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. 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. About The ExamHere's the breakdown of what you need to know in order to pass this exam. If you've read my blog before, you'll know that I always emphasize the importance of reading the exam guide. It's always the most important step in any exam preparation.
Here's Where To FocusIf 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:
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! |
AuthorSusannah Kate St-Germain is a 20x certified Colombian-American Salesforce nerd, travel fanatic, and aspiring Certified Technical Architect. Archives
May 2020
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