Salesforce Certified Technical Architect Review Board Exam Guide

About the Salesforce Certified Technical Architect Review Board Exam
Audience Description: Salesforce Certified Technical Architect Review Board
Purpose of This Exam Guide
About the Exam
Exam Outline
Recommended Training and Resources
Salesforce Certification Candidate Code of Conduct
Maintaining Your Salesforce Certification

About the Salesforce Certified Technical Architect Review Board Exam

The Salesforce Certified Technical Architect Review Board Exam is designed for experienced Salesforce Architects who would like to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and capabilities in assessing customer architecture; designing secure, high-performance technical solutions on the Lightning Platform; communicating technical solutions and design tradeoffs effectively to business stakeholders; and providing a delivery framework that ensures quality and success.

Audience Description: Salesforce Certified Technical Architect Review Board

The Salesforce Certified Technical Architect Review Board Exam candidate can assess the architecture environment and requirements; and design secure, high-performing technical solutions on the Lightning Platform. The candidate has experience communicating technical solutions and design tradeoffs to business stakeholders and providing a delivery framework for an end-to-end solution.
The candidate has the experience and skills outlined below.

5+ years of implementation experience, including development, across the full software development lifecycle.
3+ years of experience in an architect role
2+ years of experience on the Lightning Platform with at least one of those in a lead architect role, implementing Salesforce applications and technologies
Has held a technical architect role on multiple complex deployments, OR has gained equivalent knowledge through participation and exposure to these types of projects
Experience guiding a development team on the appropriate use of platform technology
Can identify and mitigate technical risks across the architecture
Exposure to globalization considerations on a project
Experience with object-oriented design patterns
Awareness of platform-specific design patterns and limits
Experience developing code on the Lightning Platform
Ability to identify development-related risks, considerations, and limits for the platform
Experience with multiple development languages (for example, .net, java, or ruby) and design frameworks
Experience with common integration patterns; experience with integration on the Lightning Platform
Understanding of and ability to architect a solution to address security complexities, mechanisms, and capabilities on the Lightning Platform as part of a functional security model
Understanding of data migration considerations, design trade-offs, and common extract, transform, load (ETL) tools
Awareness of large data volume considerations, risks, and mitigation strategies
Experience with project and development lifecycle methodologies

Purpose of This Exam Guide

This exam guide is designed to help prepare you for the Salesforce Certified Technical Architect Review Board Exam. This guide provides information about the target audience, the recommended training and documentation, and a complete list of exam objectives. Salesforce highly recommends a combination of on-the-job experience and self-study to maximize your chances of passing the exam.

Note that other products and apps can be referenced and / or used for solutioning; however, the candidate must be able to defend any recommendation appropriately. (Examples: Marketing Cloud, Revenue Cloud, Agentforce, AI, Field Service, etc.)

About the Exam

Here are details about the Salesforce Certified Technical Architect Review Board Exam.

Evaluation prerequisites:

Architect Review Board Evaluation completed with a passing grade

Format:

The candidate will review and solve a hypothetical scenario and then present it to a panel of CTA judges. The presentation is followed by a question and answer session with the judges.

Time allotted to complete the exam:

3 hours - review and solution preparation
45 minutes - presentation
40 minutes - Q&A session

The following materials are provided/allowed for the candidate for the exam. No other materials are allowed.

An exam scenario in Google Doc
A Google Slide deck
A Google Sheet
A blank Lucidchart with access to the Salesforce Shape Library**
An onscreen timer

**Lucid Chart Templates are not permitted for any portion of the CTA certification.

Exam Outline

The Salesforce Certified Technical Architect Review Board Exam measures a candidate’s knowledge and skills related to the objectives listed below. A candidate should have hands-on experience as an Architect on the Lightning Platform and have demonstrated the application of each of the features/functions below.

System Architecture

Given a scenario, determine the appropriate mix of systems, including both on and off-platform components, taking into consideration the Salesforce platform capabilities, constraints, and limits.
Given a scenario, describe the design and platform considerations, trade-offs, and risks for reporting and analytics.
Given a scenario, describe the architectural considerations when planning, defining, or working within a single or multi-org environment.
Given a set of requirements, recommend the correct mix of required license types taking into account the capabilities, trade-offs, and constraints.
Given a set of requirements, describe the capabilities, trade-offs, and constraints to determine the appropriate document management solution.

