The Salesforce Education Cloud Consultant certification exam was one of the newer certifications that came out a few years ago, but has received a tremendous update to accommodate the change in product. The exam previously covered Education Data Architecture (EDA), along with consultation best practices and a basic understanding of core Salesforce products.
Although most sections within the exam are still the same topic and weighting as the previous version, the exam will only focus on the ‘newer’ higher education product: Education Cloud.
Now, if you are confused by the fact that Education Cloud is considered a new product even though the name has been around for years (including in this certification’s name), Salesforce has provided the following verbiage:
“Starting in March 2023, Salesforce offers Salesforce for Education, which includes integrated platform solutions and managed packages.”
It can now be assumed that any education-related product, including both Education Cloud and EDA, are considered under the umbrella of Salesforce for Education.
Education Cloud architecture now follows a standard data model across most industry clouds, as it is built directly on the Salesforce platform and does not require a managed package like EDA previously did. The first major difference you will notice is the change in the constituent data model from an account-based model to person accounts.
Person accounts do unfortunately have a bad reputation throughout the community due to the impact on data storage, but the feature works better for education and nonprofit organizations. It’s recommended to have a decent understanding of person accounts and how they fit into the overall Salesforce platform.
Salesforce professionals who achieve the Education Cloud Consultant certification will join a group of higher education experts who thoroughly understand the benefits of all Salesforce products for colleges and universities.
If you passed your certification exam prior to the release of the new Education Cloud, I highly recommend you learn the new Education Cloud product and other features that Salesforce has released in the past year!
Who’s the Ideal Candidate?
This certification is recommended for anyone who has completed an implementation of Education Cloud or who has had experience in customizing and configuring Salesforce Education Cloud solutions. The updated data model, built directly on the Salesforce platform, is probably the most important concept that an exam candidate should know how to configure for various institutions that may have different requirements.
It is worth noting that the Salesforce Administrator certification exam is a prerequisite before a candidate can register for the Education Cloud Consultant exam.
Key Topics
1. Education Cloud Configuration: 22%
This section is the largest for the exam and takes up nearly a quarter of the entire exam. This section will test your knowledge of the new Education Cloud product, how to configure it, and how to configure additional industry-specific products. It will be expected to understand various Salesforce for Education solutions, such as Accounting Subledger, Program Management, or Salesforce Scheduler.
Having experience in installing, implementing, and configuring Education solutions is important for doing well on questions from this section.
2. Domain Expertise: 18%
This section will test your knowledge of Experience Cloud, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Einstein Analytics, and how each product could be used to satisfy customer requirements across multiple departments. It is important to understand how each department interacts with students and what features would be the most beneficial to help improve the student experience.
Although this section is very similar to the previous version of the exam, it is very important to know that the K-12 Architecture Kit product is included in this exam, and you should have a baseline understanding of it and how it can help institutes that handle lower levels of education.
The exam has many scenario-based questions that will require you to pick the most appropriate solution for the use case that is provided. Understanding the difference between Pardot (Marketing Cloud Account Engagement) and Marketing Cloud is key to making an informed decision for the customer requirements that are provided in the business case. Understanding sharing considerations and license types for Salesforce Experience Cloud and how it works with Education Cloud (note there’s a specific permission set called Education Cloud for Experience Cloud User).
3. Integration and Data Management: 16%
Even though this section is not one of the top three heaviest weightings (and even decreased in weighting), it is a topic that can trip up many people if they do not dedicate enough time to learning the subjects. The key topics that you will be tested on are integrating a School Information System with Salesforce, understanding data migration and data management considerations, and analyzing the implication of large data volumes.
Similar to the previous section that was discussed, this section will contain scenario-based questions to ensure you understand these concepts and best practices associated with them. It’s important to understand data skew and ownership skew and how these can affect the performance of the Salesforce org you are configuring. Along with this, it is beneficial to know which API strategy (REST, SOAP, Salesforce Connect, etc.) should be used based on the business case that is provided to you.
