Top 50+ Salesforce Interview Questions and Answers

Salesforce Interview Questions and Answers

1. What is Salesforce?

This is one of the most basic salesforce interview questions, where the interviewer is simply checking if you can club your knowledge into a quick answer or not! Here’s a short and straightforward answer to this salesforce interview question - Salesforce is the most effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM) product that is delivered to subscribers as a cost-effective software-as-a-service (SaaS).

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2. What is a custom object in Salesforce?

In Salesforce, custom objects refer specifically to database tables that store data related to your company in Salesforce.com.

3. What does a custom object permit the user to do?

Once the custom object is defined, the subscriber can perform the following tasks:

• Create custom fields
• Relate the custom object to other records
• Track events and tasks
• Build page layouts
• Create a custom tab for the custom object
• Analyze custom object data
• Create dashboards and reports
• Share custom tabs, custom apps, custom objects, and various other related components.

None of these tasks can be accomplished until the custom object has a definition.

4. What is Self-Relationship?

A Self-Relationship is a lookup relationship to the same object. It is this premise that allows users to take the object “Merchandise” and create relationships with other objects.

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5. What is Object Relationship Overview?

In Salesforce, the object relationship overview links custom object records to standard object records in a related list. This is helpful to track product defects in related customer cases. Salesforce allows users to define different types of relationships by creating custom relationship fields on an object.

6. What can cause data loss in Salesforce?

Data loss in Salesforce can be caused by a number of reasons, including:

• Changing data and date-time.
• Migrating to percent, number, and currency from other data types.
• Changing from the multi-select picklist, checkbox, auto number to other types.
• Altering to multi-select picklist from any type except picklist.
• Changing to auto-number except for text.
• Changing from text-area to e-mail, phone, URL, and text.

7. How is SaaS beneficial to Salesforce?

SaaS is subscription-based, so clients can choose not to renew and discontinue using the program at any time without penalty other than not being able to use Salesforce. SaaS is intended to help users avoid heavy initial startup fees and investments. SaaS applications use a simple Internet interface supported by easy integration.

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8. How does Salesforce track sales?

Salesforce is a tracking program that records a number of helpful basic details, such as:

• Number of customers served daily
• Daily sales volume
• Detailed reports from Sales Manager
• Sales figures by month or quarter
• Most importantly, Salesforce tracks and reports repeat customer activity, which is the key to any sales organization.

9. How many types of relationships are offered by Salesforce.com?

Salesforce recognizes two relationship types: Master-detail relationships and Lookup relationships.

10. What is the trigger?

The trigger is the code that is executed before or after the record is updated or inserted.

11. What is the difference between Trigger and Workflow?

This is one of the most frequently asked Salesforce interview question. Workflow is an automated process that fires an action based on evaluation criteria and rule criteria. As described above, Trigger is the code that is executed on or after the record is updated or inserted.

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12. What is a static resource in Salesforce?

With Salesforce’s static resource, subscribers can upload zip files, images, jar files, JavaScript, and CSS files that can be referred in a Visualforce page. The optimum size of static resources in Salesforce is 250 MB.

13. What is the difference between Force.com and Salesforce.com?

Force.com is  Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), while Salesforce.com is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

14. Is there a limit for data.com records?

Salesforce users can see their limit form setup easily by simply clicking data.com administration/Users. From the data.com users section, the users can see their monthly limit and exactly how many records are exported during the month.

15. What are the three types of object relations in Salesforce?

The three types of object relations in Salesforce are:

• One-to-many
• Many-to-many
• Master-detail

The relation types are quite logical once the user becomes familiar with the software program.

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16. What are the different types of reports available in Salesforce?

The different types of reports in Salesforce are:

• Tabular report that displays the grand total in table form 
• Matrix report where grouping is based upon both rows and columns
• Summary reports are detailed reports in which the grouping is based on columns.
• Joined report which allows two or more reports to be joined in a single report

17. Is it possible to schedule a dynamic dashboard in Salesforce?

In Salesforce, it is not possible to schedule a dynamic dashboard.

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18. What is the junction object and what purpose does it serve?

Junction objects are used to build many-to-many relationships between objects. For example, the user can take a recruiting application where a position for a job can be linked to many candidates or can link a candidate to many other jobs. In order to connect the data model, a third party object is referred to as a junction object. In the given example, the junction object is “job application.”

