per
object, per user profile.

Further Reading: When to use Record Types vs. Page Layouts?


25. Describe a few ways that Account and
Contact information can be imported into
Salesforce?
Importing data into Salesforce is a vital skill to hold, but it’s also important to understand
the differences between the main tools available:

 Data Loader: The Data Loader will be a staple of any Salesforce professional’s
toolkit. It allows you to import, export, update and delete large amounts of
records in a single operation. The Data Loader has to be downloaded to your
desktop for use.
 Data Import Wizard: The Data Import Wizard is a simplified tool that, as the
name suggests, allows you to import data into Salesforce. The wizard is
accessed from within Salesforce and also has deduplication features.
 Dataloader.io: Dataloader.io is an advanced, cloud-based data loader that is
packed full of features. Whilst this is primarily a paid product provided by
MuleSoft, the free version allows a certain number of importing/exporting
activities and is very useful for some more complex scenarios.
Read More: The Best Data Loaders for Salesforce
26. What is a Junction Object?
A junction object is used to create many-to-many relationships in Salesforce. This is
used when a normal parent-child or a one-to-many relationship doesn’t work.

This is exactly how the Opportunity and Product tables are joined in Salesforce. Check
out the article below for more details…

Read More: What is a Junction Object in Salesforce?

27. What Salesforce product can be used to


provide your Partners with the ability to
create Leads and Opportunities?
The Salesforce product you are looking for here is called the Experience Cloud
(previously called Community Cloud). This allows you to create portals that connect to
your Salesforce instance for a specific purpose. Two of the most common types of
portals include…

 Partner Portal: This is an area where your partners can create leads and
manage the sales cycle of opportunities. All partner activity can be viewed
within your Salesforce org, along with the provision of full reporting
capabilities.
 Customer Portal: A common use case for a customer portal is to provide
support as well as help articles. Customers can log cases, as well as search
knowledge bases for answers to their queries. You can even go as far as to
create a community that allows customers to interact with each other.
Read More: Ultimate Guide to EVERY Salesforce Product in 2021
28. Can you name the types of Salesforce
reports and the differences between them?
The reporting capabilities in Salesforce are a favorite amongst users, so it’s important to
understand the types of reports and their differences…

 Tabular: This is the simplest of reports and is suited just to show lines of data
and nothing else. It is similar to an Excel spreadsheet. If you just want to show
data without the need to show totals, calculations or groups of data, then this
is the report for you. It is also best to use this report type if you are planning to
export data.
 Summary: As soon as you add a grouping, you will turn the report into a
summary report. Summary reports are probably the most commonly used and
are great for showing groups of data, e.g., if you want to see the number or
value of opportunities per account, you would group your report by Account
Name. You can also subgroup fields by dragging them under the initial group.
 Matrix: Matrix reports are very similar to a summary, but they allow you to group
by rows as well as columns to see different totals. Building on the example
above, you might want to see the value of opportunities per account, by
month. So you would see that Edge Communications has $100,000 of
opportunities in January, $50,000 in February and so on.
 Joined Reports: Joined reports allow you to create two separate reports so that
you can compare data. You could use a Joined report to show the total
number of opportunities and cases per account, side by side.
Read More: How to Create a Report in Salesforce
29. What is a Dynamic Dashboard?
Dynamic Dashboards are a fantastic way to create a personalized experience for your
users when viewing a certain dashboard. It allows the data on a dashboard to change,
based on the user who is viewing it.

For example, you could have a single, personal sales dashboard for sales reps.
Whenever a different user viewed this dashboard, it would only show their leads,
opportunities, and accounts. This works by using the “My” filter on all dashboards.

30. Describe the different ways to make a


field required in Salesforce?
Making fields “required” in Salesforce is a great way to ensure that correct information is
being captured at the right point in the process. Over time, this massively improves data
quality. Here are a few ways you can make fields required:

 Custom Field Settings: Whenever you create a new custom field, you have the
option to make this required. This is a ‘hard’ limit and will be required
whenever you are creating a new record inside Salesforce or uploading via a
data loader.
 Page Layout: On a Salesforce Page Layout, you also have the option to make
fields read only or required. This is considered a ‘soft’ limit, as it will only apply
if you are creating a new record via the Salesforce interface, not when
uploading via a data loader.
 Validation Rules: Finally, we have validation rules. These have much more
advanced logic and can be built to only make a field required, under a certain
condition, e.g. if Opportunity Stage = Closed Won, make X field required.
Validation rules have a hard limit.

Developer Salesforce
Interview Questions
Although you might not be interviewing for a Salesforce Developer position, it’s
important to understand the role that they play, as well as some of the concepts that can
intersect with both a Salesforce Developer and a Salesforce Admin.
Here are our Developer Salesforce interview questions…

31. What is the Salesforce Order of


Execution?
The Salesforce Order of Execution is a set of rules that describes what events happen
when a record is saved in Salesforce. For example, if you have validation rules, flows,
Apex triggers, etc. there is a consistent sequence in which these events get triggered.

This is important to understand when designing solutions, as well as when you are
troubleshooting issues.

Read More: Become a Salesforce Order of Execution Hero


32. Can you describe what Apex is, and why
it is required in some scenarios?
Salesforce has a huge variety of declarative tools at its disposal for admins, but the
primary reason that developers are brought into the picture is to code.

Apex is Salesforce’s primary backend programming language. This allows developers


to write complex automation that runs on the Salesforce platform. Examples of using
Apex over declarative tools may include:

 Writing complex business processes logic that is not supported by declarative


automation such as Flow.
 Integrating Salesforce into other systems.
 Creating custom email services.
33. What is the difference between
Visualforce and Lightning Development?
Both Visualforce and Lightning are frameworks that can be used by developers to
create completely custom user interfaces on Salesforce.

Visualforce was primarily used back in the Salesforce Classic ‘era’ on tag-based
markup language (similar to HTML), whereas Lightning is a modern, componentized UI
Framework that uses HTML and JavaScript.

34. What is SOQL used for?


SOQL stands for Salesforce Object Query Language, and is used to search Salesforce
data when developers are writing custom logic. SOQL is structured similarly to SQL,
and can be used to retrieve data from a single object or multiple objects that relate to
one another.

Read More: SOQL Cheat Sheet & Reference Guide


35. What are Governor Limits?
As Salesforce is cloud-based software, you share server resources with other
customers (whilst, of course, keeping data completely separate). Governor limits are a
concept that allow Salesforce to set certain rules on the number of resources you can
monopolize to ensure that everyone’s instances of Salesforce continue to run.

An example of a Governor Limit is “Per-Transaction Apex Limits”. This includes a


number of rules that only allow you to run a certain number of queries within a single
Apex transaction.

Read More: What are Salesforce Governor Limits? Best Practices & Examples
36. What is MuleSoft?
MuleSoft is an integration platform that was acquired by Salesforce in 2018 for $6.5B.
MuleSoft’s Anypoint platform allows you to integrate with other systems easily, with a
set of templates that provide out-of-the-box APIs. Salesforce acquired MuleSoft to
better serve customers going through their digital transformations, and required
integration with backend systems such as HR, Finance, or ERP.

Salesforce has also recently released MuleSoft Composer, which is designed to give
admins a declarative way to integrate with other systems.

Read More: An Admin’s Guide to Salesforce MuleSoft Composer


37. What is an Apex Trigger?
Apex Triggers are written by developers to fire logic before or after a record is saved. As
discussed previously, Apex can handle the most complex automation scenarios in
Salesforce.

38. When should Flow be used over Apex?


Whilst Apex has always reigned as the king, when it comes to complex automation, in
recent years, Salesforce has rebuilt Flow to bring it close to Apex in functionality. Parker
Harris, the CTO of Salesforce, has even been quoted saying: “Just Because it’s
possible to write code, doesn’t mean you should write code.”

As a general ‘rule of thumb’, if Flow can handle the use case and will not hit any
limitations, it’s a good idea to build the automation in Flow. Flow has a simpler user
interface and can be understood by a wider range of Salesforce professionals.

39. What is Apex test coverage?


Before deploying Apex that has been written in a sandbox to production, developers
must meet a minimum test coverage of 75%.

This requires developers to write test classes that run through their code, ensuring that
the code is of good quality and will run successfully in production.