Security

Given a set of requirements, architect a solution that utilizes the appropriate platform security mechanisms.
Given a scenario, identify the security considerations and risks, and leverage the appropriate security capabilities to design a secure portal architecture including access by both internal and external users.
Given a scenario, identify the declarative platform security features that can be used to meet record-level security requirements.
Given a scenario, identify the programmatic platform security features that can be used to meet security requirements.
Given a scenario, describe how to incorporate the platform security features into a solution to give users the appropriate object and field access permissions.
Given a set of requirements, design and justify an end-to-end identity management solution.

Data

Given a scenario, describe the platform architecture considerations, platform impact and optimization methods used when working with large data volumes.
Given a scenario, describe data modeling concepts and implications of database design and modeling.
Given a scenario, determine the data migration strategy, considerations, and appropriate tools to use.

Solution Architecture

Given a set of business requirements, describe the appropriate combination of declarative and programmatic functionality within a solution.
Given a scenario, describe the benefits, considerations, and trade-offs of incorporating external applications into an optimal solution architecture.

Integration

Given a set of requirements, recommend the appropriate enterprise integration landscape and describe associated risks, trade-offs, and business and technical considerations within a customer environment.
Given a scenario, describe the capabilities of the appropriate technology and justify their use as part of the overall integration architecture.
Given a scenario, recommend and justify the appropriate integration strategy and the use of common integration patterns.
Given a scenario, recommend and justify the appropriate platform-specific integration technology used to integrate with external systems and describe the capabilities, limitations and trade-offs.

Development Lifecycle and Deployment Planning

Given a scenario, identify the project risks and mitigation strategies.
Given a customer project environment and development methodology, identify the technical considerations, risks, and impact on the technical work streams.
Given a scenario, recommend an appropriate comprehensive test strategy and discuss how testing mitigates any project risks.
Given a scenario, describe the considerations, stakeholders, and impact of decisions around a technical solution relative to customer project governance.
Given a scenario, describe the platform tools, use assess, limitations, and best practices for environment management.
Describe the common tools, benefits, and rationale for using source control and continuous integration for release management.

Communication

Articulate the benefits, limitations, considerations, and design choices for a solution architecture and handle objections related to the design. Demonstrate how visualization and documentation tools can be used to articulate the technical solution.
Demonstrate the ability to handle unexpected roadblocks and determine the appropriate next steps.

Recommended Training and Resources

As preparation for this exam, we recommend a combination of hands-on experience, training course completion, Trailhead Trails, and self-study in the areas listed in the Exam Outline section of this exam guide.

The self-study materials recommended for this exam include:

The Architect Journey trailmix: A compilation of architect domain-specific trailmixes to help build, hone, and practice your skills. Not only should you use these trailmixes to help you prepare for the Architect certification exams, but we strongly recommend that you use them in your preparation for this certification.
Architect Trailblazer Community: For additional information and community collaboration on your #JourneytoCTA, join and leverage the Architect Trailblazer Community. In the community, you will find sample scenarios, content links and other related communities.

To continue developing your Salesforce skill set, visit Trailhead Academy to enroll in expert-led courses.

The courses recommended for this exam include:

Prepare for your Technical Architect Certification (CTA601)
- This participant-centered workshop will help you internalize the exam objectives while reinforcing your knowledge of key topics. You’ll hone your ability to craft solutions that address real-world customer requirements (using actual scenarios used on previous exams) and create a personal action plan for exam preparation, all the while receiving coaching from your CTA facilitator.

To review online documentation, tip sheets, and user guides, search for the topics listed in the Exam Outline section of this guide on Salesforce Help and study the information related to those topics.

Salesforce Certification Candidate Code of Conduct

At Salesforce, Trust is our #1 value. Protecting the security of Salesforce Certifications is up to all of us. As a participant in the Salesforce Certification Program, you’re required to review and accept the terms of the Salesforce Certification Program Agreement and Code of Conduct at the beginning of each exam.

Maintaining Your Salesforce Certification

There's no required maintenance for the Salesforce Certified Technical Architect Review Board Exam certification at this time. Continued learning is encouraged through the Trailblazer Community, Trailhead, and Trailhead Academy.

Bookmark these useful resources for maintaining your certifications.

Salesforce Certified Technical Architect Review Board Exam Guide

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