19. What is an Audit Trail?

The Audit Trail function in Salesforce is useful for gaining information or for tracking all the recent setup changes that the administration has done in the organization. The audit trail can preserve data for up to six months.

20. Explain the Salesforce dashboard?

In Salesforce, the dashboard is a pictorial representation of the report. 20 reports can be added to a single dashboard.

21. What is the difference between SOQL and SOSL?

SOQL is Salesforce Object Query Language and SOSL is Salesforce Object Search Language. If you are sensing that Salesforce is a culture unto itself, you are correct!

22. What is a Wrapper Class?

A Wrapper Class is a class whose instances are a collection of other objects and is used to display different objects on a Visualforce page in the same table.

23. What is the sharing rule?

The sharing rules are applied when a user wishes to allow access to other users.

24. What are some benefits of using Salesforce?

Salesforce comes with a number of benefits. The most major ones are:

• Helps to understand the needs of the customer
• Provides a single communication platform for all the team members of a project
• Reporting is quick and seamless
• Has a very high degree of adaptability
• Very easy to manage
• Can integrate with countless apps (eg: Dataloader, Mailchimp, Ebsta)

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25. What is an object in Salesforce?

An object is a database table that contains data specific to an organization (columns are fields and rows are records). There are two types of objects in Salesforce - custom object and standard object.

• Standard object - A standard object is created by default in Salesforce. Eg: Contact, Account, and Lead.
• Custom object - A custom object is created by the user and can contain any information that the user wants. Eg: You can create a custom “Location” object to store information about the location of various branches of a company.

26. What is the difference between static and dynamic dashboards?

Static dashboards are the default dashboards which are visible to any user. You can use it to show organizational-wide data to a set of users.

Dynamic dashboards display data tailored for a specific user. You can use it to show one user’s specific data, such as the number of sales closed, leads converted, etc.

27. What do you mean by governor limits?

Governor limits control how much data can be stored on a shared database. They help to ensure that no one monopolizes the shared resources (Storage, CPU, Memory).

Here are some few examples of governor limits in Salesforce:

• Maximum CPU time on the Salesforce servers - 10,000ms 
• Total number of sendEmail methods allowed - 10
• Total number of records retrieved by a SOQL query - 50,000 
• Total number of callouts in a transaction - 100

28. What are some things that you can do to prevent governor limits?

Here are some best practices you can follow to ensure that a code does not hit the governor limits.

• Bulkify your Code
• Use @future Appropriately
• Don’t make any SOQL, DML operation inside a loop
• Queue large datasets 
• Use batch apex for more than 50,000 records

29. What happens to master-detail and lookup relationships when a record is deleted?

In a master-detail relationship, all the details are deleted when the master record is deleted. However, in a lookup relationship, the child record remains even when the parent record is deleted.

30. What do you mean by a sandbox in Salesforce?

In this salesforce interview question, the interviewer expects a thorough answer. Try giving as detailed answer as you can to prove your salesforce knowledge. A sandbox is an exact replica of a database that can be used for testing and development. It is very helpful because it allows you to test out new ideas on the duplicate database without disturbing the original one.

There are four types of sandboxes in Salesforce:

• Developer Sandbox - It contains a copy of the production org’s metadata and is intended for both development and testing in an isolated environment.
• Developer Pro Sandbox - It performs the same function as the developer sandbox, but can contain larger datasets.
• Partialcopy sandbox - It is intended to be used only as a testing environment. It contains a sample of the production org’s data and its metadata. 
• Full sandbox - It is intended to be used only as a testing environment. It contains all the data of the production org, including objects, attachments and metadata.

31. How can you edit apex classes in a production environment?

You cannot edit apex classes directly in a production environment. It needs to be first done in the sandbox, then deployed in production where a user with Author Apex permission can make the changes.

32State the important features of Salesforce.

