Salesforce Interview Questions and Answers

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Most Frequently Asked Salesforce Interview Questions

1. Compare Salesforce Dev 401 with Salesforce Adv Dev 501.
2. What is the benefit of Salesforce CRM?
3. What are custom objects in Salesforce?
4. Define object relationship in Salesforce.
5. List various object relations in Salesforce.
6. What is an app in Salesforce?
7. Explain the advantages of Salesforce using the SaaS platform.
8. How does Salesforce deploy sales tracking?
9. What are Workflows in Salesforce? What are Actions in a workflow?
10. What is a Master–Detail relationship?

Salesforce is the top-most Customer Relationship Management (CRM) service provider in the world today. This software dominates the field of Cloud CRM by having over 40 percent of the market share.

1. Compare Salesforce Dev 401 with Salesforce Adv Dev 501.

2. What is the benefit of Salesforce CRM?

Here are some of the top benefits of Salesforce CRM:

• Ensuring faster and better sales opportunities
• Deploying an analytical approach to customer acquisition
• Reducing costs and improving customer satisfaction
• Automation of repetitive and less important tasks
• Improved efficiency and enhanced communication on all fronts

3. What are custom objects in Salesforce?

Simply put, custom objects are database tables in Salesforce.

 All data related to an enterprise can be stored in Salesforce.com, and for that, there is a need for a junction object, which is a custom object. The custom object has a master-detail relationship. We can create a master-detail relationship between two objects and then connect a child object as a related list. Custom objects, which can be listed in custom settings, have a set of static data that is reusable.

In the process, the custom object has to be defined first, and then the below-mentioned steps need to be followed:

• Join records with the custom object
• Custom object data is displayed in custom lists
• Create a custom tab for the custom object
• Build page layouts
• Create a dashboard and a report for analyzing the custom object

Moreover, the custom tab, app, and object can be shared.

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4. Define object relationship in Salesforce.

In Salesforce, we can link the standard and custom object records in a related list. It is done by the object relationship overview. Various types of relationships can be created to connect specific business cases with specific customers. It is possible to create a custom relationship on an object and define various relationship types.

5. List various object relations in Salesforce.

Object relations in Salesforce can be of the following types:

• One to many
• Many to many
• Master-Detail

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6. What is an app in Salesforce?

An app in Salesforce is a container that contains a name, a logo, and a group of tabs that work as a unit to provide specific functionality. Users can switch between apps using the Force.com app’s drop-down menu at the top-right corner of every page.

7. Explain the advantages of Salesforce using the SaaS platform.

Some of the main benefits of Salesforce SaaS are mentioned below:

• Its pay-as-you-go model perfectly suites all customers
• No hassle with infrastructure management
• All applications are accessed via the Internet
• Easy integration between various applications
• The latest features are provided without any delay
• Guaranteed uptime and security
• Scalable performance for various operations
• Ability to access via mobile devices from anywhere

8. How does Salesforce deploy sales tracking?

Salesforce is very meticulous when it comes to recording intricate details such as sales numbers, customer details, customers served, repeat customers, etc. Salesforce makes it easy to create detailed reports, charts, and dashboards for keeping track of sales.

9. What are Workflows in Salesforce? What are Actions in a workflow?

A workflow in Salesforce is basically a container or business logic engine that automates certain actions based on particular criteria. If the criteria are met, the actions get executed. When they do not, the record will get saved but no action will be executed.

There are two types of actions in a workflow in Salesforce, which are mentioned below:

• Immediate Actions: Actions that get executed immediately when the record is created or edited
• Time-Dependent Actions: Actions that get executed after a certain duration of time, such as 10 days before a records’ close date. After a certain time period, the workflow rules in Salesforce will re-evaluate the record just to make sure that the rule criteria are met. If the record meets the criteria, the aligned actions will be executed.

10. What is a Master–Detail relationship?

A master-detail relationship is basically a parent-child relationship in which “master” represents the parent and the other “details” represent the child. If the parent is deleted, then the child also gets deleted. Roll-up summary fields can only be created on master records, which will calculate the SUM, AVG, and MIN of the child records.

