Einstein Analytics has been an area where I was very reluctant to tread. I don’t have a computer science background and I never took a data science class or studied statistical analysis. I did have to takes one math class while earning my Bachelors of Music Performance and the class I took was “Math for the Everyday World”.

Hearing all of that you might be surprised that I've made it this far in the tech world. But I'm also really stubborn...which tends to come in handy in my learning process. So while it took me a bit longer than I had hoped to become Einstein Analytics proficient, I’m so glad that I persisted.

More than a year ago, a few of my team members and I went through several introductory training classes to try to "learn Einstein". Unfortunately, our main take away was that the interface was very foreign and that Einstein Analytics was much more complex than we had expected.  I knew that we didn't have the skill set to leverage Einstein at that point, but it went on my list as something I wanted to learn in the not too distant future. And thanks to Trailhead and a number of excellent community resources I passed the Einstein Analytics and Discovery Consultant exam last month.
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​Studying for this exam was a bit different for me than other exams. I didn’t have much of an existing framework to hang the different bits of knowledge I needed to absorb. It was truly like learning a new piece of software! So I started in the best place I can think of...Trailhead. But you’ll need more than just Trailhead practice to pass this exam (and to complete the Einstien Superbadges for that matter). Luckily there are some amazing community resources out there...and I’ll share my favorites with you in just a bit. 

I also participated in a 3-day instructor-led course taught by Salesforce that covered some of the topics I still was struggling with including loading and and transforming Salesforce (and non-Salesforce) data, modifying dashboard queries in JSON and leveraging  Salesforce Analytics Query Language (SAQL). Sometimes people ask me how I manage to study for exams in addition to my full-time job. This was a literal example of how I manage to “make it work”, with the 8-hour a day classes starting at 4AM so I could minimize the hours I would be out of the office. 

Could I have passed this exam without the instructor-led training? I’m sure I could have. But this helped fast-track my confidence around this relatively foreign tool. I also really lucked out in getting a great teacher who made the 4AM wake-up call for the class worth it. 
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Einstein Analytics is an incredibly powerful tool that continues to change and evolve much faster than the core Salesforce platform. While there is a bit of a barrier to entry for folks who are brand new, the team continues to make enhancements to the Einstein Analytics platform that make it easier to use and learn. It took me two attempts...but I am so glad I persisted to earn the Einstein Analytics & Discovery Consultant credential. 

At the beginning of the year I took the Nonprofit Cloud Consultant exam on a bit of a whim. I ended up passing on my first attempt in large part due to my time working at nonprofits back in the day when NPSP stood for Nonprofit Starter Pack. I heard from several colleagues that there was a lot of crossover between Nonprofit Cloud Consultant and Education Cloud Consultant. So after working with a customer who leveraged Education Cloud as part of my day job, I figured I might as well attempt the Education Cloud Consultant credential.
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​There aren’t quite as many resources for Education Cloud exam study as there were for Nonprofit Cloud. And while there is a team Trailhead curated Trailmix, I didn’t use it in my studies. What I did do, was focus on a few key Trailhead modules that covered the basics of EDA (the education data architecture, which serves as the backbone of the Education Cloud). I also signed up for an Education Cloud Trial Org using this link: Education Data Architecture (EDA) Trial Page.
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If you haven't figured it out yet, the industry clouds (with a few exceptions, i.e. Commerce) tend to be an installed package with a set of custom objects and custom code that overlay the standard Salesforce data model. Education Cloud is no different. 

The Education Cloud data model is similar to Nonprofit Cloud but has a few custom attributes that allow for student recruitment, advising, enrollment and course management. These are the key capabilities of Education Cloud along with alumni engagement (where Education and Nonprofit cloud start to blur together a bit).