40. What is the difference between Lightning


Components and Lightning Web
Components?
Back in 2014, Lightning Components were originally released alongside the Lightning
Experience; they use a standardized JavaScript framework.

Lightning Web Components were released in early 2019 and, instead, use an updated
web standards-based framework. This provides easier accessibility for users who are
unfamiliar with the Salesforce platform. They utilize standard technology such as CSS,
HTML, and updated JavaScript.

Read more: Lightning Web Components vs. Lightning Components

Consultant Salesforce
Interview Questions
If you are interviewing for a Salesforce Admin or Developer position, you will almost
certainly need to put on your Consultant hat on at some point. So it’s important to
understand some of the following concepts to really impress your interviewer.

Here are our Salesforce interview questions, specifically for consultants…

41. At a high level, can you describe the


Software Development Lifecycle?
The Software Development Life Cycle is a concept that defines the best practice way to
implement IT systems by following a series of stages. These stages include planning,
analysis, design, implementation, testing & integration, and maintenance. It can also be
pictured like the following image:

This is important to understand, as these stages need to be followed whenever you are
implementing a new Salesforce product or feature.

42. Can you name a few ways to help improve


Salesforce user adoption?
Salesforce adoption is always an important topic and it’s vital to understand how to
support users if adoption numbers start dropping. Here are a few ways you can help
improve user adoption:
 Training: If you are onboarding new users onto a new system, it’s important to
provide them with sufficient training. Showing them how to use Salesforce and
answering their questions will ensure that they continue to use the system. If
users feel unsupported, they may go back to using pen and paper, Excel, or
another system of their choice!
 Feature Development: Salesforce professionals will get feature requests from
their users all the time. Although not all of them will be possible, it’s important
to address their issues and ensure that they feel heard.
 Super Users: Identifying super users or “champions” of Salesforce can help
drive user adoption. Salesforce Admins won’t be available all the time to
support users, so if you have a network of champions that can drive user
adoption, answer questions, and gather feedback, this can only help.
Read More: 5 Tips for Salesforce Lightning User Adoption
43. What can be implemented in Salesforce
to help ensure clean data?
Clean data has been an issue since IT systems first existed. However, if properly
managed, having a nice, clean system can lead to happy and more productive users.
Here are a few features and products you can implement to promote clean data:

 Validation: Using Validation in Salesforce is a great way to keep data clean.


This can come in a few different forms such as required fields, using picklists
over free text fields, and validation rules, as well as setting correct
permissions. All of the mentioned features are simply trying to ensure that
users can only enter data they should be entering. This is one of the most
effective prevention methods for bad data.
 Duplicate Management: A common issue for users and admins using
Salesforce is duplicates. They can come from various sources, including an
initial data load, marketing leads (events/website), or users manually entering
them. Salesforce has various simple but powerful duplicate tools to prevent
this.
 Deduplication Tools: If bad data has become such a problem that it is beyond
repair, luckily there are AppExchange apps that can help. A couple of our
favorites are DemandTools and Cloudingo.
44. How is the Salesforce DevOps movement
helping companies using Salesforce?
Back in 2015, Salesforce was voted the most dreaded platform to work with by users
of Stackoverflow. Unlike other systems at the time, Salesforce had very few tools to
support developers in building applications, as well as testing and deploying them.
Fast forward to today and the widespread DevOps movement has now fully embedded
itself within the Salesforce ecosystem. Salesforce themselves have been focusing on
Salesforce DX (Developer Experience) to bring out tools and frameworks to support
coders. In addition, there is a huge range of AppExchange apps to help Salesforce
professionals, build, test, and safely deploy changes. For more info, check out the
article below.

Read More: Complete Guide to Salesforce DevOps


45. What is the “Person Accounts” feature,
and how can it help organizations?
Salesforce was originally built as a B2B system – for companies selling to other
companies. However, there is an increasing number of companies in the B2C space
using Salesforce for customer support, commerce, or marketing.

Salesforce extended the functionality of its platform to deal with B2C businesses.
Person accounts allow you to access a new type of record (which is actually a
combination of the Accounts and Contacts objects) that can support a B2C business.

Read More: Salesforce Person Accounts – Pros and Cons


46. What are some ways you can customize
the look and feel of Salesforce?
With the introduction of Salesforce Lightning, you can now customize the Salesforce UI
to really make it feel like your own. Here are a few ways to impress your users by
branding Salesforce using a feature called Themes:
 Change Logo: By default, Salesforce will show its own logo on the top left-hand
corner. This can be easily changed to your own logo when setting up a custom
app.
 Colors: You can change a lot of the colors of Salesforce using Themes. This
includes an overall brand color, as well as the background color and global
header background.
 Background Image: You can even set a background image that will display
behind components on record pages.
47. What is the Lightning App Builder used
for?
The Lightning App Builder was a key part of the Lightning Experience. While Page
Layouts let you edit the detail part of record pages, the Lightning App Builder allows you
to edit the rest of it. You can move around components, add new ones, and change the
page template (number of columns/rows).

This helps Salesforce customers create truly customized experiences, which is a world
apart from Salesforce Classic.
48. How would you explain Salesforce to
someone who has never used a CRM?
As an admin or a consultant, it won’t be unheard of to come across a user who is
completely unfamiliar with Salesforce and CRM software. Here is an easy way to
explain CRM software to someone who is unfamiliar with the concept…

“CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. All businesses in the entire world
will have some form of CRM. The software simply records who your customers are,
what interactions you’ve had with them, and what products they have bought.

If you run a hairdressing salon, you might have a spreadsheet or a notebook of your
regular customers – if you run a catering company, you will have the same, or if you run
a 10,000-employee international conglomerate, you will have CRM software.”

49. Can you explain the key dates you need


to be aware of with every Salesforce release?
Salesforce releases happen three times a year: Spring, Summer, and Winter. There are
multiple dates for any Salesforce professional to be aware of to ensure they keep up
with releases:

 Release Date: No surprises here! This is the date the release actually happens
and can change depending on your org location.
 Sandbox Preview: This is the date on which your own org’s sandboxes will be
upgraded. It is very important for testing the new release against your own
customizations.
 Release Notes: Finally, it’s important to understand when the release notes will
be available. It’s a good idea for all professionals to familiarize themselves
with the main aspects of any release.
Release dates change every year, so check out the latest updates here!
50. What is scope creep?
Any experienced consultant will be familiar with the dreaded term, “scope creep”. A
successful project is one that is kept within budget and scope, as well as completed on
time. However, when in the middle of a project, new requirements often come up, which
means that a customer may want extra scope to be added.

As a result, it’s important for every Salesforce professional to understand how to handle
scope creep and how to manage customers’ expectations.

Summary
This article has been designed to give you a complete overview of typical Salesforce
interview questions, at any level. If you would like a more in-depth dive into some
specific Salesforce roles, check out our more specialized interview questions below:

 30 Salesforce Lightning Interview Questions & Answers


 30 Salesforce Admin Interview Questions & Answers
 30 Salesforce Developer Interview Questions & Answers
 30 Salesforce Consultant Interview Questions & Answers
 30 Pardot Consultant Interview Questions & Answers
 30 Salesforce Marketing Cloud Interview Questions & Answers
 Data Science Interview Questions (for Tableau Consultants)
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CONSULTANT

General
1. What advice would you give to a customer
(with little to no SF experience) who is
planning to self-implement?
As a consultant, you could be faced with this question if a customer is dubious about
paying a high day-rate to deal with a consultancy. There are a few different angles to
take with this question:

 Salesforce is a fairly complex system with all its interlinking components. Without
knowing how all of the elements should be used, and how they can be extended with
custom features, you can almost guarantee that something will not be set up
correctly. This has two main knock-on effects; the system will not be used correctly,
and therefore you may need to pay more money in the future to unpick the work to
ensure its best practice.
 Consulting partners earn their living by knowing Salesforce inside out. However, in
addition, they have also built up years of experience working with similar customers.
This means that as well as getting someone that knows Salesforce, you have
someone that can advise on your business processes and precisely the best way to
implement based on years of experience.
 As well as feature and implementation experience, a Salesforce project will also include
requirements gathering, training, and optimization for adoption. Without these three
core areas, how well Salesforce is setup becomes redundant.