11. What is a connected app?

A connected app is a framework used to integrate an application with Salesforce with the help of APIs and standard protocols. It uses standard SAML, OAuth, and OpenID Connect protocols to authenticate, authorize, and provide single sign-on (SSO), for external apps. With the help of the connected app, Salesforce admins can set up security policies and control who uses the corresponding apps.

12. Can two profiles be assigned to one user?

Depending on the profile assigned, users gain access to Salesforce. One profile can be assigned to many users. Let’s consider an example scenario where the admin creates a sales profile. Now, the admin has to give access to one sales profile to multiple members of the sales team.

However, the admin cannot give a user gain access to more than one profile because sales reps should only have access to the sales profile. So two profiles cannot be assigned to one user.

13. What are the Salesforce subsidiaries?

The following is a list of some major Salesforce subsidiaries:

Tableau

1. Pardot
2. Heroku
3. Mulesoft
4. Demandware Inc
5. SalesforceIQ

14. What is an Audit trail?

If an organization has various Salesforce administrators, the audit trail lets you track all the recent changes made by other admins. It can store up to six months’ worth of data.

That’s all for the basic Salesforce interview questions for freshmen. Let’s move on to the next section of intermediate Salesforce interview questions and answers.

15. What is an sObject type?

An sObject is any object that can be stored in the Force.com platform database. Apex allows the use of a generic sObject abstract type to represent any object.

For example, ‘vehicle’ is a generic type, and ‘car’ and ‘motorbike’ are concrete types of ‘vehicle’.

16. What are triggers in Salesforce? How are they different from workflows?

Triggers in Salesforce are called Apex triggers. These are distinct and available specifically for common and expected actions like lead conversions. It is just a piece of code that is executed before or after a record is inserted or updated.

A trigger is different from a workflow, as the former is a piece of code, whereas a workflow is an automated process that uses no code.

17. What is trigger.new?

Trigger.new returns a list of records that have been added recently to sObjects. The records that have yet to be saved in the database are returned. Only insert and update triggers have the sObject list, and records can only be modified before.trigger.

18. What is the minimum test coverage required to deploy a trigger?

• System Administrator: Customization and administration of an application
• Standard User: Can edit, view, update, or delete one’s own record
• Read Only: Able to just view the records
• Solution Manager: Comes with the standard user permission but can also manage categories and published solutions
• Marketing User: Able to import leads into the organization, along with standard user permissions

19. Explain the Force.com platform.

Force.com is the entire infrastructure and codebase on which the complete Salesforce application exists. In other words, Salesforce is built on Force.com, which is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) that lets us simplify the design, development, and deployment of cloud-based applications and websites. Salesforce Developers can work with Cloud Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and deploy the applications on Force.com servers.

20. List the various types of reports available in Salesforce.

Mentioned below are the various types of Salesforce reports:

• Tabular Report: In this report, the grand total is displayed in a table format.
• Matrix Report: This is an in-depth report wherein there are both row and column-based groups.
• Summary Report: A summary report is a report in which the grouping is on a column basis.
• Joined Report: Joining two or more reports into one creates a joined report.

21. How many reports can be added to the Salesforce dashboard?

A Salesforce dashboard can be seen as a visual and pictorial representation of a dashboard with the facility to add up to 20 reports.

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22. Explain the various Salesforce dashboard components.

The various Salesforce dashboard components are explained below:

• Gauge: It is used for showing a single value within a range of custom values.
• Metric: This is used for displaying a single key–value pair. It is possible to click the empty text field next to the grand total and enter the metric label directly on the components. All metrics placed above and below one another in the dashboard column would be displayed as a single component.

Other dashboard components are explained below:

• Table: The report data can be shown in column form using a table.
• Visualforce Page: It is used for creating a custom component or showing information that is not available in other component types.
• Custom S-Component: This contains the content that is run or displayed in a browser like an Excel file, ActiveX Control, Java applet, or custom HTML web form.

23. What is Visualforce in Force.com?

Visualforce can be defined as the user interface for the Force.com platform. It is a component-based framework that can include over 100 in-built components. It includes a tag-based markup language, and each Visualforce tag corresponds to a page or a field.