So it should come as no surprise that understanding the Education Data model is very important. Here are the key components of the EDA data model:

• Accounts- In addition to the "household model" you might be familiar with from NPSP, there is an account model option in EDA called "administrative account". Administrative accounts can be departments, education institutions, sports teams or academic programs. 
• Affiliation - a junction object that connects a contact to an Account.
• Program Enrollment - a junction object that links the contact and the academic program record together.
• Term- a school term or academic session with a start and end date.
• Course- a class that fulfills a certain number of credit hours.
• Course Offering- a unique instance of a course associated with a specific term.
• Course Connection- an object representing the relationship between a student and a course offering.

​Here's how all the objects fit together:

In addition to the data model, I would recommend spending some time understanding the types of reports that the Education Cloud is designed to generate and how to go about customizing report types to visualize data that users of the Education Cloud might want to generate.

Finally, read up on the Student Advisor Link (SAL), a custom app designed to work with Education Cloud. The complete details of the SAL can be found on the Power of Us Hub here: https://powerofus.force.com/s/article/SAL-Install-Package.

Which is a great seguey to my final area I would recommend focusing on, the Power of Us Hub! Know what you can find there vs. the Trailblazer Community. Also, understand the difference between the standard Salesforce Release cycle (three times a year) and packages like the SAL. They are not the same!

Here are the top five resources I used to prepare and pass the Education Cloud Consultant exam:

• Education Data Architecture Basics
• ​Manage Your Education Data with EDA
• ​EDA Reports
• ​Student Advising with Salesforce Advisor Link
• Education Cloud Consultants Training & Certification Guide ​

Overall, I'm glad I took the time to study for this credential. Learning about the architecture of the EDA model was really interseting, and seeing how sophisticated some of the features of Education Cloud have become was really impressive. Especially since so many of these features have been developed (at least in part) by the Salesforce Community.

​I’ve been sick for nearly two weeks now. And last weekend while I was cooped up inside, I decided to study for the Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud Consultant exam. I had thought about taking the beta version when it was announced, but because I wasn’t working at a nonprofit, I didn’t think I would be chosen to participate. I even had some imposter syndrome about signing up to take the exam all, since I’ve been working in the for-profit space for the past four years.

But in case you didn’t know, my first encounter with Salesforce happened while I was working at a national education nonprofit called Citizen Schools. At Citizen Schools I was  working in the Development department (aka fundraising) and I was responsible for implementing NPSP (back in the day when it was still the Nonprofit Starter Pack).

​There are a ton of community created trail mixes for NPSP, but I decided to focus my energy on a few specific modules in order to prepare. I was already very familiar with the account (household) model of NPSP. If you aren’t, I would definitely spend some time reading about it, as well as understanding basic fundraising concepts. Even if you’re a seasoned Salesforce admin in a for-profit org, trying to pass this exam without knowing the NPSP data model or how a nonprofit works will be pretty tough.
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Here is the Trailmix recommended in the study guide. I personally, I think it is a bit too broad and it's missing two very important modules.

If you already have a pretty good grasp on Salesforce administration, I would recommend  doing this trail instead to get up to speed quickly on NPSP.

This exam was a really good one. I enjoyed catching up on the advancements that have been made in the last several years to NPSP. It has improved SO much thanks in great part to the Salesforce Community. This exam tests a wide range of admin knowledge in addition to your skills with the Nonprofit Success Pack. I highly recommend  it to anyone working in the nonprofit landscape, or to anyone who is planning to work with a nonprofit in either a consultant or volunteer role. 

More than a year ago I promised that i would share my CTA-601 experience with you. But as it often does, life got in the way and I never published my experience. By special request I am finally completing the promised post, more than one year later. Enjoy!

In the Summer of 2018 I was already planning to go to San Francisco for an Integration Training course (more on that here), but at the last moment was also invited to attend an in-person training geared towards folks who had already completed the pre-requisites for the CTA. While I still had 2 exams to go, my wonderful mentors and advocates at Salesforce thought it would be valuable for me to attend anyway. Luckily I was able to adjust my travel plans to squeeze in this opportunity alongside my already booked training.