2. What are your top three tips to improve


user adoption?
Adoption is one of the most important aspects towards the end of a project. Developing
a proper roll-out and training plan is essential to ensure users as fully equipped to apply
the system in the correct way, here are a few examples of tips to improve adoption:

Training: Training is your biggest chance to show off the system to users and
demonstrate how to use the system in the most effective way. Training should not just
be a one-off event; there should be various follow-ups in different mediums to ensure
users have truly understood the system.
Ongoing Support: Developing a plan for ongoing support is essential to ensure
adoption and make sure that users don’t feel lost with the system. This can be in the
form of power users, system administrators, or using a consultancy to support users.
Project Involvement: Involving users right at the start of a project will ensure that they
feel their opinion is valued. After all, to some extent, they will be shaping the system.
Involving users early on will also demonstrate to them the importance of a CRM and the
importance of their particular project.
Feature Development: You should listen to your users and constantly be striving to
improve the system. Opening a channel of communication between users, managers,
and system administrators will mean that their voice is heard, and changes to the
system will happen.
READ MORE: What is Salesforce Adoption? 15+ Salesforce Adoption Strategies

3. What are your best practice tips and


advice for maintaining clean data in
Salesforce?
First of all, consultants and admins alike should always strive to ensure that any data
entering Salesforce is clean data. If implemented effectively, retroactive cleaning of data
will be minimal. There are multiple ways to initially keep data clean, and then various
ways to retroactively clean it. Here are a few examples:

Validation: Using Validation in Salesforce is a fantastic way to keep data clean. This
can come in a few different forms such as required fields, using picklists over free text
fields, validation rules, as well as setting correct permissions. All of the mentioned
features are simply trying to ensure that users can only enter data they should be
entering. This is one of the most effective prevention methods for bad data.
Duplicate Management: A common issue for users and admins using Salesforce, is
duplicates. They can come from various sources including an initial data load, marketing
leads (Events or website), or users themselves manually entering them. Salesforce has
various simple but powerful duplicate tools to prevent this.
READ MORE: 6 Salesforce Duplicate Rules You Need To Activate Right Now

Training: An occasionally overlooked fact for duplicate management is actually making


users aware of the problem. This is sometimes users biggest bugbears, so if you
explain best practices and ways to prevent duplicates, it will make their lives a lot easier
going forward. A couple of ideas here would be first to explain how duplicates arise and
why they can cause big problems, as well as explaining ways to ensure all leads you
are dealing with have been dupe checked (If Salesforce is setup correctly this should be
automatic).
Initial Loading: One big area to pay attention to as a consultant, is to ensure that the
initial data being loaded into the system has been checked for duplicates. If Salesforce
has been set up correctly, you can actually block dupes from entering the system.
Retrospective Clean Up: In the event that you are working with a Salesforce Org that
has a very big dupe problem, there are a few options available to use. These are mainly
based around Apps on the AppExchange, some of the most popular ones being Cloud
Dingo & Validity.
4. What advice would you give to a
Salesforce admin who wants to advance to
consulting?
First of all, I would say that this is a fantastic choice for them! A logical career step for
an admin that wants to challenge themselves is a move into consulting. Generally, you
will be faced with more complex projects, a wider variety of clients, and you will also be
exposed to a broader range of technologies.

Being a consultant is very different from being an admin, but there are also some
similarities. The one big piece of advice I would give is to switch their thinking from just
implementing features in Salesforce, to implementing business solutions that are going
to transform a companies processes; saving time and money. This thought process is
one that a lot of admins already have, but the role of a consultant requires this thought
process to be executed.

READ MORE: Becoming a Salesforce Consultant – The Next Step in Your Career Path

5. Explain the core differences between Sales


Cloud and Service Cloud.
Sales Cloud: Sales Cloud was Salesforce’s first product and is designed to support
businesses to manage their sales cycles. At the heart of the product, Salesforce is a
CRM designed to support businesses keeping track of their customers and their
relationships. In addition to this, Sales Cloud extends the basic CRM by providing lead
management, opportunity management, forecasting, product and quoting functionality.
Service Cloud: The Service Cloud is a similar product that sits on top of Salesforce’s
core CRM cloud. Service Cloud has been designed to support businesses with their
customer service department. The Service Cloud has functionalities such as case
management, entitlement management, knowledge bases, Email2Case among others.
6. In your opinion, what are the fundamental
differences in skills between a Salesforce
Admin and Salesforce Consultant?
A Salesforce admin’s primary responsibilities involve administering the Salesforce
system, ensuring that the system is maintained, new features are implemented, users
are managed, and any queries about the system are answered. While on the other
hand, a consultant will often be involved in projects to solve complex business problems
that have arisen.
Whilst there are a lot of overlaps in both of the roles, a consultant should generally be
more involved in business analysis than an admin. That is not to say that an admin
should not use business analysis skills in their role, but this is usually solely why a
consultant has been brought into a project. Depending on the “kind” of consultant we
are talking about (Business vs Functional), they may need to have a stronger technical
knowledge of Salesforce due to the nature of the projects they will be working on.

7. What are the benefits of using the


AppExchange?
The Salesforce AppExchange was built in order for Salesforce partners to develop
specialist applications on top of the Salesforce platform. The benefits of the Salesforce
AppExchange are similar to that of any App store such as iPhone or Android; they
provide out of the box Apps both free of charge or at a cost, that help extend the
functionality of your platform.

With Salesforce there are various Apps, both simple and complex, that help you
automate key business processes. These can range from a simple App that helps you
clone records, to complete accounting systems that sit on top of Salesforce such as
FinancialForce.

Communication
8. How would you explain what Salesforce is
to someone who didn’t even know what a
CRM was?
To some, Salesforce is a very complex system and can be hard to grasp. Of course,
most people reading this would already have an extremely good understanding of
Salesforce and how it can help your business, but as a consultant, you need to be
understanding of people who won’t. My explanation of Salesforce to non-technical
people or clients goes like this:

“Everyone in the world who runs a business will use a Customer


Relationship Management system of some sort. Whether this is a market
stall writing down the names, addresses and products bought in a
notebook or a mechanic who uses a spreadsheet to do the same.
Meanwhile, some small, medium and worldwide enterprise companies
will choose to use Salesforce to accomplish this, which has a huge
amount of benefit to bring to a business.”
9. What are your tips for dealing with non-
technical clients?
Dealing with non-technical clients is inevitable in Salesforce projects. While you will
nearly always have people from an IT team involved, most people involved in the
project will be from a business perspective and may not be used to talking in technical
terms.

 Be sympathetic that some people are not technical, do not make them feel less
intelligent because of this fact.
 Avoid talking too much about the technical solution, and more about the people,
process, and the actions.
 When you do talk about a solution, don’t use Salesforce terminology. Instead of using
Flow terms or Apex, talk about automation.
 If you do have to talk about something complex that the client might not understand, be
creative in how you explain it and draw on examples.

10. How would you support a client that was


very resistant to change (i.e. a Salesforce
implementation)?
A common problem among implementations is that some users or managers like the
way they work, and don’t see any need to change the way they are working (The old
idiom “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” comes to mind.) These types of people can be initially
frustrating when you come across them, and as a consultant, you should know the
benefit that a new system will bring them. However, getting them on board is key for a
successful project.

