You can see it againUnder pressure people bring back shapes and positions long after the wording has gone.
Picture superiority · Shepard 1967, Standing 1973
SALESFORCESalesforce Certified Data Architect
The Salesforce Certified Data Architect certification validates your ability to design and implement scalable, secure, and high-performing data models on the Salesforce platform. It is for experienced architects who translate business requirements into robust data strategies, including data migration, integration, and governance. Earning it proves you can architect data solutions that drive business success.
Exam formatMultiple choice and multiple response
DeliveryWebassessor
Free questions507
Content last reviewed 30 July 2026 · Up to date
The certification
What Salesforce Certified Data Architect proves, and what it asks of you
What this certification covers, who it is written for, and what the exam itself looks like on the day.
9domains
21objectives
144concepts
What it is
What this certification is
What it validates, who it is written for, and the experience it assumes.
About this certification
The Salesforce Certified Data Architect certification is designed for experienced architects who want to demonstrate their expertise in designing and implementing complex data solutions on the Salesforce platform. This certification validates your ability to create scalable and secure data models, manage data quality, and ensure data integrity across the organization.
As a Data Architect, you will be responsible for translating business requirements into technical data strategies, including data migration, integration, and governance. This certification proves you have the skills to architect data solutions that are not only efficient but also aligned with business goals, making you a valuable asset to any organization using Salesforce.
Who it’s for
This certification is for experienced architects, data architects, and technical leads who are responsible for designing and implementing data solutions on the Salesforce platform. It is ideal for professionals who have a deep understanding of Salesforce data modeling, data migration, and data governance. You are someone who can translate complex business requirements into scalable and secure data architectures, and you have hands-on experience with Salesforce data tools and technologies.
Recommended experience
Salesforce recommends that candidates have several years of experience as an architect, with a strong understanding of data modeling, data migration, and data governance on the Salesforce platform. Experience designing and implementing data models on the Salesforce platform; Knowledge of data migration strategies and tools; Understanding of data governance and security best practices; Experience with Salesforce data integration patterns
The syllabus
What you’ll learn
Every domain and objective Salesforce measures, with the weight they carry on the exam.
The official Salesforce exam outline · checked 30 July 2026 · See the source
DATA MODELING
- Compare and contrast various techniques and considerations for designing Lightning Platform data model (e.g., objects, fields & relationships, object features).
- Given a customer scenario, design a data model that is scalable, supports all business processes with appropriate level of customizations (click vs. code), while considering performance for large data volumes.
CONCEPTUAL DESIGN
- Given a customer scenario, identify the issues impacting data quality along key dimensions (such as data duplication, completeness, accuracy, integrity, etc.).
- Given a customer scenario, recommend approaches for improving data quality along key dimensions (e.g., data duplication, completeness, accuracy, integrity etc.) using various techniques (e.g., data assessment/profiling, cleansing, standardization/normalization, matching & merging, declarative components) in Salesforce (e.g., validation rules, visual indicators, dependent pick lists, etc.).
- Given a customer scenario, recommend appropriate techniques and tools to monitor data quality on an ongoing basis (e.g., KPIs, data quality reports, dashboards, metrics, third-party solutions).
- Given a customer scenario, recommend appropriate techniques and methods for ensuring high data quality at the point of entry, such as client/server side validation rules, workflows, approvals, data.com clean, duplicate prevention.
MASTER DATA MANAGEMENT
- Compare and contrast the various techniques, approaches and considerations for implementing Master Data Management Solutions (e.g., MDM implementation styles, harmonizing and consolidating data from multiple sources, establishing data survivorship rules, thresholds & weights, leveraging external reference data for enrichment, Canonical modeling techniques, hierarchy management).
- Given a customer scenario, recommend and use techniques for establishing a "golden source of truth"/"system of record" for the customer domain.
- Given a customer scenario, recommend approaches and techniques for consolidating data attributes from multiple sources. Discuss criteria and methodology for picking the winning attributes (data survivorship rules).
METADATA MANAGEMENT
- Compare and contrast various techniques, approaches and considerations for capturing and managing business and technical metadata (e.g., business dictionary, data lineage, taxonomy, data classification).
- Given a customer scenario, recommend appropriate approaches and techniques to capture and maintain customer metadata to preserve traceability and establish a common context for business rules (e.g., applying weights to attributes used in matching process by their importance, data classification, global/local attributes, field audit trails, etc.).
DATA ARCHIVING
- Compare and contrast various approaches and considerations for arriving at a data archiving and purging plan. Discuss export mechanisms, restore mechanisms, and merits of various options for archiving on Salesforce platform vs. off-platform (e.g., Bulk API call with hard delete option, triggers to copy aggregated data into a custom object, storing summarized data using analytic snapshots, and/or when to move data to an external system and how to make it available to core CRM).