Like many things in my life, I signed up for this opportunity before I knew exactly what it entailed. I probably should have asked more questions, but at the time I was simply excited to be asked to attend. Luckily, I had enough foresight to know that I was in no way prepared to take part in a full-fledged mock exam. But I figured I should at least get a feel for what a mock might be like “just in case” I was asked to present back in some way or another.

I don’t remember how I came across it, but I found a Pluralsight course called “Diagramming Salesforce Solutions” recorded by the Salesforce Play-by-Play host Don Robbins and my now colleague Matt Morris. I listened to about one third of the course before heading to Salesforce West on the big day of my training.

When I arrived I realized (surprise, surprise) that I was the only woman participating. Luckily the Salesforce organizers included a few friendly faces including one wearing a Ladies Be Architects sweatshirt. Things could definitely have been more intimidating. Especially when, within minutes of arriving, my classmates were buzzing about how great a resource this new group called Ladies Be Architects was.

Class began with a round robin of introductions including where we each were in our CTA preparation. I realized it had been awhile since I had been in a room full of very self-confident white men. This was going to be interesting.

One thing I was struck by right away was how varied our preparedness was. There were some candidates who had already sat for the board and failed, some (like me) had never done a mock before, while others seemed to have done more mocks than I thought was possible. I was also struck by a few people who had never done a mock before but seemed completely confident that they were ready to slay the board then and there. Oh, to have that sort of self confidence!

The instructor reviewed the structure for our course. The first half of the day would consist of a presentation that included insights into what Salesforce expertise must be mastered to pass the test as well as what type of exam-specific skills must be honed like time management and presentation skills. After lunch, mocks would begin. I. was. nervous. I legitimately had a moment where I thought about telling my Salesforce contact that I just wanted to observe...I obviously wasn’t ready for this type of challenge. But I eventually told myself that I should just give it a shot.

In true CTA board exam form, we were given a certain amount of time to read and solution the scenario with markers and flip charts followed by presentations and then the dreaded Q&A. I settled myself into the corner of one of the rooms and dug into the scenario. Thank goodness I had watched that Pluralsight so I had some sort of framework to work with! I marked up my scenario and noted down all the systems, actors, objects and integrations that were needed. By the time I was done we were already getting a warning about how much time had elapsed. I started writing out my system landscape, role hierarchy, actors and licenses and release management diagram on notebook paper. I felt like I was in the Great British Baking Show. When time was up I dropped my markers…and I was exhilarated!

We had a short break before presentations started. I spoke with one of the more confident candidates in the hall and he confided that he no longer felt so sure of himself. That made me feel a bit better.

The presentation went well. While I skipped the SSO/OAuth flow portion of the solution for my own dignity, I did a pretty solid job of explaining my solution and white boarding my design as I talked it through. The CTA who was leading the course asked me some questions, as did my classmates, and they didn’t throw me too much. Later on I heard that the CTA instructor thought that I would be a good candidate down the road. Wow.

All in all, the opportunity to participate in this workshop inspired me. It was a lot of fun, and I was not afraid of mocks anymore…I wanted MORE!

As with anything, sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know. A year later I am just coming out of another bit of anxiety around mocks. Honestly I haven’t done another one at the scale of the CTA-601 course. Now that I know more more about all the domains I’m once again doubting that I know enough to do well in a serious mock, let alone the actual exam.

But, as you can read about here, I finally feel like I have the right type of experience under my belt, and I have a plan for some serious studying this year. I’m also lucky enough to be working at an amazing company that seems to be supportive of my big audacious goal. Here’s to 2020!