 Have empathy towards people that may dislike an external party coming in and telling
them alternative, improved methods. This is often an uncomfortable situation to be in.
 Learn more about the way they are working and what you can do to help them in a non-
intrusive manner.
 Involve them very early on in the project so that they feel like they are a part of this new
system.
 Never focus on the direct solution, but talk about the benefits it will bring to them and the
time saving that will apply.
Implementation
11. List three critical success factors for a
new implementation and why they matter.
There are many critical aspects to projects that must be perfected in order to ensure the
best rollout and implementation possible. Here are some examples:

User & Management Buy-In: Getting user and management buy-in from the start
ensures that the system has been designed specifically for the people that are going to
use it. Neglecting either one of these user groups (or executives) can result in a low
adoption rate due to either the system not being fit for purpose, or the users not
realizing the implications of the system.
Training: Another critical success factor is the training. Training is one of the most
important parts of the project following a proper implementation. It ensures that users
have all the information and the tools to do their job. For some, Salesforce is a daunting
system, and although should always be designed with the user in mind, training is still
key to ensure adoption.
Reporting: Salesforce has a fantastically powerful reporting and dashboard system,
and this should never be forgotten to implement. Reports & Dashboards give both users
and management alike, insights into what is happening in their Org. This is one of the
only ways to ensure that the system and user’s behaviors can be improved.
Data Migration: A data migration for any implementation is very much a critical success
factor. This can always be a stressful exercise, but it’s one that should be executed with
particular care. If the data from the old system is in a bad place, importing this will just
serve to confuse and frustrate users, as well as mess up reporting.
12. What would you say are some of the more
common reasons for project scope creep?
What measures do you put in place to reduce
the risk of this happening?
Any consultant or project manager’s worst nightmare is scope creep. What does this
mean? It basically means that the project goes outside of the defined project scope at
the start of the project. It’s bad because it can increase the length of the project, the
cost of the project, which means the consultancy could sometimes foot the bill if this is
not managed correctly. Here are some ways scope creep happens and how to manage
them:

Undefined Scope: All projects will have a scope of work of some kind before the
project kicks off. The aim of this will be to give the customer confidence in the
consultancy to deliver the project within a set timeframe, a price, as well as a set of
requirements. If the Proposal or Statement of Work has a lot of “wiggle room”, this will
mean that the customer may try and fit more requirements into the project than has
been generally agreed. This is always a tough risk to manage but the scope of work
should always have clear in scope and out of scope requirements, defined assumptions
about the project as a whole, and any specific tasks or requirements.
Lack of Project Management: Effective project management is the key to any
successful project. The project manager will control the resources (consultants) on the
project including their tasks, timelines, and will have overall responsibility for delivering
the project to a high standard and to a specific timescale. If the project management is
poor, this may lead to scope creep due to no one taking responsibility for what is in or
out of scope. Scope creep also usually occurs when the project is massively over
deadlines which can be a result of poor project management. All projects should have a
clear role defined for the project manager, and there should be a solid project
management plan in place with clear timescales for all tasks.
Length of Project: The longer a project runs, the more time that people involved in a
project can choose to make changes. In addition to this, at the current pace of how
businesses change, if a project runs for long enough, the whole business could change.
This is all related back to good project management. Project plans need to be in place
to ensure everyone sticks to agreed timescales.
13. What information would you say should
always be captured on a working lead,
regardless of industry?
Leads coming into your Salesforce org often will only have the basic required
information, so it’s important that as a consultant you advise on certain fields which
should always be included on the Leads object. This also links back to the section on
keeping data clean.

Features
14. How do you stay on top of new Salesforce
Features/Products/Apps?
It is imperative that as a consultant (Or any Salesforce professional for that matter), you
stay on top of Salesforce as a platform. This includes staying on top of releases,
features, new products (Or acquisitions), and of course knowing about the
AppExchange. It is best to get your information from varied sources so that you get a
well-rounded knowledge base. Here are a few ways to stay on top of the platform:

Salesforce Release Notes: This is where all Salesforce professionals need to spend a
good amount of their time at each release, looking through the areas that apply to them
and their area of expertise. Knowing about the release notes can unlock a variety of
features for you to implement for your customers. Not only that, it can lift previous limits
that might make previous solutions that didn’t work, logistically possible now!
Salesforce Blogs: There are a lot of blogs out there, where authors spend their time
writing up helpful articles for Salesforce professionals. These are a great way to get
targeted content about summarized topics on a daily or weekly basis. Make sure you
check out our ultimate blogs list to see some of the best.
Events: Attending Salesforce events, whether they are community-hosted or official,
are a great way to network with fellow Salesforce professionals, and also to hear from
fantastic speakers about a broad range of related topics. Similar to blog posts but with
deeper content, these will be entertaining and provide you with a great deal of value for
a particular topic.
READ MORE: Salesforce Events 2022

15. Describe a use case for enabling the


Person Accounts feature in Salesforce.
Salesforce was built primarily as a B2B system, hence the fact that when you purchase
Salesforce, you have Accounts & Contacts objects to mirror the setup of an
organization. Salesforce extended the functionality of their platform to deal with B2C
businesses, personal accounts allow you to access a new type of record (Which is
actually a combination of the Accounts & Contacts objects), that can support a B2C
business.

16. Scenario Question 1


Question: A client has a customer support team and a sales team who both use the
Account object. All records are completely private but contain fields that indicate the
commission a sales rep will earn, therefore management doesn’t want this field to be
visible to the customer support users. What solution would you put in place that would
achieve this?
Answer: There are a couple of options that come to mind as soon as you have to hide
a field from a particular set of users…
Page Layouts: A common solution to an issue where two sets of users are using the
same object, is to create a separate page layout. This has the huge advantage of giving
them both independent personalization of the same object. The field in question could
be removed from the Page Layout and voila! However, this would not remove the field
from reports, still giving them access to it still.
Field Level Security (FLS): To ensure that the field is removed completely from the
support users across the whole of Salesforce, we need to use FLS. Field Level Security
is a great way to quickly remove the ability for a certain profile to see a field. We can
simply turn this field for the support users and there we go!
17. What is the difference between a Role
and a Profile in Salesforce?
Profiles are features that can be added to a user record in Salesforce. Roles are
optionally added while Profiles are a basic requirement of setting up a user.

Profiles help to control object privileges such as CRED (Create, Read, Edit, Delete).
They also contain system permissions that a user can carry out such as exporting data.

Roles on the other hand, help with sharing records across an organization. They work in
a hierarchical fashion, giving users access to records that are owned by people lower
down in the hierarchy.

READ MORE: Learn Salesforce Roles and Profiles in 5 Minutes (Ft. Permission Sets)

18. What are the main limitations of using


Salesforce Professional edition?
Salesforce Professional Edition can be thought of as a lighter edition of Salesforce
Enterprise. While it looks identical to Salesforce, behind the scenes there are a few
major differences to Enterprise that a Salesforce consultant would need to know. This is
very important because if you scope out a requirement that is more complex than usual,
you may need to recommend a different Salesforce edition.
The best way to explain the differences between Professional and Enterprise Edition, in
a nutshell, is limitations. Professional Edition enforces limitations around automation,
connectivity, and integrations. Because of these limitations, this also means that not all
AppExchange Apps are available to Professional Edition users. Examples include Apex
is unavailable, as well as limitations around sandboxes.
READ MORE: What Is Salesforce Professional Edition?
There is also no API access available with Professional Edition which means that
integrations with external systems are not possible.

Technical
19. What are three metrics/reports every
Sales Manager should have set up in their
Salesforce org?
Reports should be able to show the sales manager not only how the business is
performing, but actually give them insights into the business, to understand what they
are doing well or could be doing better in.

Lead Win/Loss Ratio: Yes your sales rep might be hitting their ‘number of new leads
target’ each month, but how many of these are they actually converting? And if they
aren’t, why not? Is this because their leads target is too high and they aren’t focusing on
quality? Is it a training issue and the sales rep isn’t properly qualifying? Or is it because
the territory/sector they work in is not currently a viable market? Who knows until you
look at the numbers!
Lead and Opportunity Loss Reasons: Even more powerful is showing the potential
revenue amount per reason. Imagine if you had lost £1m over the last year as your
product was missing a certain feature – this provides you with a business case to go
back to the product team (and senior exec team to try and get this on the roadmap –
which will also motivate your sales team as it is good to know that the product/service
they are selling due to market needs – this makes their job far easier).
Last Activity Reports:- In particular for customers. It is a really powerful report and a
great talking point in a meeting to be able to highlight how a sales rep has not spoken to
their top customer in three months (albeit they might not have logged in Salesforce…)
but this really holds the sales rep accountable for their customers, and as a sales
manager you can easily identify customers that need to be reached out to.
20. What are the benefits of using a Sandbox
to make changes?
This provides you with an environment to make changes without any risk of breaking
anything! Many Salesforce instances can be very complex. In particular, if you are a
consultant working in an org that you didn’t implement yourself.
More often than not, despite best practice, we tend to work in org’s with no
documentation or handover so even the most experienced consultant can run into
issues when making changes. Aside from this – the user impact is key. All changes to a
Salesforce instance should be communicated to users ideally prior to the change. This
should include what the change is; why it is being made (think benefits) and how it will
affect them.

