Top Salesforce Interview Questions and Answers

1. Top Answers to Salesforce Interview Questions

	Salesforce Dev 401	Salesforce Adv Dev 501
What you learn?	Building customized applications, analytical functions	Apex scripts, Developer console, deploying MVC architecture
Who can learn?	Software & IT professionals	App & CRM developers, system admin
What is the average salary?	$99,000 per annum	$141,000 per annum

2. What is the benefit of Salesforce CRM?

Here are some of the top benefits of Salesforce CRM:

• Ensuring faster and better sales opportunity
• Deploying an analytical approach to customer acquisition
• Reducing cost 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 the data related to an enterprise can be stored in Salesforce.com. There is a need for a junction object which is a custom object, and it has a Master–Detail relationship. You 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, has a set of static data which is reusable.

These custom objects have to be defined first and then the following steps need to be followed:

• Join records with custom objects
• Custom object data are displayed in custom lists
• Create a custom tab for a custom object
• Build page layouts
• Create a dashboard and a report for analyzing the custom object
• Custom tab, app, and object can be shared

4. Define object relationship in Salesforce.

In Salesforce, you 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 in order 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

6. What is an app in Salesforce?

An app in Salesforce is a container which contains name, logo, and a group of tabs that work as a unit to provide the 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:

• A pay-as-you-go model perfectly suites all customers
• No hassle of infrastructure management
• All applications are accessed via the Internet
• Easy integration between various applications
• 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 like sales numbers, customer details, customers served, repeat customers, etc. in order to create detailed reports, charts, and dashboards for keeping track of sales.

9. What are Workflows in Salesforce? What are the actions in workflow?

Workflow in Salesforce is basically a container or business logic engine which automates certain actions based on particular criteria. If the criteria is true, the actions get executed. When it is false, the record will get saved but no action will get executed.

There are two types of actions present for workflow in Salesforce:

• 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 other details represent the Child. If Parent is deleted then, 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 happens to the Detail record when a Master record is deleted? What happens to Child record when a Parent record is deleted?

In a Master–Detail relationship, when a Master record is deleted, the Detail record also gets deleted, automatically.

In a Lookup relationship, the Child record will not be deleted, even if the Parent record is deleted.

12. Can you have a roll-up summary field in the case of the Master–Detail relationship?

Yes, you can have a roll-up summary in the case of a Master-Detail relationship. But not in the case of a lookup relationship. This is because a roll-up summary field is used to display a value in the Master record based on the values of a set of fields in the Detail record.

13. What is an sObject type?

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

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

14. What are Triggers in Salesforce? How are they different from Workflows?

Triggers in Salesforce are called Apex Triggers. These are distinct and are available specifically for common and expected actions like lead conversions. It is just a code that is executed before or after a record is inserted or updated. A Trigger is different from a Workflow as it is a piece of code; whereas, a Workflow is an automated process and uses no code.

15. What is trigger.new?

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

16. What is the minimum test coverage required in order 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 also can manage categories and published solutions
• Marketing User: Able to import leads into the organization, along with standard user permissions

17. 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 you simplify the design, development, and deployment of cloud-based applications and websites. Salesforce Developers can work with Cloud Integrated Development Environment and deploy the applications on the Force.com servers.

19. List various types of reports available in Salesforce.

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

20. 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.

21. Explain various dashboard components.

Various dashboard components are explained below:

• Chart: It is used for showing data graphically.
• 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. It is possible to click the empty text field next to the grand total and enter the metric label directly on components. All metrics placed above and below one another in the dashboard column would be displayed as a single component.
  Various dashboard components are explained below:
• Table: The report data can be shown in column form using Table.
• Visualforce Page: It is used for creating a custom component or showing information not available in other component types.
• Custom S-component: This contains the content that is run or displayed in a browser like Excel file, ActiveX Control, Java applet, or custom HTML web form.

22. 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 built-in components. It includes a tag-based markup language, and each Visualforce tag corresponds to a page or 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. It is also possible to access AJAX components or create their own components.

23. What is a static resource in Salesforce?

A static resource lets you 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 be easily referred to in a Visualforce page.

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

Salesforce Object Query Language (SOQL) lets you search only one object, whereas the Salesforce Object Search Language (SOSL) lets you search for multiple objects. You can query for all types of fields in SOQL, but you can query only for text, email, and phone numbers in SOSL. Data Manipulation Language operations can be performed on query results but not on search results.

25. What are the different methods of Batch Apex Class?

Database.Batchable interface contains three methods that must be implemented:

Start method: global (Database.QueryLocator | Iterable<sObject>) start(Database.BatchableContext bc) {}

Execute method: global void execute(Database.BatchableContext BC, list<P>){}

Finish method: global void finish(Database.BatchableContext BC){}

26. What are the different types of collections in Apex?

Collections are a type of variables used to store multiple numbers of records (data). Types of collections in Salesforce are:

• Lists
• Maps
• Sets

27. 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>();

28. What is an Apex transaction?

An Apex transaction represents a set of operations that are executed as a single unit. These operations include DML operations which are responsible for querying records. All the DML operations in a transaction either get completed successfully or get rolled back completely, if an error occurs even in saving a single record.

29. What is the difference between public and global classes in Apex?

Global class is accessible across the Salesforce instance irrespective of namespaces.

Whereas, public classes are accessible only in the corresponding namespaces.

30. What are getter and setter methods?

The get (getter) method is used to pass values from the controller to the VF page.

Whereas, the set (setter) method is used to set the value back to the controller variable.

31. 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)

32. Time-dependent workflow action cannot be created for which workflow?

Time-dependent workflow cannot be created for ‘created, and every time it’s edited’.

33. What is Sandbox in Salesforce? What are the types of Sandboxes available?

Sandbox is a similar copy of a Salesforce production 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 which is associated with the sandbox. There are four types of sandboxes available:

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

34. What is 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.

35. What is Salesforce CRM?

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

36. What is Salesforce Lightning?

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

37. Why use Batch Apex instead of Normal Apex?

There are various reasons why Batch Apex is better than Normal Apex.

• 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 the execution of SOQL queries is considered.
• A Normal Apex can retrieve 50,000 SOQL queries but, in Batch Apex, 50,000,000 SOQL queries can be retrieved.
• A Normal Apex has a heap size of 6 MB; whereas, Batch Apex has a heap size of 12 MB.
• When executing bulk records, Normal Apex classes are more vulnerable to encounter errors as compared to Batch Apex. So, it is normally error-less.

38. How can you call an Apex Class in Salesforce?

Ways to call an Apex class in Salesforce are as follows:

• From Visualforce page
• From developer console
• From JavaScript links
• By using trigger
• From another class
• From home page components

39. How will you create many-to-many relationships?

A many-to-many relationship can be created by using a junction object. A Junction object is a custom object which has two Master–Detail relationships.

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

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

Tabular reports	A Tabular report displays data in the form of an Excel-like table which provides a list of items with the grand total.
Joined reports	A Combined report having multiple blocks shows data from different reports which may be of the same or different report types.
Matrix reports	A Matrix report works for 2-dimensions and allows to group records row-wise and column-wise.
Summary reports	In Summary reports, the view is in a table form only, but it has more functionality like grouping rows (only), viewing subtotals, and creating charts.