• Contact management: Easier contact management via access to interaction history and customers' critical data. 
• Opportunity management: Enables users to view the activity timeline of their customers, representing several stages of a deal for taking the next move.
• Quote management: In-built quoting mechanism that quotes client data tracking the deal products, including their standard price, quantity, product code, and price.
• Lead management: An activity timeline providing access to up-to-date contacts. The CRM app is a quick lead converter machine informing its users about the lead's original source. 
• Sales data: Provides accurate sales data at the right time and a faster connection with key decision-makers.
• Mobility: The mobile app allows users to access CRM data conveniently.
• Workflow and approvals: Enables visual workflow for rapid designing and automating business processes via drag-drop ability. Users can manage flexible approval processes for expenses or discounts. 
• File sync and share: Ease of sharing, discussing, and publishing content in real-time. 
• Dynamic dashboards and custom reports: Users gain a real-time picture of their business performance in the market. They can also build their custom dashboard via drag and drop icons, adjust the fields, and view data with filters. Charts give real-time data for the latest insights.
• Sales forecasting: Tracks leads' journey and gives forecasting on sales by analyzing them.

33. What is an App in Salesforce?

An App is a logical container holding various details pertaining to the company like the name, logo, business operations, and more. The user can customize apps to suit their needs or develop new apps by combining standard and custom tabs. The following process is for creating an app in Salesforce: Setup → Build → Create → App → Click on new.

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34. What are the different types of apps you can use in Salesforce?

• Custom app: Suitable for business owners to build apps that cater to business requirements from time to time. 
• Console app: Suitable only for a client service business, where the main focus is on tackling the client's issues. It is comparatively less used in the market.

35. State the main differences between role and profile.

36. What is a profile in Salesforce? Can two different users have the same profile?

A profile is a collection of permissions and settings that define all a user can do in Salesforce, giving them the authority to access certain records. There are various profiles, such as a sales profile, that can access contacts, leads, campaigns, and more. 

People under a department can have the same profiles. For instance, several people are assigned the same sales profile in a sales department. So, any number of people can have the same profile.

37. What do you understand about the Master-Detail relationship in Salesforce?

Master-Detail is a relationship between a child and a parent where the parent is the master, and the detail represents a child. It is useful to control the display of detail records based on the value in the master record.

The master object has complete control over the Detail object behavior. Also, the child's survival depends on the parent because if the parent gets deleted, the child will automatically get deleted. Creating Roll-up summary fields in master records calculates the child records' SUM, MIN, and AVG.

38. What do you understand about workflow in Salesforce?

Workflow allows automation of standard internal processes for saving time across an organization. It helps in evaluating records as they are created or updated. It also determines whether an automated action must occur, such as functions like follow-up emails, marketing activities, tracking the customer map journey, and more. 

A workflow rule is a container for various workflow instructions, usually summed up in an if/then statement.

39. What are the key benefits of the Salesforce CRM?

• Communication: Salesforce Einstein Bots help automatically respond to chats on time and avoid delay. 
• Data syncing: Data syncing from other applications like MailChimp and G Suite helps avoid the challenges of moving from one software to another. The Salesforce mobile app allows data tracking anytime and anywhere.
• Data analytics tools: Salesforce's Einstein Analytics provides insights for users to address the changing data instantly. It has several reporting tools and dashboards for data collection and work. 
• Track customer activity: The user can understand the customer's journey via the sales cloud for easier access to their background and behavior. 
• Provide assistance via chat: The service cloud's live agent provides a chatbox depending on the customer interaction and followers on the web page. 
• Consistent engagement: The gathered data in Salesforce's CRM allows the creation of consistent marketing campaigns for current customers.
• Building apps: Force.com simplifies building and customizing apps for any device.  

40. What is Apex in Salesforce?

Apex is a strongly typed OOP language that allows developers to execute transaction control statements and flow on Salesforce platform servers in conjunction with calls to the API. Its syntax is similar to Java and serves as database stored procedures. The code can be initiated via triggers on objects and requests from web services, and they run on the Lightning platform. 

Apex enables developers to incorporate business logic to system events, including button clicks, Visualforce pages, and related record updates. 

41. What are Permission sets?

Permission sets are a collection of permissions/settings useful for giving the user access to numerous functions and tools. Permission sets can be used for various users to extend their functional access without altering their profiles. So, one can create a permission set instead of a separate profile every time. 

42. What is the Force.com platform?

Force.com is the framework and codebase for the Salesforce application. It is a Platform as a Service (PaaS), allowing users to simplify the design and deployment of cloud-based websites and applications. Developers working on the Cloud IDE can deploy the applications on the servers of Force.com.

