Finally passed my Force.com Certified Developer Exam

Barely starting developing on Force.com for a couple of months and hurriedly studied to prepare for the exam I failed the exam and I retook the exam after a month and failed again, I knew then the preparing for the third retake that I should need a definite study plan and alot more time to know the ins and out. 3 weeks before the exam I studied straight and was ready to take the exam 2-3 days before the exam. The reference materials below helped me in preparing for the Exam. Because materials tends to be updated on new releases make sure you get the latest copies online.


1. Create two Salesforce.com account. Free Developer Edition and Force.com Free Edition – The Free Edition has the ability to create 1 sandbox. Feature that allow you to learn the ins and out productions to sandbox vice versa, loading data etc. So create the Recruiting App on the Free Developer Edition covered on the Fundamentals and the Warehouse app in the Force.com Edition in the Workbook.

2. I read all these ebooks except those that pertain to Flex development and advance Apex subject.

Force.com Fundamentals: Custom Application Development in the Cloud

Force.com Certified Developer Study Guide

Force.com Workbook: Get Started Building Your First App in the Cloud

Force.com Developer Guide – Material is from Summer 09 but still useful information regarding Tagging, Analytic Snapshots

Forceprepare.com– excellent mockup exams to test your knowledge and other useful information.

And the DEV 401 Training Video. I broke it down to view only 3 hours video per day, so you don’t bored and lose interest.

And some key pointers I noted from the test, funny that every time after an exam I get blanked out and cant seem to recall the questions on the test. I only managed to recall the topic.

some key points
-review the security controls – make sure you understand in and out: most use cases are a mix of the following
– profiles
– object level permissions
– field field level permissions
– record level permissions
– record level access
– role hierarchy
– reports
– how are objects related to reports
– type of dashboard to component to use per case scenarios
– what can be done with custom report types
– Analytic Snapshots
– workflow and approvals
– pararrel approval
– approval process
– use case for time triggered actions
– limitations of data loader on importing standard,custom objects
– features of the data loader
– sidebar feature how are items added
– User objects
– Types of relationships including hierarchal
– Use case on best relationship to use
– Use case for using VisualForce and Apex
– Authentication on Sandbox
– Encrypted Fields

After all those hard work I’m officially certified.

58 thoughts on “Finally passed my Force.com Certified Developer Exam”

  2. Congratulations on passing your exam. I have yet to take the developer courses or exams, but I’m sure they’ve got their challenging parts. I know you mentioned the DEV401 video course. Just so you know about it, I’ve posted the entire DEV 401 and DEV 501 courses at my website called The Salesforce Channel. I know some people have found it daunting to download the whole videos through iTunes so I made them available via streaming. Best of luck to you with developing on Force.com.
    http://salesforcechannel.com/pages/developer-training

  4. hi,this is venkatesh.I am new to this technology(salesforce).People says differently about the growth of salesforce and oppurtunities in the future.I am confused with this.

    Could you please give the details for the future of salesforce and oppurtunities.How will be the growth of salesforce in cloud computing.

    the data given for Dev 401 is excelent…

    Thanks and Regards,
    venkatesh

  5. hi venkatesh, here is an excerpt..

    The Future of Cloud Computing
    Cloud computing offers the promise of reducing the cost and complexity involved in setting up
    and maintaining traditional enterprise application environments while delivering rapid innovation and increased flexibility. The cloud also promises to reduce setup time by shifting the task of running servers to the cloud provider. Now we are starting to hear about Cloud 2, which brings cloud computing together with new social and collaboration capabilities and new mobile devices.

    read more here.

    http://www.oracle.com/us/openworld/oow10-inposition-salesforce-173335.pdf

  6. Thanks for your Quick reply,i have one question regarding cloud computing.

    What about security,if we are doing banking applications because our database maintened by third party vendors.Is there any backup for our database..

    I want to take a dev 401 exam in dec…can i get any dumps for the exam preparation….
    If any please forward to me…..