This year I was a bit paralyzed by where to start in my CTA study. I’ll be honest, I think I needed this year for hands on experience. I worked on a community project, built a mobile app, and had to handle some real life SSO and OAuth implementations.
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I also identified and started to fill some of my knowledge gaps around non-Salesforce IT. While I feel like I procrastinated a bit in my CTA study, that procrastination manifested itself in picking up two new certs. If you’re so inclined, you can read more about how I studied for the (now defunct) Mobile Architecture Designer exam and the Heroku Architecture Designer exam.
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​My New Year’s resolution is to put in the time necessary to prepare myself for the CTA at the end of the year. I might not be ready by then, but I’m committing to put in my best effort. I’m going to blog my preparation experience as I ramp up my studies. I'll share the things that I feel are working, and also those that aren't. If, or I suppose I should say when, I do pass the board I hope this will become a useful resource for other CTA candidates. For those of you who might be reading, feel free to contribute your advice, correct me when I'm wrong, or cheer me on from the sidelines. I'm sharing to keep myself accountable but also to document the journey. 
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​Let's do this.

​​Well it finally happened. I failed a Salesforce exam. My first failure other than a few maintenance exams back in the day. I had thought about canceling my exam the night before, I knew I wasn’t quite ready. But in following my own advice, I wanted to keep the date. If I failed, I failed…so be it. I’d learn something from the experience either way.
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​Once I started the exam my my suspicions were confirmed...I wasn't ready. Things like which features are only available in Heroku Enterprise, and why you would want to use Heroku Redis instead of Postgres left me scratching my head. 

Here was how I fared on my first attempt:
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​What a rookie mistake! Based on my score I hadn’t focused enough on the content (Heroku Enterprise) that was weighted the heaviest. How did I manage to do this? I know better….right?

Well, as it turns out, that there were a few core reasons why I came up short in the most important topic on the exam. The first is that Heroku Enterprise is not available to get hands-on with. So if you haven’t worked in an org that uses this version, you can’t get your hands on it. The second (and most important) reason was that I didn’t have a good enough scaffolding to hang all the different pieces of knowledge I was trying to understand. The Trailhead trailmix for the Heroku Designer exam is essentially a lot of links to the Heroku developer docs. Since they are so detailed, I was getting lost in the weeds without seeing the big picture concepts. 

In studying for my retake, I was able to create a framework for me to truly understand the different aspects of Heroku, including Heroku Enterprise. Here’s what I learned:
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​Sometimes the stars align in Salesforce certification land. That perfect moment when you’re studying for an exam and prepping for a project related to that exam all at the same time. It happened to me during  my first certification of 2019.

​If you’ve been following along on my #JourneyToCTA, you know that I spent the majority of 2018 earning both my Application Architect and System Architect certifications. You can read about how I became a Certified System Architect here.

​As you’d expect, I was a bit burnt out going into 2019. After such a rigorous study schedule with specific deadlines, I was having a really hard time wrapping my head around how to get started studying for the CTA board. I knew it would be a long ramp up (6 months plus) and the long time frame and enormous amount of content was completely overwhelming me.
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Luckily, I realized that I could leverage the Mobile Architecture Designer exam as a nice bridge between the domain certs and my CTA prep. Plus, I would be able to apply my study to my upcoming project in the real world. Win, win.

Now on to the real reason  you’re here. How I studied for the exam and my take aways after passing on my first attempt!
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​​As most people would recommend, the first stop for studying should be the exam guide.  According to the guide, here is how the exam is weighted.
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This was my third TrailheaDX. For those not familiar, Salesforce launched the TrailheaDX conference in 2016 as a companion to Dreamforce. When it was first launched it was focused primarily on developer content but over the years it has shifted to include content for admins and app builders. And this year, the conference expanded to include architect content!

I was lucky enough to be involved in the planning of the architect track for the conference along with the other co-leads of Ladies Be Architects, current CTAs and some key Salesforce staff. You can read more Architects @ TDX19 here. But this blog is about my crazy journey leading up to conference this year.

