Domain 1: Configuration and Setup
- Company Information, business hours, fiscal year, and the difference between org-wide settings and personal settings
- User management: activating users, profiles vs roles, and granting extra access with permission sets and permission set groups
- The 'minimum profile plus permission sets' model for least-privilege access
- Login and identity security: password policies, session settings, login IP ranges and login hours, and multi-factor authentication (MFA)
- The sharing model foundation: organization-wide defaults (OWD), the role hierarchy, sharing rules, and manual sharing
- Setup Audit Trail for tracking configuration changes, and declarative vs programmatic customization
- Extending the org with AppExchange packages
Domain 2: Object Manager and Lightning App Builder
- Standard vs custom objects and how to choose the right custom field type
- Relationships: lookup, master-detail (with roll-up summaries and cascade delete), many-to-many junction objects, and hierarchical
- Record types to offer different picklist values and page layouts to different users
- Page layouts, compact layouts, and field-level security (FLS) as the platform-wide field visibility control
- Lightning App Builder: app, home, and record pages, plus component visibility rules
- Dynamic Forms and Dynamic Actions for field- and action-level layout control
- Formula fields, roll-up summaries, and validation rules on the data model
Domain 3: Sales and Marketing Applications
- Leads and lead conversion (mapping to Account, Contact, and Opportunity)
- Opportunities, stages, sales processes, and guiding reps with Path
- Products, price books (standard vs custom), and the one-price-book-per-opportunity rule
- Campaigns, campaign hierarchy (up to five levels), campaign members, and campaign influence
- Web-to-Lead for capturing leads from a website form, including reCAPTCHA
- Lead assignment and auto-response rules
Domain 4: Service and Support Applications
- Cases and the support lifecycle; assignment, auto-response, and escalation rules
- Web-to-Case and Email-to-Case (including On-Demand Email-to-Case) for capturing cases
- Queues for routing records to teams, and case teams for collaboration
- Entitlements and milestones for tracking service-level agreements
- Omni-Channel routing with presence statuses, service channels, and capacity
- Lightning Knowledge articles and the Service Console workspace
Domain 5: Productivity and Collaboration
- Activities: tasks and events, and Einstein Activity Capture for email/calendar sync
- Chatter, groups, and feed tracking for collaboration
- Email templates, Lightning email, and organization-wide email addresses
- Macros and Quick Text to speed up repetitive agent work
- List views, list view charts, and the Salesforce mobile app
- Notes and files versus attachments
Domain 6: Data and Analytics Management
- Import tools: Data Import Wizard (up to 50,000 records, dedup, no delete) vs Data Loader (large volumes, all operations including delete and upsert)
- Exporting data with the Data Export Service (scheduled backups) and Data Loader
- Duplicate rules and matching rules to protect data quality
- Report formats: tabular, summary, matrix, and joined, and when to use each
- Report features: bucket fields, row-level formulas, summary formulas, and custom report types
- Dashboards, dashboard components, and dynamic dashboards (which run as the viewer, with a limited count)
Domain 7: Workflow and Process Automation
- Validation rules to enforce data quality at save time
- Flow as the primary automation tool: screen, record-triggered (before-save and after-save), scheduled, and autolaunched flows
- Choosing before-save vs after-save record-triggered flows for performance
- Approval processes: entry criteria, steps, approvers, and approval/rejection actions
- When to use a flow versus an approval process
- Migration away from the retiring Workflow Rules and Process Builder toward Flow
Salesforce Certified Platform Administrator (ADM-201) exam tips
- Master the sharing model order of increasing access: OWD, then role hierarchy, then sharing rules, then manual and team sharing, then Apex sharing. Many questions hinge on 'who can see this record and why'.
- Know master-detail vs lookup cold: master-detail supports roll-up summaries, inherits ownership and sharing, cascades deletes, and is required on the child; lookup is loose and optional.
- For data loads, pick the tool by volume and operation: Data Import Wizard for up to 50,000 records with de-duplication and no delete; Data Loader for larger volumes and all operations, including delete, upsert, and scheduled runs.
- Flow is the future of automation. Expect questions where the correct answer is a flow and the distractors are the retiring Workflow Rules or Process Builder.
- Grant baseline access with a lean profile and layer extra permissions with permission sets and permission set groups, rather than cloning many profiles.
- Practice in a free Developer Edition org or Trailhead Playground. The exam is scenario-based, so clicking through the real Setup menus beats rote memorization.
Study guide FAQ
What is the format of the Salesforce Administrator exam?
The ADM-201 exam is about 60 multiple-choice questions (plus up to 5 unscored) in 105 minutes, with a passing score around 65 percent. There is no coding.
Do I need to know how to code?
No. The Administrator exam is entirely declarative (point-and-click). Apex, triggers, and Lightning Web Components belong to the Platform Developer track, not ADM-201.
What is the hardest part of the exam?
Most candidates find the security and sharing model (profiles, permission sets, OWD, role hierarchy, sharing rules) and process automation (choosing the right Flow) the most challenging, because the questions are scenario-based.
What is the best way to prepare?
Combine hands-on practice in a free Developer or Trailhead Playground org with Trailhead trailmixes and timed practice exams that mirror the domain weightings, focusing on your weakest domains.
Should I still learn Workflow Rules and Process Builder?
Understand what they did, but Salesforce is retiring both and steering all automation to Flow, so prioritize learning record-triggered, screen, scheduled, and autolaunched flows.