    Thanks and Regards,
    venkatesh

  7. hi venkatesh, the security framework of the force.com is one of the best around and their top pitch, they have all sorts of security users, roles, ip restrictions etc.. there is also data management for backups and all sorts of data migration.

    unfortunately i dont have a dump of the exam as its strict settings doesnt allow to even copy questions etc.. just follow my guide above you’;; surely pass the exam. good luck.

  9. hi lopau.in free edition of developer force ,i did not find sandbox option.

    even with my company licensed salesforce also,i am unable to access the sandbox…

    Is there any center at hyderabad for salesforce dev 401 exam…and i want to know the centers near to hyderabad…how to book for the exam…

    could you please give the information…

    thanks and regards,
    venkatesh

  11. I have passed the force.com certified developer exam[DEV – 401], and now planning to give advance certification exam [DEV – 501]. I m going through information provided on salesforce.com/certification. But if you have any sample questions or any website with mock up exam, please let me know.

  12. hi lopau,

    i completed dev 401 certification successfully.thanks for ur wonderful blog….

    i want ur help to dev 501 certification also…

  13. hiiii lopau

    i am very happy to say that i have cleared the dev 401 certification…..very thankfull to you for the guidence that u wrote in this blog………

  15. congrats guys, glad to be of help of any kind. i haven’t taken the dev 501 certification yet no time to prepare and study, been pretty busy with company projects.

  16. cool simple one stop shop for DEV401 and helps beginners to track their progress

    great stuff keep it up!

  17. Hi all,
    Anyone plz could you tell me the areas that I need to focus for the certification.
    and what is the cost of this certification.

  18. Hi ,
    Finally i passed my exam after 2 failure attemt.I have some material which i prepared ,please let me know how to upload this so other can be benifited on this.

  23. Dude, Nice Post!
    This blog has actually guided me for nailing my 401 🙂
    Please share 501 exam guidance, if you have any.

    Cheers!

  27. Hello Guys,

    I have been doing Force.Com developement for quite a few time now.
    I too ll be going in for DEV 401 and then DEV 501.

    Great resource here in this blog.

    Thanks and Keep posting mates !!

  29. I am working in software testing for the past 7 years and now want to become a salesforce developer. can someone suggest me how to go ahead? what challenged I may face etc?

  31. hello guys,
    I am preparing for dev 401 for quite a long time now,will be giving the exam soon so any material u have plz share it with me on the following mail id:gabby0207@gmail.com

  33. Hey guys
    can any one tell me, how many days we need to prepare for Dev 401. Is 15 days enough? I mean just watching videos and some books.

  38. Hi,
    I am planning to write an certification exam on DEV 401.Can you please give me any good study material about dev 401. I need the experience words who had written the exam on this. can u pls suggest me how to prepare and pls forward material to my (sainath.kotthuri@gmail.com) mail id.

    just giv ur mobile no i will just call u for the details. This is very important.

    Thanking You,
    sainath

  48. Hi, I sat for the exam today and failed. I felt I had a pretty good preparation on hand but don’t know where did I missed. I would appreciate if someone can send me the link of the video tutorial , material and dumps. I need to take retake very soon due to pressure from company. Its urgent , please help.

    Thanks.

  49. Hi I’m planning to setup my career on salesforce.com.I’m good at .Net with 1+ Exp.Due to project requirement and Cloud computing in demand i’m thinking of a move in technology to SFDC.Can you guys suggest me whether its the right move and the future of SFDC in Future.

  56. Hi,

    I am new to salesforce and studying for DEV 401.

    Most of you are certified so can you please by sharing DEV 401 dumbs and some tips

  58. Hi..

    I am new to sales force and seeing the scope of DEV 401 i wish to do certification. Can u please suggest if certification will get me a job with no work experience in salesforce.com

    Please mail me the certification material and dumps if any to sharmiatindia@gmail.com

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