Making changes in production that change the way they work, and even worse making
a change that prevents them from doing something is one of the big reasons users
become frustrated and disengaged with the system, and we all know user adoption is
critical to the success of a Salesforce implementation.

READ MORE: What Is a Salesforce Sandbox?

21. Can you explain the three types of object


relationships in Salesforce?
There are three main relationship types in Salesforce:

Lookup Relationship: This can be used to link two objects together. It is the most
basic type of relationship that creates a child-parent relationship between two objects.
Master-Detail Relationship: This can also be used to link two objects together. A
master-detail relationship creates a tight relationship between the parent and the child.
The child record inherits the security of the parent, and if the parent is deleted, all
associated child records will also be deleted. Master-detail relationships created some
extra functionality such as roll-up summary fields that allow you to calculate data on the
parent from the children.
Many-to-many relationship: Also referred to as a junction object, allows you to create
a relationship between two objects that need to model a many-to-many relationship.
These are created with an object that has two master-detail relationships to two parent
objects.
READ MORE: The 6 Types of Relationships in Salesforce

22. Why is it useful for any organization


using Salesforce to conduct a Health Check?
Salesforce is not a static system, changes are made all the time to improve the system.
Businesses evolve, and sometimes business requirements may fall out of alignment
with how Salesforce is setup. In addition, Salesforce has three major releases a year,
which should be reviewed.

Performing a health check allows you to ensure you are getting the most out of the
system, and that business requirements are aligned to Salesforce.

READ MORE: Secure Your Org with Salesforce Health Check


23. A client wants to understand what
Accounts are Customers (indicated by any
related Closed-Won Opportunity). What
solution would you propose here?
A clear solution would be to use the Type picklist field on the Account object. Usually
defaulted to a value such as Prospect when they have been converted from a lead. You
would then implement a Flow that would update this field to Customer once the
associated Opp is Closed-Won.

24. A client has used 121% of their data


storage limit in Salesforce and has reached
out to you regarding the options. What would
you suggest they do next?
You should always check what is taking up all this storage straight away within the
Company Profile. You will sometimes find there is one particular component that is
taking up the majority of the storage. In some use cases, it is an incumbent app that
reduces storage considerably.

Often it is a particular object that is causing the issue and I would suggest reviewing the
use of this object and potentially archiving data. As a last resort, you can look to
purchase more storage from Salesforce, but this is a more expensive alternative.

25. Scenario Question 2


Question: A client currently manually creates a Quote in Word (using an Excel sheet to
get costs) which they then send to the client. The quote provides their customer with a
high-level estimation of costs based on the mix and volume of products they are
purchasing. They have 5 sales reps selling up to 10 quotes a day. The client currently
uses Salesforce Sales Cloud and has asked us what we recommend to help automate
this process from them – what would you suggest?
Answer: First of all, this is a perfect use case for Salesforce. Any processes like this
which are done outside of Salesforce and are extremely inefficient can take advantage
of features and tools inside of Salesforce to ensure sales users can focus on what they
do best; selling.
The first feature set that should be recommended off the back of this issue would be the
Salesforce quoting engine. This allows you to generate a PDF quote and email it out to
the client, with products attached to it. This does have a number of pre-requisites which
includes having Opportunities, Products & Price books setup correctly.

Depending on the complexity of the customer’s requirements, a more complex CPQ


(Configure Price Quote) solution may need to be investigated.
Personal
As well as potentially asking you questions about being a consultant and scenario-
based questions, there is no doubt that they will also ask you questions about your
personal experience. This section is designed to give you an idea of what questions
could be asked. Be sure to have a think about how you would answer these before
going into an interview.

 26. Which Salesforce Clouds have you worked with in the past, and how would you
describe your level of understanding for each?
 27. Tell me a bit about some of your previous projects (size, clouds, role, the number of
projects worked on at any one time).
 28. What Salesforce certifications do you currently hold? Do you have plans to take on
any new ones?
 29. What has been your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?
 30. Have you ever had a disagreement with a team member or stakeholder? If so, how
did you resolve it?

Summary
Hopefully, the above questions have provided a bit of an insight into the mind of a
consultant interviewer. These questions are not an exhaustive list, and every interviewer
will have their own style and pool of questions to draw from.

Check out some of our other Salesforce interview questions below…

ADMIN

Data Security and Record


Sharing
1. What is a Profile?
Profiles and roles work together to determine which records users can see and what
they can do with them. Profiles are always required and control which objects and fields
users can access. They also determine whether users can create, edit, or delete
records.

READ MORE: Salesforce Roles and Profiles (Feat. Permission Sets)

2. What is a Role?
Roles are technically optional, but it’s a good practice to use them. Roles are
predominately about sharing records with users. When organization-wide default
sharing is set to lower than Public Read/Write for an object, you can use roles in sharing
rules to determine which records (and whether they’re Read-Only or Read/Write) users
can view.

Roles also have a hierarchy like an organization chart so that the sharing can cascade
beyond records users need, but also for managers to access their team’s records.

READ MORE: Data Security Trailhead module

3. What is a Permission Set?


Permission sets are add-ons to profiles. They generally have the same settings and are
used to increase users’ permissions above what the profile provides. The benefit is that
you can give users slightly different permissions without having to create separate
profiles.

This reduces the overhead for administrators. It’s useful to think of profiles as the base
set of permissions that many users have in common, while permission sets are the
‘extra’ permissions that fewer users need. You can also group multiple permission sets
together by job function via Permission Set Groups for simpler and more consistent
administration. Salesforce and Trailhead have useful articles on the subject.
READ MORE: Introduction to New Permission Set Groups

4. What is changing regarding Profiles and


Permission Sets?
Salesforce have announced that permissions on profiles will be retired as end of life
(EOL) as of the Spring ‘26 release. Profiles will still exist; however, permissions on
profiles will be retired and permissions will be available only on permission sets.
What will remain on a profile:

 One-to-one relationships: Login hours/IP ranges


 Defaults: Record types, apps
 Page layout assignment: The future is App Builder/Dynamic Forms, so we will not
invest in bringing page layout assignment to permission sets.
What will be available only on permission sets after EOL:
 User permissions (system and app permissions)
 Object permissions (object Create, Read, Update, and Delete [CRUD])
 Field permissions (field-level security [FLS])
 Tabs
 Record types (not defaults)
 Apps (not defaults)
 Connected app access
 Apex classes
 Visualforce pages
 Custom permissions

Administrators can now begin to change the security model in preparation for the
ultimate change by migrating permissions from profiles to permission sets and
enabling Field-Level Security for Permission Sets During Field Creation under User
Management Settings.
READ MORE: Salesforce to Retire Permissions on Profiles – What’s Next?

5. How are Public Groups and Queues


different?
Public groups are similar to roles what permission sets are to profiles. An administrator
can create ad hoc groups of users (naming them individually or by roles) to be able to
share records to them.

A common use case is to share records with users of a similar level, say directors. As
directors are probably spread throughout the organization, they aren’t likely to be under
each other in the role hierarchy. However, an admin could create a public group with all
of the director roles in it and share records with the group.

READ MORE: Public Group Considerations

Queues are similar to public groups in that they are bespoke groupings of users (named
individually or via roles), but they are used for record ownership rather than sharing
rules. The classic use is for cases – where you’d want to assign an open one to a team
of people so that whoever is available first handles it. Queues are available on all
custom objects and many standard objects.

READ MORE: Everything You Need to Know About Salesforce Queues

Data Modeling
6. What is a Lookup relationship?
A lookup relationship allows you to relate records to each other, creating a parent-child
schema. Generally, this is done between the different objects (such as accounts and
contacts), but it can be one object (such as parent accounts). Relationship fields allow
for users to specify how records affect each other and help with reporting.

READ MORE: Guide to Salesforce Relationship Types – and When to Use Them!

7. What is a Master-Detail relationship?


Master-detail relationships are similar to lookup relationships but have a few special
features. First, master-detail allows for roll-up summary fields to be created. This
relationship type also affects security in that the detail (or child) record does not have a
record owner. It inherits its visibility from the master (or parent) record. That can be very
beneficial or limiting, depending on your use case.

READ MORE: The 6 Types of Relationships in Salesforce

8. What is a Roll-Up Summary field?


A roll-up summary field is available on the master side of a master-detail relationship. It
allows administrators to aggregate data from related detail records (count them, sum a
numeric value on them, etc.) in real time. The ability to have roll-up summary fields is
the top reason why you’d consider a master-detail relationship.