The Visualforce framework works on the standard MVC paradigm. It is possible to have tight integration with the database and also deploy auto-generated controllers for database objects. Developers can use Apex codes to write their own controllers. They can access AJAX components or even create their own components.

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24. What is a static resource in Salesforce?

A static resource lets us upload content that is in the form of .jar and .zip formats, style sheets, JavaScript, and so on. It is recommended to deploy a static resource rather than uploading files to the Documents tab since it is possible to pack a set of files into a directory hierarchy and upload it. These files can easily be referred to a Visualforce page.

25. Differentiate between Salesforce Object Query Language and Salesforce Object Search Language.

• Salesforce Object Query Language (SOQL) lets us search for only one object. We can query for all types of fields in SOQL. Data Manipulation Language (DML) operations can be performed on the query results.
• Salesforce Object Search Language (SOSL) lets us search for multiple objects. However, in SOSL, we can query only for texts, emails, and phone numbers. Also, DML operations cannot be performed on the search results.

26. What is the difference between Standard and custom controllers?

• Standard Controllers: Standard controllers are created for all standard Salesforce pages. They consist of the same logic and functionalities that are utilized in any standard Salesforce page. They can be easily utilized with both standard and custom objects.
• Custom Controllers: Custom controllers are a class written in Apex that overrides the standard functionality of a standard controller of a page. It executes the logic of a page without utilizing the Standard Controllers. We use custom controllers whenever we want to run a Visualforce page fully in system mode, which means that the security and permissions of the current user will not be recognized.

27. What are the different data types that a standard field record name can have?

A standard field record consists of either an auto-number or text field read-only data type with a maximum limit of 80 characters. It depends on whether the field name consists of a unique text ID or a numerical ID.

To create auto numbers, the format should be described while defining the field, and, later, when every record is added, the number gets auto-generated. For example :

Sr No-{1}
Sr No-{2}

28. Where we can use Lightning components?

We can use Lightning components for a variety of purposes, some of which are mentioned below:

• To drag-and-drop components in the Lightning App Builder and Community Builder.
• To add more Lightning Components to Lightning Pages.
• To add Lightning Components to Lightning Experience Record Pages.
• To override Standard Actions.

29. What are the tools included in Lightning?

• Lightning Component Framework – It provides components and extensions that can be utilized to develop reusable custom components, standalone apps, and customize the Salesforce1 Mobile App.
• Lightning App Builder – An UI tool that lets you build apps rapidly with the help of drag-and-drop components provided by Salesforce.
• Lightning Connect – An integration tool to easily integrate Salesforce to consume data from any external source using the OData specification.
• Lightning Process Builder – Lightning Process Builder in Salesforce is a visualization tool for the automation of business processes.
• Lightning Schema Builder – It is a visualization tool used to view and create objects, fields, and relationships.

30. What are Governor Limits in Salesforce?

Governor limits are some of the biggest challenges for a Salesforce developer.

As and when the Apex code exceeds the limit, it issues a run-time exception, which cannot be handled. The following is a list of some of the key governor limits in Salesforce:

• Push Notification Limits
• Per-Transaction Apex Limits
• com Platform Apex Limits
• Size-Specific Apex Limits
• Miscellaneous Apex Limits
• Static Apex Limits
• Email Limits

31. What are the different types of collections in Salesforce Apex?

Collections are the type of variables used to store multiple numbers of records (data). The different types of collections in Salesforce are mentioned below:

• Lists
• Maps
• Sets

32. What are maps in Apex?

Maps are used to store data in the form of key–value pairs, where each unique key maps to a single value.
Syntax:

Map<String, String> country_city = new Map<String, String>();

33. Which fields are automatically indexed in Salesforce?

The following fields are automatically indexed in Salesforce:

• Custom fields marked as an external ID or a unique field
• Primary keys (ID, Name, and Owner fields)
• Audit dates (such as SystemModStamp)
• Foreign keys (Lookup or Master-Detail relationship fields)

34. A time-dependent workflow action cannot be created for which workflow?

Time-dependent actions in workflow rules can not be added when the following actions occur. 