To my surprise, about two months before TDX19 I received a note from Zayne Turner asking for us to have a phone call to catch up. I’ve known Zayne for several years. But we don’t talk outside of conferences and work very often, so it was a bit unusual for her to ask me to have a phone chat with her. And at the last minute she invited Christophe Coenraets to the call. In case you aren’t aware, Christophe is Principal Developer Evangelist at Salesforce, and kind of a big deal. I was utterly perplexed and also very curious about what we would be talking about.

During the call, Zayne and Christophe let me know that I was at the top of the list to be featured at TDX for my work with the company I work for, Boston Scientific, and also my work in the community. After a series of calls with Salesforce staff, and some major finger-crossing on my side, it was confirmed that I would be featured in a Salesforce led demo at the KEYNOTE AT TDX. Crazy, right?

And to add something even more unreal, I found out that Salesforce wanted to make a Trailblazer video featuring me. WOW. I never expected this to happen.

To film the amazing Trailblazer films that you see on the “big screen” or online, Salesforce employs a Hollywood-style film crew (literally 14 people came to my house to film!) It was absolutely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. And it was all a bit of a blur. The filming took place over two days. The first day I went to a film studio in Boston to record my main interview, then the second day the crew came to my house and then to my office. Luckily my partner captured a view pictures in between the filming of me playing viola, “working” on my computer, feeding my dog Parker, and drinking coffee…all multiple times to capture that perfect shot.
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​I also realized how difficult it can be to navigate proper approvals and sign-offs at a large company. I work in IT at Boston Scientific, and trying to find out who has the authority to approve a 14 person film crew to come onsite was not an easy task. And making sure I had the right marketing and legal sign-offs for the video and demo was no walk in the park either. There were definitely days where I thought the TDX feature might fall through. But with persistence and a bit of patience, plus the wonderful help of Salesforce, it all worked out.

​In February I spoke with a member of the Salesforce team and she told me about an idea she had. A new area at TrailheaDX (TDX) just for current and aspiring architects. I thought to myself, “this could be HUGE”.

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​But I knew it was still just one of many potential ideas floating around for the event. I was hopeful that it might come together, but tried not to get my hopes up too much. Ideas like this happen a lot, but bringing them into reality can be tough.

​A month or so later I was thrilled to learn that an Architect track and lodge were confirmed for TDX. This was huge. Since I started attending Salesforce events 7 years ago, I had not seen an expansion beyond just admin and developer content.

​And to my surprise, Charly, Gemma, and I were invited to help contribute to the creation of the content as part of Ladies Be Architects. How cool! The next month was full of plotting and planning with Salesforce staff and current CTAs.

​We had a ton of ideas floating around in our communal Quip doc. From an architect game show, to 1-on-1 CTA consults, to a new female architect mascot. Again, I tried to temper my excitement. But nearly all of our ideas were coming to life as the weeks passed by.

​The weeks leading up to TDX19 were full of more and more good (and overwhelming news). Ladies Be Architects would be presenting one session three times, I would be presenting twice with the amazing Gillian Bruce and I would be leading a panel focused on diversity in the architect career path. Before I knew it, I was committed to 8 sessions at TDX. Oh my!

​As if that wasn’t enough, we found out that the popularity of some of the Architect sessions was so large that we needed to add “repeat” sessions and move some to larger rooms. It was completely unbelievable how much demand there was for architect content. Not to mention that the post-TDX architect bootcamps were completely sold out.

​TDX week was finally upon us. This would only be the second time that Gemma, Charly and I would all be together in the same place (the first was Dreamforce last year). I couldn’t wait to see my ladies.

The day before the conference we were lucky enough to get a private tour of Salesforce tower. We went up to the Ohana floor and also to floor 12 where the Trailhead team sits and all the magic happens. Oh, and I had the most amazing latte I’ve ever had at the Ohana café. If you get the chance, I definitely recommend grabbing a coffee there.