- Given a customer scenario, recommend a data archiving and purging plan that is optimal for customer's data storage management needs (e.g., large data volumes, data storage governor limits, data archiving, restore options, linking archived data to core CRM, on-platform vs off-platform options, AppExchange enablers).
DATA GOVERNANCE
- Compare and contrast various approaches and considerations for designing and implementing an enterprise data governance program while taking into account framework for defining roles and responsibilities (e.g., stewardship, data custodian, etc.), policies and standards, ownership and accountability, data rules and definitions, monitoring, and measurement.
- Given a customer scenario, recommend a data governance model in terms of roles and responsibilities, processes for establishing data standards, metrics and KPIs, classification of attributes by usage, identifying and prioritizing attributes to be used in match and merge, setting attribute scores and weights.
- Given a customer scenario, recommend an approach for optimizing data stewardship engagement for mitigating duplicates in matching and merging of records. Discuss attribute selection in match and merge, criteria for auto merge, manual merge and re-parenting considerations. Identify options for auto merge enablers available on AppExchange.
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE, REPORTING & ANALYTICS
- Compare and contrast approaches and techniques for creating analytical reports and dashboards, discuss Salesforce offerings such as Wave, options available on AppExchange for exposing data quality metrics, adoption metrics, etc.
- Given a customer scenario, recommend approaches for leveraging Salesforce (and partner) analytics offerings to enhance/optimize customer's enterprise analytics capabilities as well as recommending techniques to maintain the desired performance level (SOQL queries, reports) given customer's large data volumes.
DATA MIGRATION
- Compare and contrast various techniques and considerations for importing data into and exporting data out of Salesforce (e.g., serial load, parallel load, deferred sharing, managing locks, handling hierarchical relationships, Bulk load API limits).
- Given a customer scenario, recommend an optimal data migration plan taking into account parallelism, managing locks, and handling sharing rules.
PERFORMANCE TUNING
- Compare and contrast various techniques for improving performance when migrating large data volumes into Salesforce, generating reports and dashboards, and querying large data sets in Salesforce.
On the day
The exam itself
Everything Salesforce publishes about sitting it, and nothing we inferred.
Prerequisites
No mandatory prerequisites — this certification has no required predecessor exam or credential.
CertificationSalesforce Certified Data Architect
Exam formatMultiple choice and multiple response
DeliveryWebassessor
LanguagesEnglish
After you pass
Where this credential goes next
The path Salesforce lays out, how the credential is kept, and where to book.
Step-by-step path to Salesforce Certified Data Architect
Credential earnedSalesforce Certified Data Architect Certification Renewal and maintenance
Salesforce certifications are maintained through the free, mandatory Maintenance program. You must complete maintenance modules and pass challenges to keep your certification active. Stay current with the latest technologies and maintain your certification.
Learn more about renewal requirements Lifecycle status
This certification is currently active and available. Salesforce maintains this certification to validate current skills and industry relevance.
Exam status: ActiveMaintained by Salesforce
Exam registration
Register for the exam through Webassessor, Salesforce’s authorized testing partner.
Schedule your examVisit the official Salesforce certification page for exam policies and requirements.
View the official pageYour coach
And when you are serious, your coach Pip takes over
Your coach in the app reads what you have answered with the book closed and tells you one thing to do tonight. It will not count an answer you gave with the page open, and it will tell you when you are not ready.
See how the coach worksBefore you book
Questions people ask
Is there a hands-on or lab component in the Salesforce Certified Data Architect exam?
Salesforce exams may include multiple-choice and multiple-response questions. Some exams also include performance-based or hands-on components, but this is not confirmed for the Data Architect exam.
What job roles does the Salesforce Certified Data Architect credential map to?
This credential is designed for data architects, solution architects, and technical leads who are responsible for designing and implementing data solutions on the Salesforce platform.
Can I recertify by passing a different Salesforce exam?
Salesforce certifications are maintained through the Maintenance program, which requires completing modules and challenges. Passing a different exam may not automatically renew this certification.
How do I schedule or reschedule my Salesforce Certified Data Architect exam?
You can schedule your exam through Webassessor, Salesforce's delivery provider. Rescheduling policies may vary, so it is best to check the Webassessor platform for specific rules.
What are the testing accommodations for candidates with disabilities?
Salesforce and Webassessor provide testing accommodations for candidates with disabilities. You should contact Webassessor directly to request accommodations and provide necessary documentation.
How soon will I receive my score report after taking the exam?
Score reports are typically available immediately after completing the exam, but this may vary. Check with Webassessor for the most accurate information.
Information freshness · Content last reviewed on 2026-07-30 Up to date
Practice free questions 507 questions, free, no account needed.
The curriculum
The whole exam, mapped and written
Every domain, every objective, and every concept Salesforce measures — each one written out.
