Salesforce Certified Technical Architect (CTA)

Key Topics to Master:

• Choosing between on-platform and off-platform components against platform limits
• Reporting and analytics design considerations, trade-offs and risks
• Single-org versus multi-org strategy and the architectural consequences of each
• Mobile solution design trade-offs and platform selection
• License type selection and its capability and cost trade-offs
• Document management solution options, capabilities and constraints
• Platform governor limits and how they shape solution boundaries

Key Topics to Master:

• Declarative record-level security: org-wide defaults, role hierarchy, sharing rules, manual sharing
• Programmatic sharing: Apex managed sharing and when it is warranted
• Object and field level access through profiles and permission sets
• Portal and Experience Cloud security for external users, including sharing sets and sharing groups
• End-to-end identity management design, SSO, SAML, OAuth flows and provisioning
• Encryption options and their functional trade-offs
• Security risks introduced by integration users and system context execution

Key Topics to Master:

• Data modelling concepts and the implications of relationship choices
• Large data volume considerations: skew, selective queries, indexing, query plans
• Optimisation techniques such as divisions, mashups, archiving and deferred sharing calculation
• Data migration strategy, sequencing and load order against dependencies
• ETL tool selection and common migration tooling
• Data retention and archiving architecture
• Data quality, master data and system of record decisions across a landscape

Key Topics to Master:

• Declarative versus programmatic decision criteria for each requirement
• Automation tooling selection and order of execution consequences
• Incorporating AppExchange and external applications, with benefits and trade-offs
• Build versus buy justification against maintainability and cost
• Fit of standard Salesforce clouds to stated business processes
• Aligning the solution to stated non-functional requirements

Key Topics to Master:

• Enterprise integration landscape design and middleware justification
• Common integration patterns: request and reply, fire and forget, batch data synchronisation, remote call-in, UI update based on data changes
• Platform integration technologies including REST and SOAP APIs, Bulk API, Platform Events, Change Data Capture, Salesforce Connect and External Objects
• Outbound messaging, callouts and their governor limits
• Error handling, retry, idempotency and guaranteed delivery
• Security of integration endpoints, named credentials and authentication flows
• Trade-offs between real-time and batch interfaces at stated data volumes

Key Topics to Master:

• Project risk identification and mitigation strategies
• Impact of the customer's delivery methodology on technical work streams
• Comprehensive test strategy: unit, integration, performance, UAT and how each mitigates a named risk
• Governance structures, stakeholders and the impact of technical decisions on them
• Environment management with sandboxes, seeding and refresh strategy
• Source control branching models and continuous integration for release management
• Deployment tooling, change sets, metadata API and packaging trade-offs

Key Topics to Master:

• Articulating benefits, limitations and design choices to a business audience
• Handling objections without either conceding a correct design or defending an incorrect one
• Visualisation: system landscape diagrams, data models, actor and role diagrams
• Structuring a 45-minute presentation so every requirement is visibly addressed
• Time management across preparation, presentation and Q&A
• Responding to an unexpected change in requirements and stating the next step
• Naming assumptions explicitly rather than leaving them implicit

• 1Check in Trailhead that you hold both Application Architect and System Architect, the two prerequisite credentials Salesforce requires to register
• 2Download the Salesforce Certified Technical Architect exam guide and list the seven scored domains on one page
• 3Read the audience description in the exam guide and mark honestly which of the 5, 3 and 2 year experience statements you can evidence
• 4Join the Architect Trailblazer Community and pull down the sample scenarios Salesforce points to there
• 5Start the Architect Journey Trailmix, the preparation resource Salesforce names on the credential page

• 1Design a fixed deck skeleton you can populate in the 180-minute preparation window: landscape, data model, security, integration, lifecycle, and a requirement traceability slide
• 2Practise drawing a system landscape diagram from a written scenario in under 25 minutes
• 3Build a reusable actor and licence table so licence recommendations are mechanical rather than improvised
• 4Time yourself reading a full sample scenario and extracting requirements into a numbered list
• 5Decide now whether you will present with slides, flip chart or both, and rehearse the same way every time

