To get the most out of this book

This book is designed to help you gain the required knowledge and skills to pass the CTA exam using hands-on examples. We will be covering the seven knowledge domains that a CTA needs to master in order to pass the exam. We will tackle a mini hypothetical scenario for each domain. We will be developing the solution progressively, creating and then recreating solution artifacts as we discover and weigh different design decisions. This is precisely what many architects do in their daily lives. They dig deeper into details and, at every stage, they build a clearer picture of the solution and the correct elements required to make it. They revisit previous decisions and adjust or change them if needed.

You are strongly advised to practice recreating the solution, reconsider other alternatives, and weigh the pros and cons of each. Build your familiarity with the artifacts and diagrams needed to explain your solution. You will find that you become quicker and more efficient in creating them. Moreover, the quality of your outcome will also improve.

Diagrams will be provided at every stage and will progressively evolve; you will notice that these artifacts might end up very different from what we started with. The ability to evolve your solution and flexibly change its elements while still maintaining the end-to-end solution picture is a crucial skill that a CTA must master. You will learn much of that throughout the book.

The Salesforce Developer Edition org is recommended to try out certain functionalities. You can sign up for a free org using the following link: https://developer.salesforce.com/signup.

You can use any diagramming tool, free or paid, or even draw the diagrams on paper or a flipchart. To practice the virtual Salesforce CTA review board, you need to become familiar with tools such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel or Google Slides and Sheets (the latter is preferred).

Journey Towards Becoming a Salesforce CTA – Book Club

We have created an exclusive book club for you on our Packt Community page, to share knowledge and have insightful discussions around the topics covered in this book. This book club is for all the readers, existing architects, and anyone who aims to achieve the Salesforce CTA certification.

You are welcome to discuss the book, share your own experiences, views, and best practices on designing modern, practical, and robust architectures on the Salesforce platform, and help us grow the number of Salesforce CTAs globally.