9domains
21objectives
144concepts
108free pages
The domains, and what sits inside them
Every objective below is a page you can open and practise now, without an account.
The official Salesforce exam outline · checked 30 July 2026 · See the source
1DATA MODELING29 questions
Compare and contrast various techniques and considerations for designing Lightning Platform data model (e.g., objects, fields & relationships, object features).6 concepts · 3 pagesOpen →Given a customer scenario, design a data model that is scalable, supports all business processes with appropriate level of customizations (click vs. code), while considering performance for large data volumes.4 concepts · 3 pagesOpen →
2CONCEPTUAL DESIGN97 questions
Given a customer scenario, identify the issues impacting data quality along key dimensions (such as data duplication, completeness, accuracy, integrity, etc.).6 concepts · 4 pagesOpen →Given a customer scenario, recommend approaches for improving data quality along key dimensions (e.g., data duplication, completeness, accuracy, integrity etc.) using various techniques (e.g., data assessment/profiling, cleansing, standardization/normalization, matching & merging, declarative components) in Salesforce (e.g., validation rules, visual indicators, dependent pick lists, etc.).10 concepts · 6 pagesOpen →Given a customer scenario, recommend appropriate techniques and tools to monitor data quality on an ongoing basis (e.g., KPIs, data quality reports, dashboards, metrics, third-party solutions).6 concepts · 5 pagesOpen →Given a customer scenario, recommend appropriate techniques and methods for ensuring high data quality at the point of entry, such as client/server side validation rules, workflows, approvals, data.com clean, duplicate prevention.7 concepts · 5 pagesOpen →
3MASTER DATA MANAGEMENT92 questions
Compare and contrast the various techniques, approaches and considerations for implementing Master Data Management Solutions (e.g., MDM implementation styles, harmonizing and consolidating data from multiple sources, establishing data survivorship rules, thresholds & weights, leveraging external reference data for enrichment, Canonical modeling techniques, hierarchy management).7 concepts · 7 pagesOpen →Given a customer scenario, recommend and use techniques for establishing a "golden source of truth"/"system of record" for the customer domain.8 concepts · 7 pagesOpen →Given a customer scenario, recommend approaches and techniques for consolidating data attributes from multiple sources. Discuss criteria and methodology for picking the winning attributes (data survivorship rules).7 concepts · 6 pagesOpen →
4METADATA MANAGEMENT59 questions
Compare and contrast various techniques, approaches and considerations for capturing and managing business and technical metadata (e.g., business dictionary, data lineage, taxonomy, data classification).8 concepts · 7 pagesOpen →Given a customer scenario, recommend appropriate approaches and techniques to capture and maintain customer metadata to preserve traceability and establish a common context for business rules (e.g., applying weights to attributes used in matching process by their importance, data classification, global/local attributes, field audit trails, etc.).8 concepts · 5 pagesOpen →
5DATA ARCHIVING59 questions
Compare and contrast various approaches and considerations for arriving at a data archiving and purging plan. Discuss export mechanisms, restore mechanisms, and merits of various options for archiving on Salesforce platform vs. off-platform (e.g., Bulk API call with hard delete option, triggers to copy aggregated data into a custom object, storing summarized data using analytic snapshots, and/or when to move data to an external system and how to make it available to core CRM).10 concepts · 7 pagesOpen →Given a customer scenario, recommend a data archiving and purging plan that is optimal for customer's data storage management needs (e.g., large data volumes, data storage governor limits, data archiving, restore options, linking archived data to core CRM, on-platform vs off-platform options, AppExchange enablers).8 concepts · 6 pagesOpen →
6DATA GOVERNANCE76 questions
Compare and contrast various approaches and considerations for designing and implementing an enterprise data governance program while taking into account framework for defining roles and responsibilities (e.g., stewardship, data custodian, etc.), policies and standards, ownership and accountability, data rules and definitions, monitoring, and measurement.8 concepts · 6 pagesOpen →Given a customer scenario, recommend a data governance model in terms of roles and responsibilities, processes for establishing data standards, metrics and KPIs, classification of attributes by usage, identifying and prioritizing attributes to be used in match and merge, setting attribute scores and weights.6 concepts · 5 pagesOpen →Given a customer scenario, recommend an approach for optimizing data stewardship engagement for mitigating duplicates in matching and merging of records. Discuss attribute selection in match and merge, criteria for auto merge, manual merge and re-parenting considerations. Identify options for auto merge enablers available on AppExchange.6 concepts · 5 pagesOpen →
7BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE, REPORTING & ANALYTICS38 questions
Compare and contrast approaches and techniques for creating analytical reports and dashboards, discuss Salesforce offerings such as Wave, options available on AppExchange for exposing data quality metrics, adoption metrics, etc.7 concepts · 4 pagesOpen →Given a customer scenario, recommend approaches for leveraging Salesforce (and partner) analytics offerings to enhance/optimize customer's enterprise analytics capabilities as well as recommending techniques to maintain the desired performance level (SOQL queries, reports) given customer's large data volumes.7 concepts · 4 pagesOpen →
8DATA MIGRATION41 questions
Compare and contrast various techniques and considerations for importing data into and exporting data out of Salesforce (e.g., serial load, parallel load, deferred sharing, managing locks, handling hierarchical relationships, Bulk load API limits).8 concepts · 5 pagesOpen →Given a customer scenario, recommend an optimal data migration plan taking into account parallelism, managing locks, and handling sharing rules.4 concepts · 4 pagesOpen →
Not a table of contents
Every line on this map already opens
In front of every objective the practice pages are already there, free and without an account. This is one objective, opened.