The first day of TDX was a bit of a blur. We had our first session at 8:15 AM, and before that, I had committed myself to two (!) breakfasts. After our first session I had to run to the keynote where I was featured and got to meet Parker Harris and Sarah Franklin.  I have an entire post dedicated to that experience , because it was absolutely once-in-a-lifetime.

- Domenique Sillett

​Ruth is the newest addition to the Trailhead family! Ruth's pronouns are She/Her. She is an the mascot for all Salesforce Architects and replaces her processor, Meta Moose. Her favorite superbadge is Advanced Apex Specialist and she is absolutely adorable. Ruth was inspired by a real-life powerhouse—a woman that Dominique met in Kenya who was an amazing Traiblazer.

It sounds a bit silly since there were so many amazing things that happened at TDX (ahem…golden hoodie) but the introduction of Ruth is what finally got me completely emotional. For as long as I can remember I’ve been obsessed with elephants. I have an elephant tattoo, have elephant themed stuff all over my house, and have traveled to Africa and Asia to see elephants. So seeing Ruth introduced to the ecosystem as an Architect mascot seemed like the universe telling me that I am doing what I’m meant to be doing.
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More than anything, this year’s TrailheaDX made me so excited for the future of the Salesforce Architect career path. I’m honored to be doing this work and helping others pursue their architect journeys. And now the secret is out. The elephant is in the room, and she’s a total boss.

​​My pursuit of the two Domain Architect certifications began three years ago when I earned my App Builder certification. At that time I didn’t know that I would be climbing up Mount CTA. It wasn’t until TrailheaDX18 that I set my sights on that goal (you can read all about it here). At first I thought I would start down the System Architect path, but after hearing many words of warning about how tough those exams were, and realizing that I simply didn’t know enough at that point, I decided to shift gears.
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​After TDX18 I had earned my Application Architect Certification, and had one of the qualifiers for the System Architect Certification already under my belt (I earned Platform Developer 1 previously). After TDX I used my free exam voucher to pursue the Development Lifecycle and Deployment Designer cert (you can read all about that here). Spoiler alert: I passed this exam the first time.

​​In the months that followed I earned a couple “fun” certs, Advanced Admin and Marketing Email Specialist. But realized I needed to buckle down to meet my personal goal of passing the remaining two exams, Integration Architecture and Identity and Access Designer, by the end of the calendar year. Luckily I had signed up for a Salesforce Integration training in San Francisco that was being held in July. I also was invited to attend the CTA 601 session in San Francisco (more on that here) at the same time, so I had a schedule full of activities that would hopefully prepare me to crush these final two exams.

After the integration training I felt a lot more comfortable with the core terminology and patterns. If you're looking for a quick primer, the “quintessential” Salesforce doc regarding Integration, in my opinion, is the Integration Patterns and Practices. This doc outlines the integration patterns available and when to use them. To pass the exam it is key to understand the following patterns:
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​The documentation is good, and even includes a table of when to choose which pattern. I definitely recommend spending a lot of time reviewing all of this information.

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​But the thing that really helped me understand integration patterns more fully was to think about something seemingly simple. What is an Inbound integration vs. Outbound integration? Again, it sounds straightforward and simple. But knowing the answer to this simple question can help you eliminate a number of “wrong answers” on the Integration Designer exam. Why? Because there are certain patterns that can be ruled out if the scenario calls for an inbound integration (you don’t initiate it, an external system does) or an outbound integration (you initiate it from SFDC). I created this table to help me identify which patterns can be used depending on outbound vs. inbound and also synchronous v asynchronous integrations. It really helped me study and also pass the exam.
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​In addition to the integration course and the Salesforce Docs, I used the following resources to study:

• Integration Trailmix
• Salesforce Memo: How to Prepare for and PASS Integration Architecture Designer
• Gemma’s Salesforce Certified Integration Architecture Designer Exam Tips
• This Quizlet (use at your own risk)

​The test date for my exam arrived relatively quickly, and I hunkered down in my home office to take the test. As a side, note, I take nearly all of my exams at home as opposed to a testing center. All you need is an external camera and you can take an exam anytime you want from the comfort of your own home. If you have any questions on the process I would be happy to chat with you about it. I highly recommend it. The only downsides are that you can’t use any pencil or paper (in the testing centers they give you a few sheets) and sometimes the testing proctor will interrupt you to adjust your camera…this can break your concentration/annoy the HECK out of you.