READ MORE: Implement Roll-Up Summary Fields

9. What are different types of fields?


Field types define the type of information you expect users to enter for that field.
Examples include text, number, date, currency, etc. It’s important to match the field type
to the data because it affects your ability to report on and analyze the data. For
example, you could store numbers in text fields, but that would make performing
calculations on them needlessly challenging.
READ MORE: Custom Field Type

10. What are Validation Rules?


Validation rules allow you to enforce specific business logic to help with your org’s data
integrity. You can specify conditions on an object that aren’t allowed to exist.

For example, if you don’t want a user to mark an Opportunity as Closed Won if the
account doesn’t have a billing address, you can add a validation rule so that when a
user tries, it won’t update the Opportunity record and displays an error message
explaining what they need to do.
READ MORE: Create Validation Rules

11. What if you need Roll-Ups on a Lookup


relationship?
Sometimes, you’d like to aggregate child data on a parent record, but you can’t use
master-detail due to the security limitations not aligning with your use case. In those
situations, you could write code or use Flow Builder to replicate the functionality of roll-
up summary fields.
Most likely, however, you’ll want an app from the AppExchange to make configuration
easy. In fact, an app like this is one of the first things you should look to install in your
org (in a sandbox first, of course.)
Learn more about Declarative Lookup Rollup Summary (DLRS).
READ MORE: Rollup Helper

12. What is a Junction object?


A junction object is a term to describe an object that is designed to have two different
parent objects (generally with master-detail relationships), which forms a many-to-many
relationship. There is nothing labeled “junction object” within Salesforce – it’s a definition
applied to an object based on its function in the data model.

A common use case is something like classes in a school. The school will offer many
courses and have many students, and each of them will be connected to many classes.

Process Automation
13. What is Flow?
Flow is an admin’s primary declarative automation tool. Flow can perform actions such
as creating, updating, and deleting records, as well as sending emails, outbound
messages, launching other flows, and calling Apex code. Flow is also the only
declarative automation tool that allows admins to build custom screens to interact with
users and can greatly improve the user experience.

The most common ways for flows to be triggered are via record changes, screens, or on
a schedule.
Flow Trigger Explorer allows admins to determine the order in which flows run so that
automation can be efficient and not create conflicts.
There’s also a tool called Flow Orchestrator that allows admins to develop multi-user,
multi-step automation.
If you’re interested in learning more, don’t forget to check out the following resources:

 Build Flows with Flow Builder


 Automate Your Business Processes with Salesforce Flow
 Flow Orchestration Basics
14. What is happening with Workflow Rules
and Process Builder?
Salesforce has announced the retirement of workflow rules and process builder. Both
declarative tools were predecessors to Flow and are no longer necessary (now that
Flow can do everything they can do!).
It’s important to know that existing workflow rules and processes continue to operate as
they have (and can be edited and activated/deactivated) but can no longer be created
as of Winter ‘23 and Summer ‘23, respectively.

There are Migrate to Flow tools available, and admins should thoroughly review options
and considerations.
Because an admin can expect to work with orgs that have existing workflow rules and
processes in place, understanding them remains vital. For further reading, check
out Workflow Rules vs. Process Builder (Feat. APEX & Flow) and Process Builder vs.
Flows – Become the Ultimate Admin.
READ MORE: Transition to Flow: Workflow and Process Builder Retirement

15. What’s going on with AI?


Salesforce have had a suite of Einstein AI products for years, which have largely served
as analytical and predictive tools. Recent AI advancements have led to GPT tools,
which are generative AI – meaning that they can create auto-generated content.
Probably the most important thing to know is that GPT products use what is called large
language models (LLMs) to learn. Salesforce’s AI Cloud uses the Einstein GPT Trust
Layer, which allows data within a Salesforce org to be used by the AI while protecting it.
Several GPT products are now available, and we can anticipate more to come
at Dreamforce 2023 and beyond.
Learn more:

 Get Started with Einstein GPT


 Get Started with Artificial Intelligence
 Salesforce AI Day: Calling All TrAILblazers
16. What is an approval process?
An approval process is for very specific automation use cases. Naturally, it’s used when
something needs to be approved and tracks when and who approved or rejected
something. It covers notifying approvers, locking the record from edits, conditional logic
for who should approve, and varied approval models (for example, all approvers or any
approvers.)

READ MORE: How to Build Salesforce Approval Processes End-To-End

17. What is Apex?


Apex is the language in which Salesforce code is written. While a tool more for
developers than admins, it’s important to know that code can extend your org to do
pretty much anything you need.
READ MORE: Apex Basics & Database

Communities
18. What is Experience Cloud?
Experience Cloud (formerly Community) is a way to allow your customers and partners
to access your Salesforce org. With these special licenses, they can have user
accounts and a special access portal, customized with a bevy of Lightning features that
can be configured without any code. It’s also very simple to layer in security so they can
only see or edit the objects and records you want them to. Check out the Experience
Cloud Basics module for further context.
READ MORE: 10 Key Salesforce Experience Cloud Terms

19. What are Guest Users?


Guest users are people without user accounts in your org. They are also called
unauthenticated users because they don’t need to log in. You can make pages (and
data!) publicly available. These users can even create or edit records.

Naturally, there are a lot of considerations and limitations to evaluate, but leveraging
this feature can solve many use cases and do so economically, as guest user licenses
are free. Take a look at how the National Aquarium leverages guest users licenses to
allow constituents to manage email preferences.
Admins can combine Experience Cloud, guest users, and screen flow to solve some
fairly complex use cases, such as the National Aquarium reservation and education
experience applications.
READ MORE: Give Secure Access to Unauthenticated Users with the Guest User Profile
AppExchange
20. What is the difference between Managed
and Unmanaged Packages?
Applications you install from the AppExchange are in the form of packages — a
collection of all of the elements required to make the app function correctly. The creator
of the app decides whether the package is managed or not.
At a high level, unmanaged packages, once installed, behave like things you have
created yourself in the org. Whereas components of managed packages are locked
down from being edited, kind of like apps you install on your smartphone.

Source

READ MORE: AppExchange Basics

Change Management
21. What is a Change Set?
While not exactly the same as an AppExchage package, a change set is quite similar.
It’s a collection of components you want to migrate between related orgs (generally from
a sandbox to production, but also sandbox to sandbox and other configurations).

READ MORE: Change Set Development Model

Salesforce has also launched the DevOps Center, which “makes it easier to
collaboratively build, test, and deploy custom solutions across Salesforce – including
automations, applications, and experiences – that connect to real-time customer data.”
READ MORE: DevOps Center: Quick Look
22. What are the different types of
Sandboxes?
There are Developer, Developer Pro, Partial, and Full sandboxes. The difference is
what data is included in the sandbox when it is created or refreshed. The developer
ones have no data initiailly (they differ in the amount of data it can contain), and the
partial and full start with some or all of your production data. It’s important to note that
they also differ in how often they can be refreshed: developer daily, partial every five
days, full every 29 days.

READ MORE: Sandbox Types

User Experience
23. What are Record Types?
Record types allow you to create separate kinds of records for each object. They control
the page layouts, picklist values available, and other business logic. A good example is
a call center – you’d likely need different fields visible and required for cases involving
customers’ mortgages compared to car loans.

Here’s a tip: I almost always create a record type when creating a new object, even if I
only plan to use one type. It’s so much easier to add a second one when you need them
than to go back and introduce records types to an object that already has records.
READ MORE: When to Use Record Types vs. Page Layouts?

24. What are List Views?


List views are the queries you can present to your users to help them review the records
that interest them. Most often found when they click on a tab in an app, but they could
also be displayed via Lightning components on other Lightning pages. List views can be
filtered on how they are needed and display whichever columns are relevant. Users can
also pin their default list view on each tab.

READ MORE: Create and Customize List Views

25. What are Reports and Dashboards?


Reports are similar to list views, but they can do so much more. They can group records
and create summaries. Dashboards allow for visualizations of the data.

READ MORE: Reports & Dashboards for Lightning Experience

26. What is a Page Layout?


At a high level, a page layout controls which fields are visible for a specific record, but
they control more than that. They can also control which fields are editable or required.
Additionally, page layouts control buttons, related lists, and some other elements.