43. What are the various components of the Salesforce dashboard?

Some important components of the Salesforce dashboard are: 

• Gauge: Displays a single value from a custom value range.
• Visualforce page: Helps in forming a custom component as a display of information unavailable in other component types.
• Metric: Shows a single pair of key–values.
• Table: Displays report data in list form.
• Charts: Provide comparisons and are divided into six types: line chart, horizontal bar chart, vertical bar chart, donut, funnel, and pie. 

44. What do you understand about validation rules in Salesforce?

Validation rules comprise a formula/expressions for evaluating the data in one or more fields in a record for meeting the standards one specifies before the user saves the record. Based on the data evaluation, the result is a "True" or "False" value. 

They display an error message to the user if the condition is "True" due to an invalid value.

These rules are helpful for the enforcement of integrity constraints against the data. If a rule fails, Salesforce proceeds to check other validation rules. One can create validation rules for objects, fields, case milestones, or campaign members.

45. What is Visualforce in Force.com?

Visualforce is the UI for the Force.com platform, allowing developers to create sophisticated, custom UI suitable for native hosting on the Lightning platform.

Its framework has a tag-based markup language and standard server-side controllers for basic database operations like queries. Every Visualforce tag corresponds to a UI component such as a field, related list, or page section. 

Visualforce works on the standard MVC model. A developer can control its components by utilizing the logic used in standard Salesforce pages. They can also associate their own logic written in Apex with a controller class. 

46 What are record types in Salesforce?

Record types allow you to associate different business processes and present various page layouts and picklist values to users based on the user profile.

Administrators can associate record types with user profiles. Consequently, different users can see different page layouts and picklist values in the record's detail page. The two prominent benefits of record types are as follows:

• They modify user interaction experience as per business needs. 
• Allow simple administration as there are fewer fields to maintain.

47. What are page layouts in Salesforce?

Page layouts control the layout and organization of fields, buttons, Visualforce, custom links, and related lists on object record pages. They help organize user interface pages by determining which custom links, fields, and related lists are required, read-only, and visible to the user.

For a customized experience, one can create multiple page layouts and apply them to various user groups. 

48. What are the different types of Apex triggers in Salesforce?

The two main types of Apex triggers are as follows: 

• Before triggers: For updating and validating record values before they are saved to the database.

trigger TriggerName on ObjectName(before event) //Here event can be insert, update or delete

{

    code_block

}

• After triggers: For accessing field values of the records set by the system and stored in the database. You can use these field values for making changes in other records. 

trigger TriggerName on ObjectName(after event) //Here event can be insert, update or delete

{

    code_block

}

49 What do you understand about the term fiscal year or economical year in Salesforce?

The economical or fiscal year is a time period used for calculating annual financial statements. It is based on a company's financial year's starting and ending date. The business that Salesforce conducts and the Salesforce revenue are considered. The two types of economical years in Salesforce are: 

• Normal or standard fiscal year: It follows the Gregorian calendar for estimations and has a 12-month structure. It can begin with the first day of a month of your choice belonging to a particular year. 
• Custom fiscal year: It is applicable for the companies following weekly or quarterly financial planning. 

50. What is a skinny table, and what are the major considerations for a skinny table?

Skinny tables are useful in accessing the frequently used fields while avoiding joins. They enhance the performance of certain read-only operations like reports, list views, and more. They are highly effective as they stay in sync with source tables even in case of a modification in the source table.  

Without contacting Salesforce customer support, one cannot create, access, or modify skinny tables. 

The major considerations for skinny tables are as follows:

• It can contain a maximum of 100 columns.
• It is incapable of holding fields from other objects.

51. What are the different ways to share a record?

• Role hierarchy: When a user is added to a role, all users above the current user in the role hierarchy have access to reading and sharing the records and inheriting permissions. The steps for role hierarchy are: 

Setup → Manage Users → roles → set up roles and click on 'add role', → create a name and click on save.

• OWD: Organization-Wide Defaults allow you to define an organization's baseline setting and give permissions to the organization-wide. It helps define a user's accessibility level where they can view other users' records. For OWD, follow these steps:

Setup → Security Controls → click on 'sharing settings' → Edit. 