Back the the exam.

​Overall I was surprised at how SHORT the questions were. The Data Architecture and Sharing and Visibility exams had the longest questions I have experienced on a Salesforce exam. And since I knew the Integration exam was supposed to be very tough, I had braced myself for that same sort of mental fatigue. But the questions were luckily very concise.
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​As I mentioned previously, knowing outbound vs inbound helps eliminate A LOT of answers. Also knowing asynchronous vs. synchronous integrations and how that might effect data refreshing on a page came up a fair amount as well as what type of sandbox you need for which types of integration activities.

Despite feeling like there were a few test questions without clear answers, I passed the first time! I also started to see the gaps I had that I needed to fill if I wanted to pass the Identity exam.

​There were several questions about certificates and security and monitoring. These are things I jotted down to focus on in the coming month.
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​Next to the final beast. Identity and Access Designer. This exam is known as the most challenging of all the Designer exams because it involves subject matter that most Salesforce practitioners don’t deal with every day. And for a non-computer science degree/accidental admin, a lot of the terminology like OAuth and SAML were relatively new to me. And to make matters worse, a few years ago there were not very many resources available that were accessible to newbies. Luckily (shameless plug) Ladies Be Architects created a TON of great content during 2018 that I used to pass the Identity and Access Designer exam. 

The key topics that you need to understand in order to pass this exam include:

• Authorization vs. Authentication (they are NOT the same!)
• OAuth – an open AUTHORIZATION protocol with 8 flows. The goal of all the flows is to obtain an access token that grants the user or system the proper level of access to an app.
• SAML- it’s the glue that makes OAuth possible. It’s all about browser redirects!
• Identity Provider vs. Service Provider- a user can use SSO starting from either place. And depending on where they initiate the request for authentication, the flow of information is different.

​Other topics like social sign-on, connected apps (when do you need one, what you can control via a connected app), login flows, 2FA (two-factor authentication) and external and identity licenses are also important to study.

​Here are the other study resources I used to pass the Identity and Access Designer Exam:

• Identity and Access Trailmix
• The Beer Drinker’s Guide to SAML
• Digging Deeper into OAuth 2.0 in Salesforce
• Ladies Be Architects Identity & Access Youtube Channel

​I can’t underestimate HOW MUCH I benefited from watching all the youtube videos created by Ladies Be Architects (featuring Charly Prinsloo's famous OAuth webinairs and also through the study group led by Natalya Murphy). Because I’m a bit of a crazy person, I would listen to this youtube channel on 2X speed when I was tired of reading or other study. There are some awesome conversations that go way beyond the documentation or old Dreamforce recordings. I especially recommend video #10 Which includes a very educational/interesting discussion on delegated authentication.

​The day before I took the exam I almost rescheduled it. But since it was December 28th already (where did the year go?) I decided that I would keep the date, knowing that it might just be my first attempt at learning. But i might pass and achieve my personal goal.

Overall, the test wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. Like the Integration exam, the questions were relatively concise. Two items that I was very glad I studied were federated vs delegated authentication (I personally had several questions about delegated authentication) and Salesforce Identity Connect. Remember: Identity Connect is JUST for integrating SFDC with Microsoft Active Directory. Before I hit the submit button, I took a deep breath. And before I knew it, I was a Certified System Architect!

​I had passed the beast of the Identity and Access exam the first time and I had achieved my personal goal of becoming an Application and System Architect before the end of the year. 
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