Salesforce Advanced Administrator Study Guide (Winter '26): Complete Exam Prep

Security and Access (20%)

Goes well beyond ADM-201 security fundamentals. Session-based Permission Sets: permission sets that only activate during a specific authenticated session (e.g., step-up authentication for sensitive operations). Permission Set Groups: combine multiple permission sets into a single assignable group. Salesforce Shield: a suite of compliance and security tools — Field Audit Trail (retain field history for up to 10 years vs standard 18 months), Event Monitoring (track user activity at the API level — what fields were accessed, what data was exported), Platform Encryption (encrypt fields at rest using tenant secrets). Know when each Shield product applies — regulated industries (HIPAA, FINRA) with strict data retention requirements are the typical scenarios.

Extending Custom Objects and Applications (15%)

External Objects: represent data stored outside Salesforce (in an external system) but accessible in the org via Salesforce Connect and OData 2.0 adapters. External objects support lookups and relationships but not all Salesforce features (no triggers, limited SOQL). Big Objects: store massive volumes of historical data within Salesforce (billions of records) — used for compliance data archiving. Only support SOQL queries with specific index fields. Custom Metadata Types: configuration records that are deployable via changesets and metadata API (unlike Custom Settings which are data). Ideal for environment-specific configuration values. Platform Events: an event-driven messaging system — publish and subscribe to real-time events using flows, Apex, or external systems via CometD.

Auditing and Monitoring (15%)

Setup Audit Trail: tracks the last 180 days of setup changes — who changed what, when. Essential for compliance and troubleshooting. Field History Tracking: tracks changes to up to 20 fields per object, retained for 18 months (Field Audit Trail extends this). Event Monitoring (Shield): detailed logs of user activity — API calls, login events, report exports, field access. Know the difference between Setup Audit Trail (setup changes) and Event Monitoring (user activity). Health Check: Salesforce's built-in security review tool — scores your org against security best practices. Know what makes a high vs low Health Check score.

Sales Cloud (14%) and Service Cloud (14%)

Sales Cloud: Enterprise Territory Management (ETM) is the key topic — territory models, territory types, assignment rules, and how opportunities are associated to territories. Opportunity Splits: divide credit for an opportunity between multiple sales reps (different split percentages per rep). Collaborative Forecasting with multiple forecast types. Service Cloud: Omni-Channel routing (queue-based, skills-based, external routing) — routing incoming work items to agents based on capacity and skills. Entitlement Management: service contracts, entitlement processes, and milestones (SLA milestones that fire escalation actions when breached). Advanced Knowledge lifecycle: article review cycles, translation, archiving.

Analytics, Reports and Dashboards (10%)

Joined Reports: combine data from up to 5 report types in a single report — each block has its own filters and groupings. Useful for comparing data from different objects side by side. Cross-filters: filter a report to show records with or without related records (e.g., accounts with no open opportunities). Bucket fields: group report values into named categories without creating formula fields. Historical Trending: track record changes over time (up to 3 months) — useful for pipeline movement analysis. Dynamic Dashboards: display data based on the logged-in viewer's context (each user sees their own data) vs a fixed running user.