• Manual sharing: For sharing a single record/file to a particular user/group of users via manual access. A button is available on the detail page of the record when the OWD setting is private.
• Criteria based sharing rules: We have to share records based on conditions. For instance, share records with a user/group with the criteria of the country- India. The steps for sharing are: 

Setup → security controls → sharing settings → select the object, provide name and conditions, and then click on save.

• Apex sharing: One can share every object in Salesforce by creating a record for the shared object.

52. What do you understand about the Future annotation(@future)?

Future annotations specify methods that are executed asynchronously. These methods with future annotation should be static and can only return a void type. The arguments mentioned should be primitive data types/collections of primitive data types/ arrays of primitive data types. 

A method specified with @future annotation will be executed once Salesforce has available resources.

53. Explain the types of SOQL statements in Salesforce.

The Salesforce Object Query Language or SOQL is employed in querying the records from database.com as and when required. The two types of SOQL statements are as follows:

• Static SOQL: It is written using [] (array brackets) and is similar to IINQ (Ion Integrated Query). It is suitable when there are no dynamic changes in the SOQL query. 
• Dynamic SOQL: It is suitable for referring to the SOQL string creation at run time with Apex code. It allows the creation of more flexible applications. For instance, you can create a search based on updated records or end-user input with varying field names.

54. What are the various types of email templates available in Salesforce?

• Text: All the users in an organization have access to creating or changing these templates.
• HTML with letterhead: Users with the "Edit HTML Templates" permission and administrators can create these templates based on a letterhead. 
• Custom HTML: These are an extension of HTML with a letterhead. Administrators and users with "Edit HTML Templates" permissions can create them without using the letterhead.
• Visualforce: Administrators and developers can create them using Visualforce. They have advanced functionalities such as merging with a recipient's data.

55. What is Salesforce Lightning?

Salesforce Lightning is a component-based application development framework with a collection of tools and technologies for effectively increasing the Salesforce platform performance. The tools include visual upgrades, optimized interfaces, and more. It simplifies processes for business users who have no programming experience.

It allows easy and quick creation of applications that solve business issues and enhance engagement. Some key features are:

• Provides a drag-drop facility for app creation and customization.
• Has tools and extensions for the development of reusable components.
• AppExchange for over 50 partner components. 
• Has style guides and provides user experience practices for app development.
• Lightning Connect is an integration tool for applications of Force.com to consume data from an external source that meets the OData specification.

56. State two examples of Salesforce API and their usage.

Salesforce has several APIs for developers to interact with the system. Examples of Salesforce API are: 

• Streaming: The Streaming API is useful for triggering and receiving notifications when a change is made to Salesforce data according to the defined SOQL query criteria. It can be used to push notifications from the server to the client based on defined criteria.
• Bulk: It provides programmatic access for quick loading and querying a huge amount of data into your Salesforce organization.

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FAQs

1) How do I prepare for a Salesforce interview?

• Research the company and their Salesforce implementation.
• Review Salesforce concepts, like objects, workflows, and security.
• Practice coding in Apex and working with Visualforce pages.
• Be prepared to discuss your previous Salesforce projects and experiences.

2) What questions are asked in the Salesforce developer interview?

• Questions about Apex programming and Visualforce development.
• Inquiries about your understanding of Salesforce data model and security.
• Problem-solving scenarios related to Salesforce customization and automation.
• Behavioral questions about your teamwork and problem-solving skills.

Conclusion

A thorough understanding of both platforms is necessary to navigate the complexities of Salesforce, particularly when attempting to integrate it with Java applications. Attending a java full stack developer course can help you become an expert in Java-centric environments and perform well in Salesforce interviews.

Salesforce has become the centerpiece of any company’s sales and marketing automation efforts, and the demand for qualified Salesforce administrators is as high as ever. Nonetheless, competition is also tough for the right positions, so preparation is key if you want to stand out from the crowd.

These 31 most common Salesforce interview questions and answers will help you prepare effectively and perform well in Salesforce interviews. Study them thoroughly to make a good impression on your prospective employers. And in case you wish to add a rising star to your resume before your next salesforce interview, you must enroll in Full Stack Developer - MERN Stack Course today!

Watch out the Simplilearn's video on Salesforce Administrator & App Builder Certification Training.

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