It’s worth noting that now Dynamic Forms have been released, this will represent a
paradigm shift in managing Lightning pages and page layouts!
READ MORE: Page Layouts

27. What are Lightning Components?


Lightning components are where the magic of Lightning Experience really comes alive.
They are modular features that can be added, moved, or rearranged on Lightning
pages. They are the record details, Chatter elements, highlights panel, path display, etc.
There are dozens of standard Lightning components, and you can also create your
own custom Lightning components or get them from the AppExchange.
READ MORE: Lightning App Builder

28. What is the difference between a Page


Layout and a Lightning Page?
In Lightning Experience, page layouts are basically represented by Lightning
components that display its content (mostly the details and related list components), but
Lightning record pages house so much more!

The Lightning page controls all of the other Lightning components you can leverage.
You can also make all of the components conditionally visible. The conditions can be
based on things like the user’s profile or data in the record.

There are also other types of Lightning pages: home pages and app pages. Those
pages won’t have any individual records but could enhance the user experience by
containing things like charts, list views, Lightning screen flows, and more! The limit is
almost anything you can think of to make things better for your users. You can even
make Lightning pages function differently between desktop and mobile instances.
READ MORE: Embed Dashboards and Report Charts on Lightning Pages

Data Management
29. What is the Data Loader?
There are many ways to import and export data in bulk from Salesforce (including
Import Wizard, exporting reports, and third-party tools such as dataloader.io), but
the Salesforce Data Loader is the original. It’s a downloadable client application that’s
free and provides all of the options you need. You may want to take a look at the Data
Management Trailhead module.
READ MORE: Salesforce Data Import Wizard vs. Data Loader

30. What is a Custom Metadata Type?


Once a tool primarily for developers, custom metadata types have increasingly become
useful for admins. Custom metadata is kind of like custom objects – but rather than
store data for your organization, it’s data about your organization.
Things like discount rates, blackout dates, sales goals, etc. are good use cases. The
metadata becomes available to you in formulas, automation, etc. Also, because it’s
metadata and not data, it’s automatically available in all sandboxes you create or
refresh.

READ MORE: Introduction to Custom Metadata Types

Summary
Job interviews can be tricky, especially when it comes to demonstrating your mastery of
technology. This post has covered some likely admin interview questions you should be
prepared to answer from some of the most popular topics for day-to-day Salesforce
Lightning administration.
Remember, the objective is to give a concise yet comprehensive answer that
demonstrates your knowledge without going on for too long. Try mentioning a use case
you’ve experienced using the feature, if you can.

Finally, not all of the interviewers are necessarily going to be experts in the tech they
are asking about, so it’s often best to tailor your answers to their background. They
aren’t trying to certify you, only gauge the level of your expertise. Your confidence,
professionalism, and demeanor are also important interview factors.

Lightning

The Lightning Frameworks


1. What are the different programming
models available for Lightning components?
There are 2 different programming models available for Lightning components. The first
is utilising the Aura framework to build out Aura components, the second is utilising the
newer Lightning Web Components (LWC) framework.

2. Why would you choose one programming


model over the other?
Lightning Web Components should be the go-to approach for development due its
increased performance, ease of development and alignment with modern web
standards. However, there are some scenarios where Aura components are still
required, as of Summer ’21, these include building community templates and URL
accessible components, although LWC is quickly reaching feature parity.

3. How can we develop these


components/what tools must we use?
Aura components can be developed directly in Salesforce using the developer console,
although third party IDEs (such as VSCode using SFDX) greatly improve developer
efficiency.

LWCs can only be developed using third party tools, which Salesforce recommends
VSCode and their extension pack.

4. How do the two programming models


coexist?
Aura components can contain and utilise LWCs, including communicating with them via
events and component methods. However, the opposite is not true, an LWC cannot be
composed of Aura components, and they can only ever be its parent.

Code can also be shared between Aura and LWC components using an ES Module.

5. Where can we use Lightning components?


Lightning components can be used in a myriad of places, from drag and drop
components making up Lightning App Builder pages, to quick actions launched via
buttons on record detail pages. Components can also be exposed as tabs or URL
addressable for extra customisation.

Alongside the most common places mentioned above, there are some more niche
places Lightning components can find themselves, including:

 The Utility Bar


 Outlook and Gmail integrations
 Flows
 Visualforce pages
 External web pages
 Pre-chat snap-ins

Development Basics
6. What data types can we use within
Lightning components?
Within Aura components we can use any of the basic data types, e.g. String, Boolean,
Date, Object etc and arrays of those datatypes. We can also define Aura attributes to
hold SObjects and move advanced datatypes such as functions, Apex defined
datatypes and we can define an attribute which can store other components.

In LWC, things are a lot more straightforward, since we do not need to define data types
on our attributes. This means that an attribute of an LWC can hold any JavaScript data
type – for example, we can hold all the standard data types, functions, HTML Nodes,
Promises and anything else that we may require.

7. What does the “this” keyword signify?


The “this” keyword can be found in both Aura and LWC, and their uses are quite similar.
Within LWC, the keyword can be used to access any component property or method –
since “this” points to calling context of the current code – which in most cases will be
from within the LWC.

In Aura however, the “this” keyword does not point to the component context, instead
we use the keyword from within our helper to reference other helper methods – this
works for the same reason as in LWC, since the calling context is our helper.

8. How can we express data into our HTML


markup?
If we wish to express data within our HTML markup we need to use bind expressions.
The syntax differs between LWC, as do the capabilities.

In Aura we use can use one of two syntaxes, “{!v.value}” and “{#v.value}”. The first
enables two way data-binding (i.e. if you update it in one location, the other is also
updated) and the second is for one way binding.
In LWC, we have a single syntax to follow, simply by using “{value}”.

Alongside simply displaying pieces of data, we can also use conditionals and iterations
to manipulate the final markup. For simple “if” logic we can use “aura:if” in Aura and
“if:true”/“if:false” in LWC. For displaying arrays, we can use “aura:iteration” in Aura or
“for:each” in LWC, both of which work similarly by taking a piece of markup contained
within them and repeating it once for each item in the array.

9. How can we make our components admin


configurable?
Both Aura components and LWCs can expose component properties into the Lightning
App Builder and Experience builder screens for further customisation by admins as they
see fit. We can also further limit where our components appear, preventing record-
based components from appearing on the incorrect object pages.

For Aura components we have a design resource file, which is where we define these.
We do so by specifying a “design:attribute” for each “aura:attribute” we wish to be
customised. We can also use “sfdc:objects” to limit the objects which the component
can be used on.
For LWC, we define our customisable properties from within the “.js-meta.xml” file which
is found inside all LWC component folders. We do this by defining “property” tags within
“targetConfigs” tags. LWC offers us far more flexibility than Aura does, allowing us to
define individual properties to be exposed based on the target context (i.e. record page
vs app builder page). Also, as within Aura, we can define which objects the component
should be limited to using “objects” tag.

10. How can we reuse code between our


components?
To share code between Aura components, we create a service component. This is an
Aura component which uses “aura:method” to expose the pieces of code which are to
be shared. This component can then be included in other components and the shared
pieces of code called.

For LWC, the process is simpler, we can create EcmaScript Modules. These are
essentially JavaScript files which use the “export” keyword to export specific functions
or variables we have defined. These can then be imported in the same manner we
import Salesforce modules and freely used by our component.

User interaction and Events


11. How can we respond to user interactions?
Regardless of the framework used the answer remains the same, events. However,
how we define how to handle these events differs slightly by framework, but both are
required to define event handlers.

In Aura, we define handler code within our component’s controller. We can then tell our
component to listen to and then run our code when the events are fired in several
different ways. The simplest is to add an inline event handler on to the component that
fires it. The second way is to add an “aura:handler” tag. Both expect to be pointed
towards an action in the controller which handles the event.

Handling events in LWC is a much simpler affair than within Aura components since the
events are standard JavaScript events. We can either use inline event handlers on the
elements which fire it (or possibly even its ancestors if more appropriate!) or add event
handlers to our component dynamically through JavaScript.

