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.