• When workflow rule is in active state. 
• When the workflow rule has pending actions and is deactivated. 
• When the workflow rule criteria of a record are set to: created, and every time it’s edited.

35. What is a sandbox in Salesforce? What are the types of Sandboxes available?

A sandbox is a similar copy of a Salesforce production that is used for testing, development, and training. The content and size of a sandbox may vary depending on the type of sandbox and the edition of the production organization that is associated with the sandbox. There are four types of sandboxes available, which are mentioned below:

• Developer Sandbox
• Developer Pro Sandbox
• Partial Data Sandbox
• Full Sandbox

36. What is an Apex class?

An Apex class is a template from which Apex objects can be created. These classes consist of other classes, variables, user-defined methods, exception types, and the static initialization code.

37. What is Salesforce CRM?

It is a cloud-based CRM that doesn’t require IT experts to set up or manage the cloud. One can simply log in and connect to the customers directly. The Salesforce CRM system is a well-organized platform that provides information to its customers from different sources. It is a customer-centric system that integrates customers’ information for an organization’s benefit.

38. What is Salesforce Lightning?

Salesforce Lightning is a platform that provides tools for every organization to build next-generation UI and UX in Salesforce. Lightning creates a modern productivity-boosting user experience. It is used to create a fast, beautiful, and unique user experience, just like real lightning, so that sales teams can sell their products faster. Lightning Experience uses the open-source Aura framework. It is a completely re-designed framework to create a modern user interface.

39. Why use Batch Apex instead of Normal Apex?

There are various reasons why Batch Apex is better than Normal Apex, some of which are mentioned below:

• A Normal Apex uses 100 records per cycle to execute SOQL queries, whereas a Batch Apex does the same in 200 records per cycle. So, it is very fast when considering the execution of SOQL queries.
• A Normal Apex can retrieve 50,000 SOQL queries, but in a Batch Apex, 50,000,000 SOQL queries can be retrieved.
• A Normal Apex has a heap size of 6 MB, whereas a Batch Apex has a heap size of 12 MB.
• When executing bulk records, Normal Apex classes are more vulnerable to encountering errors as compared to batch Apex. The latter is normally error-free.

40. How can you call an Apex class in Salesforce?

The following are the ways to call an Apex class in Salesforce:

• From the Visualforce page
• From the Developer Console
• From JavaScript links
• By using a trigger
• From another class
• From the home page components

41. How will you create a many-to-many relationship?

A many-to-many relationship can be created by using a junction object. A junction object is a custom object that has two master-detail relationships.

42. What are the different types of Reports available in Salesforce?

Based on the structural differences, Salesforce has four different types of reports:

43. How does Salesforce track sales?

There are unique procedures followed by every company for tracking their sales. Various companies track the performance of sales through data analysis. The tracking system of Salesforce allows companies to collect basic details for evaluating the performance, such as:

• Customers who are served daily
• Number of daily sales
• Day-to-day reports of sales from Sales Managers
• Sales figures on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis, depending on organizations’ needs
• Details of the repeat customers who serve as the key factor for the growth of any organization

44. What is a junction object?

Junction objects help associate two objects. They are custom objects in Salesforce that allow to build a master-detail relationship that is established between two different data objects. It uses a many-to-many relationship to link many junction objects to several records.

Example: If a candidate applies for a job, then the job profile can be connected to many applicants, and the candidate can be linked to several other jobs as well. Here, the junction object will be the ‘job profile.’

45. What is the difference between a role and a profile in Salesforce?

Role:

A role helps manage and regulate the Salesforce access that affects reports. Also, it allows for controlling user visibility over data within an organization. Users who can access the data and perform operations on it are given a specific role. Candidates with a specific role can share the reports with other team members.

Profile:

A profile is an essential component of any organization. Moreover, it is compulsory for all users to verify their identity for legal authorization. It helps secure an organization’s data from illegal visitors. It is not permissible to operate Salesforce without having a profile. It also controls the types of records that a user can see.

46. What is a wrapper class in Salesforce?

A wrapper class is a type of container class in Salesforce that contains a group of objects as its segments. Also, the wrapper class is of an abstract data type.

