Soapbox Engage Blog

Late Wednesday evening of Dreamforce, I wandered into Moscone West with a distinct purpose: secure Codey, the stuffed bear, to give to my 15-month-old son upon my return home. In the process of tackling the three tasks required to win said bear, I ended up creating a brand new Trailhead account and was instantly hooked on the training opportunities it offered.

Within a month, my Dreamforce-born obsession spurred me to reach the highest Trailhead rank of Ranger and pass the Salesforce Administrator certification exam.

1/10/2018 UPDATE: My son is a month older - and I am an additional certification deeper into my Trailblazer journey after passing the Salesforce Certified Platform App Builder today.

1/19/2018 UPDATE: Just passed the Salesforce Advanced Administrator certification. Trailhead, ho!

12/26/2018 UPDATE: And Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud Consultant certification makes four!

Here are eight observations about my journey for others interested in going from gamified Salesforce learning to real-world certification:

1. Just jump in

You can create a Salesforce Trailhead account in mere moments using your Salesforce, Google, or LinkedIn credentials. Once logged in, the interface is supremely easy and engaging to navigate. Click around to get the lay of the land. Tackle a module or two that you are only marginally interested in just to get a feel for how they’re setup - with individual units conveying content that conclude with short quizzes or tasks that earn points. See how your badge and point totals change in the upper right corner by your avatar as you complete individual units and full modules. Check out the projects to see how they differ from modules. Investigate trails to see how they combine both modules and projects pertaining to a specific topic. Peek at superbadges which unlock for you after finishing specified prerequisites and allow you to tackle interesting, multi-step challenges. Notice the various filters you can use across trails, modules, and projects to drill down by job role, level of expertise, product, or tag.

Most of all, get comfy with the whole online environment. You could end up hanging out here quite a bit for the sheer pleasure of it!

2. Do some for pure fun

At the start, I put a premium on doing what looked interesting without any regard to what end result it would achieve. This highlighted the fun of learning for learning’s sake, and made my Trailhead experience feel just that - mine - not something required of me. In my case, that meant tackling modules related to Einstein artificial intelligence features for no other purpose than just to explore and expand my knowledge with things that tickled my curiosity.

3. Do some for certification exam prep

After you’ve done some modules for pure fun, you might be ready to chart a course to a specific objective in the form of a Salesforce certification. To guide your path, check out Trailmixes. These are collections of modules, projects and superbadges organized around a theme or purpose. Salesforce has created several specific to various certification exams. I chose Prepare for Your Salesforce Administrator Credential and gradually worked my way through, racking up badges and points along the way.

4. Do some for pure speed

Trailhead gamifies learning by awarding points and badges for work completed. Both points and badges are required to advance in rank. Pushing to get to the next rank can be a compelling force that propels you forward in your learning journey.

You gain large numbers of points by completing a superbadge such as the Business Administration Specialist superbadge at the end of the Prepare for Your Salesforce Administrator Credential trailmix. Combine that with the fact that the final jump in rank from Expeditioner to top-level Ranger requires a much larger relative increase in badges than points, and you'll quickly find modules a precious thing to complete. Targeting quick modules can help you excel at the game. Business User modules are particularly useful for this purpose but anything with a small number of units and an estimated time required of around an hour or less will, too.

5. Learn how you learn best

One of the greatest assets of Trailhead is that it combines different learning methodologies. This offers the immensely valuable feature of learning how you learn best and then focusing on that approach. Retain a lot of information you read? Focusing on modules with quizzes could be your thing. Don’t really get it until you DO it, step-by-step? Focus on projects. Hear things click in your brain when you work through a problem with context? Superbadges are tailor-made for you.

6. Save some for later

You won’t be able to tackle everything you’re interested all at once. As you come across various things that interest you but don’t fit your learning focus at the moment, favorite them or create your own Trailmix to organize them so you can come back to them later.

7. Make use of third party sample tests

For all the strengths of Trailhead in leveling up your Salesforce knowledge, I found it critical to use a third-party site to obtain and take sample certification tests. In the end, there was no substitute for simulating the actual test as closely as possible and seeing just how ready I was to take the real thing. To do so, I purchased practice exams from Focus on Force. After rolling through the Prepare for Your Salesforce Administrator credential Trailmix in Trailhead, I took one of the practice exams and passed with a high enough score that I felt comfortable scheduling my actual exam for the next opportunity.

8. Astro was my exam wingman

I was not new to the Salesforce Administrator exam. I took it several years ago, and failed - twice. I dreaded seeing that unfriendly exam interface with its references to Universal Containers and requirement to pick multiple answers scattered throughout the questions. But as I sat for the exam and the memory of those two failed attempts tugged at my confidence, the little image of Astro celebrating each completed item in Trailhead and the recollection of my ever-increasing mass of badges and points became sources of encouragement and confidence.

Want to hang with Astro and gamify your own learning process? Start today. It's easy.