Preparing For The Salesforce ‘Mobile Solutions Architecture Designer’ Exam

This is undeniably one of the easier exams from the Architect Academy track. I do have significant amount of experience working with Salesforce1 but never got a chance to develop mobile apps using the Mobile SDK other than doing Trailhead projects related to the same. If you haven’t done those yet, I highly recommend them since it will help you tackle a few questions in this exam, at least 5-10 based on my experience. I will list all of the relevant modules at the bottom of this post. Despite not having real world experience with building Native/HTML5/Hyrbrid mobile apps, I went for this exam because there was so much scope to learn via the fantastic documentation that Salesforce has provided related to these topics.

The exam had 65 multiple-choice questions with a 68% passing score and 120 minutes allotted to complete the exam. Like all other Architect Academy exams, the cost of this exam is USD 400 with a retake fee of USD 200. Here is the Credential Overview which is also available on the official Salesforce certification website:

————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

The Salesforce Certified Mobile Solutions Architecture Designer credential is designed for those who assess the architecture environment and requirements and design and implement sound and scalable mobile solutions on the Force.com platform that meet those requirements. Candidates should have experience communicating solutions and design trade-offs to businesses and IT stakeholders.

Here are some examples of the concepts you should understand to pass the exam:

Describing the differences between Salesforce1, Native, HTML5 and Hybrid mobile architectures
Defining how a customer can choose between Salesforce1 solution and a Customer Mobile Solution
Understanding the Salesforce1 app and its configuration/customization options
Describing how mobile solution capabilities can be enhanced via connected devices (e.g., Wearables, iBeacons)

————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Following are the topics that you must have an in-depth knowledge of before attempting the exam:

Difference between Salesforce1, Native, HTML5 and Hybrid mobile architectures and capabilities/considerations of using each
SmartStore and SmartSync capabilities
Improving performance of Visualforce pages: Best Practices (use of transient keyword or Javascript remoting or apex:actionRegion or Remote Objects etc.)
Offline caching in Salesforce1
Push notifications
Salesforce Wear Developer Pack capabilities
Connected App settings
Role of Visualforce and Lightning in mobile apps
OAuth flows with respect to mobile apps
Salesforce Mobile SDK and capabilities
Role of Heroku in mobile apps
Security controls available in each mobile architecture