Compare and contrast various techniques and considerations for designing Lightning Platform data model (e.g., objects, fields & relationships, object features).3 pagesOpen →
Free in front of it
15 questions on this objective, five to a page. Every range above is a real page, open now, with no account.
Reading the map is not the same as knowing the ground
The curriculum tells you what is on the exam. Proving you know it is a different job — and it is the one the closed-book run does.
Free questions
507 questions. No account, no card.
The whole bank is open. 5 questions to a page, every answer explained, and a discussion thread on each one.
507questions
108pages
21objectives
Freealways
Browse by domain
Every objective, and every page range, is a link — so you can pick up exactly where you left off.
1DATA MODELING29 questions
2CONCEPTUAL DESIGN97 questions
3MASTER DATA MANAGEMENT92 questions
4METADATA MANAGEMENT59 questions
5DATA ARCHIVING59 questions
6DATA GOVERNANCE76 questions
7BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE, REPORTING & ANALYTICS38 questions
What a practice page gives you
1Five to a page
Short enough to finish, long enough to matter.
2Every answer explained
Not only which one is right — why the others are wrong.
3A discussion on each
Ask, answer, and vote. Every question has its own thread.
A question, and the idea behind it
Every question comes from a concept
These are not trivia. Each one is written against a concept in the book, so when you get one wrong there is somewhere to go and find out why.
The visual book
See it once. Carry it into the exam.
The pages shown here come from our AI-900 book — an example of how each concept is written in plain language and, where the idea needs one, drawn as a full page you can take in at a glance.
144concepts
507free questions
Why a picture, and not another paragraph
Three reasons, and each one is a real finding rather than a slogan.
You can see it againThe whole idea at onceWhere it starts, what happens in the middle, what comes out, and the mistake to avoid.
Multimedia principle · MayerThe look-alikes sit togetherThe pairs the exam tests are drawn side by side, so the difference is seen, not told.
Dual coding · PaivioWhat one page is made of
You are never asked to read a poster here — only to see how one is built. After that, every other page is legible at a glance.
1A numbered strip on top
The idea as a sequence, followed with a finger before a word is read.
2Panels for the parts
What it is, how the machine learns it, when it is the right tool.
3The trap, framed
The distinction the exam tests, given its own box instead of buried in prose.
4One line at the bottom
The sentence to carry into the exam room.
Open book, on purpose
Answer it with the picture beside you
This is the part that teaches. The illustration and the written explanation stay where they are while you work, so a scenario stops being a memory test and becomes something you can simply look at.
It teaches · it does not count
A smartphone uses AI to unlock when the owner looks at the camera. Which AI capability is being used?
AImage classification
BFacial recognition
COptical character recognition
DObject detection
Look at the five steps. Detect finds a face, align straightens it, encode turns it into numbers, search compares it with a stored face, and decide answers one question: is this the same person? Classification would only say “a face”. Detection would only draw a box. Neither decides whose.
Then the page shuts, and it starts counting
The same questions come back with the book closed — that run is the one that counts. After it, your coach picks one thing for tonight, sized to the time you have, and brings pages back before you lose them.
Testing effect · Roediger & Karpicke 2006 · spacing effect · Cepeda et al. 2006
Official resources
Straight from Salesforce
Where the exam is defined, scheduled and scored.
2official links
144concepts mapped
The source
Salesforce’s own pages
We link to them rather than repeat them, so nothing here goes stale behind them.
Checked against the source
Every objective on the official Salesforce outline already has questions here
We build from the official skills outline, not from a summary of it — 21 objectives, 144 concepts written under them, and free questions against every one. When Salesforce changes the outline, this page changes with it.
21objectives on the outline→144concepts written→507free questions
An official page tells you what will be asked. It cannot tell you what you will get right.
That is the only question worth answering the night before, and no link answers it. You answer it by taking the questions with the book closed, and seeing what comes back.