Study Strategy
Luckily, there are quite a few resources for studying for this exam. Of course, there’s the official study guide which will be your first place to go. But soon after, you should get started on the prebuilt Trailmix on Trailhead. It not only provides Trailhead modules organized by exam section, but also offers additional resources to help you prepare. Unfortunately, with the end of the Power of Us hub and the migration of Salesforce.org documentation with Salesforce documentation, some links within the Trailmix and Trailhead may no longer work.
It is recommended to review the specific documentation for Education Cloud products, such as:
- Education Cloud Documentation
- Student Success Hub Documentation
- K-12 Architecture Kit Documentation
- Admission Connect Documentation
Education Cloud Data Model
It is also very important to have a basic knowledge of other Salesforce products, such as Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Experience Cloud, and all Marketing Cloud products, along with knowing how these products work with Education Cloud.
Question Format
Like most certification exams, the Education Cloud Consultant exam has a large number of scenario-based questions. Most of these questions are pretty long and will try to trick you with multiple answers that could work for the particular scenario that is outlined. This exam will also now follow the new question format of having only three choices to choose from.
Here is an example of a question you would see on this exam:
A primary school needs to track which students receive assistance in their school lunch program. Which Education Cloud feature should the consultant discuss with the school?
- Program Management
- Advisor Link
- Appointment Scheduling
There are also quite a few questions that will test your knowledge of other Salesforce products and how they would benefit a higher education institution using a Salesforce for Education product to manage their student data.
Exam Strategy
Once you have reached exam day, you should try to make one final attempt to learn any topics that you are not certain of. A popular strategy for this is to print off a brief cheat sheet of the information you want to learn and try to memorize it, leading up to your exam start time.
When taking the exam, make sure to read through the question multiple times before you view the answer choices that are provided. It’s beneficial to use the note area you have to mark specific questions/topics that you are uncertain about and their potential answer, so you can see if a future question helps answer that one.
Once you move on to viewing the answer choices, you should start by using a process of elimination. Although it won’t be as easy to determine incorrect answers as the quizzes on Trailhead, you should be able to eliminate one option that is completely wrong or just made up. They also like to throw in curveballs, of features that appear to be correct but aren’t best practice. You can often weed these out.
It is also highly recommended to utilize the “Mark for Review” feature available on each question of the exam. If you are not confident in your answer, or just not able to think of an answer right at that moment, you can use this checkbox to remind yourself to come back to these questions. Even though it is best to go through the entire exam two times, it would be beneficial to mark these questions so you can do a final review of the questions if you have enough time. Ultimately, you can get a good idea of how likely you are to have passed the test by marking the questions that you do not have a confident answer for.
Tips
- Create your own trial org to test some features and learn more about the product while you review documentation.
- Make sure you download the Salesforce Certified Education Cloud Consultant Exam Guide and prioritize items with heavier weightings or topics you are not as comfortable with.
- Complete the Trailmix provided by Salesforce and read through the documentation articles available through the Salesforce Developers site.
- Feel comfortable with various use cases around all Salesforce for Education products, including EDA, and how other Salesforce products can be incorporated with it.
- Understand how to integrate data in Salesforce with Student Information Systems and how to migrate and manage data from one system to another.
Final Thoughts
This certification is a great achievement for any Salesforce professional working in the higher education or consulting industry. Ideally, you should have over two years of experience working on the Salesforce platform and over one year of experience implementing Education Cloud for higher education institutions.
It is crucial to make sure that you understand the data models for Education Cloud and its supplementary products and how they differ from EDA. Finally, it is important to understand how each department of a higher education institution can provide a better experience for their students through other Salesforce products that are compatible with Education Cloud.
Resources
- Salesforce Certified Education Cloud Consultant Exam Guide
- Education Cloud Consultants Trailmix
- Education Cloud Documentation
- Education Cloud Trial Org
- Student Success Hub Documentation
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