12. What are the different phases of events?


Events have two phases, Bubbling and Capture. The bubbling phase is where the event
travels up the DOM to the very top, notifying event listeners on the way. This means the
first event handlers to run are those on the innermost elements (e.g. closest ancestors).
With capturing, the inverse is true, the event travels down from the top of the DOM,
calling the outermost event handlers first.

By default, events fired by Lightning components bubble up and are only handled by its
parent component, regardless of the phase.

Aura Application events also have a third phase, called the Default phase. In this phase
the event handlers are called non-deterministically.

13. How can we configure event propagation?


When declaring events in LWC, we can provide additional parameters in the constructor
of the CustomEvent to customise its behaviour. There are two parameters we can
define which change the behaviour of the event, these are “bubbles” and “composed”.
As the name suggests, bubbles allows the event to follow the standard bubbling
behaviour and travel up through the DOM, by default in LWC this value is false.
Composed, on the other hand, states that the event may pass through the shadow
boundary and traverse the entire DOM tree up to the root, by default this is also false
and only has an effect if bubbles is also set to true.

In Aura, we don’t explicitly define the event propagation behaviour, instead we can
specify the phase to handle on the event handler instead.

14. How can we manage our events to


improve the User Experience?
In situations where an event can be frequently fired based on a user interaction, it’s
important we handle those events in a specific way so as to not cause a detrimental
impact to the user’s experience. A good example for this is a search bar which filters a
list when a user types into it, if we were handling the ‘onchange’ event, we would end up
filtering after every keypress and this would cause the search to appear sluggish to the
user. Instead what we want to do is set a timeout after every keypress, if the user
continues to type within a small time frame (say 500ms), we simply cancel the previous
timeout and start a new one. Now we only take the performance hit when we know the
user has done something valid and the filtering appears smooth. This technique is
called debouncing.

Component Styling
15. What is SLDS?
Salesforce Lightning Design System, or SLDS for short, is the framework behind the
look and feel of Salesforce Lightning. It includes design guidelines for how components
should work from a user experience point of view alongside HTML blueprints for
components (including some that don’t exist as base lightning components). The most
frequently used part of it, however, is the style sheets it provides which allow us to
easily implement consistent styles within components.

16. How can we apply custom styles?


When the style classes provided by SLDS don’t meet our requirements, we are still able
to provide our own styles to achieve what we need in both Aura and LWC. The process
is pretty similar in both frameworks: we create a CSS file which matches the name of
the component in its folder and place our styles there. In LWC, the styles of our
components are completely encapsulated and don’t overflow into other components. In
Aura we prefix all our styles with ‘.THIS’, but our styles can affect child components.

17. What is Flexbox and Grid in CSS?


Flexbox and Grid are two similar CSS layout modules, both of which can be used to
build components with complex layouts and mobile responsiveness. We can define an
element to be a container of a grid or a flexbox which allows fine control over the sizes
and behaviours of its child elements. For the most part we can simply use the ‘lightning-
layout’ base component to define a flexbox and then ‘lightning-layout-item’ to define its
flexible children. For more complex positions we would want to define the classes
ourselves and use a grid rather than a flexbox for a 2-dimensional layout.
18. How can we share styles between
components?
CSS styles can be shared via static resources between both Aura and LWC, with
components requiring the styles simply importing them with the Platform Resource
Loader (in LWC) or ‘ltng:require’ (in Aura).
For LWCs, we can improve on this by instead using CSS modules. These are simply an
LWC component which only includes a CSS file. This can then be imported into another
component’s CSS file by using ‘@import c/myCssComponentName’.
The Wire Service and
Lightning Data Service
19. What is the wire service?
The wire service is a data provisioning service which streams new data as it becomes
available. It supports reactive variables, allowing new data to be provisioned as the
context changes. The source of the data can either be from a Salesforce module, or a
developer defined Apex class.

20. How can the wire service be used with


Apex?
As with all Apex to be used within any Lightning component, the methods must first be
set to be “Aura Enabled”, using the Apex annotation “@AuraEnabled”, exposing the
method to the Lightning components. Furthermore, the annotation must be expanded to
state that it is cacheable like “@AuraEnabled(cacheable=true)”. This annotation
disables all DML operations, meaning the method only returns data, never mutates it.
The method can then be imported into the LWC, like any other, and used as a wire
adapter.

21. What is the Lightning Data Service?


The Lightning Data Service (LDS) is a set of Salesforce provided components, wire
adapters and functions. It’s purpose is to manage data on our behalf, allowing us to
easily read and write records and to reflect those changes in all other components
utilising the LDS, be they standard Salesforce components, or our own custom ones
built on top of this technology.

22. How can we use the User Interface API?


The UI API exposes a couple of wire adapters and several JavaScript functions we can
utilise within our components as needed. This could be getting the page layout details
for a specific object, or getting dependent picklists for a record type, all while respecting
the sharing and permissions of the running user.
23. What benefits are there to using the UI
API?
The main benefits to using the UI API are the same as using the LDS, we get cached
data for improved performance and ease of data management, ensuring all our
components are displaying the correct data. Alongside these, there is the added benefit
of reducing the amount of Apex code written, e.g. we no longer need to write controller
methods for simple record updates.

24. Why wouldn’t we want to use the UI API?


As good as the LDS and UI APIs are, there are some scenarios where we cannot use
them, for example if we are working with groups of records, we would need to write our
own custom Apex methods for retrieving data. However, that doesn’t mean we must use
one or the other, for example, if we were required to update a single record from the list
we retrieved via Apex, the UI API can satisfy that requirement.

25. Why wouldn’t we want to use the wire


service?
The wire service is great at provisioning data to the client and keeping that cached, but
when we are required to create or update records, the wire service offers us nothing to
do so, since its purpose is entirely the provisioning of data. Another scenario is when we
would like to trigger our Apex from a button, or some other user action. In both these
scenarios, utilising imperative Apex is a much better choice, due to the increased level
of control.

Debugging and Development


26. What tools can we use to ease our
development?
There are several tools Salesforce provides for us to assist in development regardless
of whether we are developing Aura components or LWC. The most notable of which is
the SFDX extensions for VSCode, which provide us an IDE experience, far better than
that of the Developer Console.

27. How can we debug our components?


There are several different ways we can approach component debugging, the fastest
and most simple is to simply provide console logging statements to log variables
throughout code execution, however this is an extremely limited approach and there are
far better ways to debug our components. The first step is to enable “Lightning Debug
Mode” to remove minification and provide better error messages. Alongside this, we can
use our browsers debugging tools to provide breakpoints to examine the precise
execution of code within our components, review variables at run time, and step through
our code to better understand what’s going on and find what’s going wrong.

Bonus Questions
The following series of questions have no right or wrong answer but are a great way for
an interviewer to understand how you work on a more detailed level. They give you a
completely open platform to discuss and really flex those developer muscles, a great
opportunity to make yourself stand out!

28. Tell me about a previous project you have


worked on.
A very open-ended question for sure! The purpose of this question is to give you an
open platform to discuss your previous pieces of work. Ideally, pick something recent
that relates to the interviewer’s industry that you’re proud of. Don’t worry if you can’t
match those criteria exactly! If you’ve trying to get your first developer role, think of past
projects to go through that shows off your skills – if you’re new to Salesforce, it doesn’t
even need to be a Salesforce project, for example if you were doing projects to help
practice your skills, those are a great talking point.

29. What were the challenges you faced in


that project?
Think back about the project and talk about what you found the most challenging
aspects and why. Following this up with how you overcame them (be it some clever
coding, or simply going to a senior for assistance) can really show off some of the soft
skills us developers need to use. Don’t worry about the specifics of how you overcame
those challenges, instead focus more on the journey and the learnings from that.

30. In hindsight, what would you do


differently?
Be honest and open here, if you didn’t think something went well raise it and explain
what you wish you’d done instead. The point of a question like this is to show that you
can learn and improve from previous experiences, so take a little time to reflect on
previous projects!

Summary
Hopefully, the above questions have provided a bit of an insight into the mind of a
technical interviewer. These questions are not an extensive list, and every interviewer
will have their own style and pool of questions to draw from.

These may range from the more technical ones, which are a good chance to show off
your understanding of the platform and the different toolsets on offer when we develop
(e.g. the Lightning Data Service), to ones with an intention to better understand how you
think, approach a challenge and you as a person (e.g. the bonus questions, my
personal favourite!).

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