• 1Work through single-org versus multi-org decision criteria and write down what evidence would swing you either way
• 2Build a licence comparison sheet covering internal, Experience Cloud and platform licence families with capability limits
• 3Study reporting and analytics options and when external analytics belongs in the landscape
• 4Review platform governor limits that constrain design rather than code
• 5Solve one sample scenario end to end, focusing only on the system architecture layer

• 1Rehearse the declarative sharing ladder: org-wide defaults, role hierarchy, sharing rules, manual and Apex managed sharing
• 2Design an external user security model with sharing sets and sharing groups for an Experience Cloud scenario
• 3Draw an end-to-end identity solution with SSO, provisioning and deprovisioning for both employees and customers
• 4Study encryption options and articulate what each one breaks functionally
• 5Present a 10-minute security-only section to a peer and take objections

• 1Practise producing a normalised data model with relationship types and record counts inside 30 minutes
• 2Work through account data skew, ownership skew and lookup skew, and the mitigation for each
• 3Study selective queries, custom indexes and query plan behaviour at tens of millions of records
• 4Build a migration sequence for a scenario with dependent objects and state the tooling for each load
• 5Add archiving and retention to a previously solved scenario and defend the change

• 1Memorise the common integration patterns and the deciding question for each: timing, volume, direction, guaranteed delivery
• 2Map platform technologies to patterns: REST, Bulk API, Platform Events, Change Data Capture, Salesforce Connect, outbound messaging
• 3Justify middleware in one scenario and rule it out in another, writing both arguments down
• 4Design error handling, retry and idempotency for a fire and forget interface
• 5Draw an integration table with interface, direction, pattern, technology, volume and frequency for a full scenario

• 1Design a sandbox strategy with seeding and refresh cadence for a multi-team programme
• 2Write a branching and continuous integration model you can draw and explain in three minutes
• 3Build a test strategy that names each test type against a specific risk from the scenario
• 4Sketch a governance structure with named roles and decision rights
• 5Add lifecycle and governance sections to two scenarios you solved in earlier weeks

• 1Run a full mock at Architect Review Board Evaluation timing: 60 minutes preparation, 30 minutes presentation, 30 minutes Q&A
• 2Have a practising architect play judge and record the session for review
• 3List every question you could not answer and convert each into a study item
• 4Score yourself against all seven domains, including Communication
• 5Register for the Architect Review Board Evaluation through Webassessor if the mock holds up

• 1Take the online Architect Review Board Evaluation and use all 45 minutes of the feedback and discussion block
• 2Write the feedback into a domain-by-domain action list within 24 hours while it is fresh
• 3Rework your deck skeleton to fix the structural problems the assessor named
• 4Book the CTA601 workshop, Prepare for your Technical Architect Credential, through Trailhead Academy if presentation structure was flagged
• 5Rebuild any weak domain from primary Salesforce documentation rather than community summaries

• 1Run two full mocks at review board timing: 180 minutes preparation, 45 minutes presentation, 40 minutes Q&A
• 2Practise without any reference material, since the exam guide states no hard-copy or online materials may be referenced
• 3Rehearse the pivot: have a judge change a requirement mid-Q&A and force you to restate the impact
• 4Cut your presentation to fit 45 minutes with 5 minutes of slack, and rehearse the cut version twice
• 5Fix the order in which you present domains so nothing is left unaddressed when time runs short

• 1Run Q&A-only drills with two peers firing objections at a solution you presented last week
• 2Practise saying what you would need to know to decide, rather than guessing, when a scenario is genuinely ambiguous
• 3Rebuild flashcards only for the facts you fumbled under questioning, such as licence limits and API limits
• 4Re-solve the sample scenarios from the Architect Trailblazer Community that you scored worst on
• 5Rehearse your assumptions slide so every assumption is stated aloud before the judges have to ask

• 1Run one final full mock at exam timing and stop tinkering with the deck skeleton after it
• 2Confirm your Webassessor registration details and the format you booked, online or in person
• 3If testing in person, confirm what is supplied on the day: computer with PowerPoint, Word and Excel, flip chart paper, blank paper for notes, pens, highlighters, markers and a timer
• 4Plan how you will store smart devices, since the exam guide requires watches and phones to be removed before the exam starts
• 5Rest the day before rather than adding new material, and rehearse only your opening two minutes