In Salesforce, we use a wrapper class to envelop collected data. A programmer defines the wrapper class that acts as a custom object, along with its properties.

Moreover, the instances of a wrapper class help represent distinct objects in the corresponding table on a Visualforce page.

47. What are the reasons that can cause data loss in Salesforce?

There are various reasons that cause the Salesforce data to be lost, and they are mentioned below:

• Altering the date and time
• Converting parameters such as number and currency from other data types
• Importing data that, at times, goes wrong
• Moving the text, URL, or email from the text area
• Altering the auto-number and the checkbox
• Modifying the multi-select picklist to other types

48. Can you give an example of a Salesforce API and its usage?

Salesforce provides the following APIs for developers to easily integrate across Salesforce:

REST: With the help of the REST API you can easily incorporate Salesforce applications using HTTP methods in either XML or JSON formats. It is the most suitable choice for developing mobile applications or external clients.

Bulk: The Bulk API provides us with programmatic access especially for quickly loading and querying large amounts of data into your Salesforce organization.

Streaming: The Streaming API is used to trigger and receive notifications whenever changes are made to Salesforce data, according to the defined criteria.

49. Can you edit an Apex trigger/ Apex class in the production environment? Can you edit a Visualforce page in the production environment?

No, we cannot modify Apex classes or triggers directly in the production environment. It should be done first in the Developer Edition or testing org or in sandbox org. Then, a user with Author Apex permission can deploy it in production, which overwrites the last version.

Visualforce pages can easily be generated and modified in sandbox and production, as well, if they do not comprise a custom controller.

50. What are the different types of email templates that can be created in Salesforce?

Mentioned below is a list of email templates that can be created in Salesforce:

1. Text: Text templates can be created or changed by all the users in the organization.
2. HTML with Letterhead: Admins and users who have ‘Edit HTML Templates’ can create this type of template based on a letterhead.
3. Custom HTML: It is an extension of the previous one. Admins and users with ‘Edit HTML Templates’ can create custom HTML templates even without the need for a letterhead.
4. Visualforce: Admins and developers can create this template using Visualforce. It provides advanced functionalities like merging recipient’s data from multiple records.

51. In how many ways we can share a record?

With the help of the following methods, we can share records in Salesforce:

• Role Hierarchy:
  Whenever a user is added to a role, the user above the current user in the role hierarchy will have access to records and will inherit permissions.
  Setup → manages users → roles → setup roles → click on ‘add role’ → provide name and save.
• OWD:
  Organization-Wide Default (OWD) lets you set up public read-only or public write-only for users across the organization.
  Setup → Security Controls → sharing settings → Click on ‘Edit’
• Manual Sharing:
  The owner or person higher in the role hierarchy can give manual access to users or a group of users to recordsfiles.

I hope that you find our comprehensive blog on Salesforce interview questions useful. Do let us know in the comments section if you could make use of these Salesforce topics for your interview.

Salesforce Salary Based on Skills

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In the US, the salary of a Salesforce developer varies between $80,914 and $162,243 per year, with an average of $114,576 per year. On average, a Salesforce developer earns around ₹6,75,000 per year in India, with a salary ranging from ₹5,00,000 to ₹10,00,000 per year. They also get an additional average cash compensation of around ₹50,000, varying between the range of ₹20,000 to ₹1,00,000.

Salesforce Trends in 2024

Global Demand: There are 54,000 Salesforce developer jobs in the US. And there are around 2000+ jobs for Salesforce admins in the United States.

Projected Growth: According to the reports, the Salesforce ecosystem is expected to generate approximately 9.3 million new jobs by the year 2026.

Regional Trends: There are more than 6,000 Salesforce developer jobs in India, and more than 1,000 jobs are there for Salesforce admins, as per LinkedIn job postings.

Job Opportunities in Salesforce

There are multiple job roles in Salesforce, Here are a few of them:

Roles and Responsibilities of Salesforce

Enroll now in our comprehensive Salesforce Certification Course Administrator and App Builder course to kickstart your career, enhance your skills in data analytics, and earn your certification.