50 Essential Salesforce Basics Interview Questions

Salesforce is one of the most popular CRM platforms in the world, and a deep understanding of its basics is crucial for anyone looking to build a career in this ecosystem. Whether you’re preparing for a Salesforce admin, developer, or consultant interview, mastering the foundational concepts is key. Here are 50 essential Salesforce basics interview questions to help you get ready.

1. What is Salesforce?

Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform that allows businesses to manage their customer data, sales processes, and marketing efforts efficiently.

2. What are the main features of Salesforce?

Key features include Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Analytics Cloud, AppExchange, and Salesforce Chatter.

3. What is a Salesforce App?

A Salesforce App is a set of objects, fields, and functionalities that support a business process. It can be customized to meet specific needs and includes tabs, reports, and dashboards.

4. What are Standard and Custom Objects in Salesforce?

• Standard Objects: Predefined objects provided by Salesforce, like Accounts, Contacts, Leads, and Opportunities.
• Custom Objects: User-defined objects created to store information unique to an organization.

5. What is a Record in Salesforce?

A record is a row in a Salesforce object (like a row in a database table) that represents a single instance of an entity like an Account or Contact.

6. What are Fields in Salesforce?

Fields are individual pieces of data stored in an object, akin to columns in a database table. They can be of various types like text, number, date, etc.

7. What is a Tab in Salesforce?

A tab in Salesforce is a user interface element that allows users to view the data of an object. It can display records and access standard and custom objects.

8. What is a Page Layout?

Page Layouts control the layout and organization of fields, buttons, custom links, and related lists on object record pages.

9. What are Record Types?

Record Types allow you to offer different business processes, picklist values, and page layouts to different users based on their profiles.

10. What are Profiles in Salesforce?

Profiles define how users access objects and data, and what they can do within the application (permissions, access settings, etc.).

11. What are Roles?

Roles determine what records users can see in a hierarchy based on their position. They work in conjunction with sharing rules and OWD.

12. What is a Permission Set?

Permission Sets grant additional permissions to users on top of what their profile allows. This helps in extending user privileges without changing their profile.

13. What are Sharing Rules?

Sharing Rules are used to open up access to records for users who don’t have access through OWD, role hierarchy, or profiles.

14. What is Org-Wide Default (OWD)?

OWD settings determine the default level of access users have to each other’s records. It sets the baseline record-level security.

15. What is Salesforce Lightning?

Salesforce Lightning is a modern user interface and platform that provides a more responsive, component-based framework for app development.

16. What is a Workflow Rule?

Workflow Rules are automated processes that trigger actions like field updates, email alerts, tasks, and outbound messages based on criteria.

17. What is Process Builder?

Process Builder is a point-and-click tool that allows you to automate complex business processes. It’s more advanced than workflow rules, offering more actions and functionality.

18. What is an Approval Process?

An Approval Process is an automated process used to approve records in Salesforce. It defines the steps necessary for a record to be approved and the actions to take based on approval or rejection.

19. What is a Validation Rule?

Validation Rules ensure data integrity by checking the data entered by users against specified criteria before saving.

20. What is a Flow in Salesforce?

Flow is a powerful automation tool that collects data and performs actions in Salesforce using a visual interface, supporting complex logic.

21. What is the AppExchange?

AppExchange is Salesforce’s marketplace for third-party applications and components. Users can find, install, and use apps to extend Salesforce capabilities.

22. What is a Sandbox?

A Sandbox is a copy of your production environment used for testing and development without affecting your live data.

23. What is Change Set?

Change Sets are used to deploy changes from one Salesforce org to another, facilitating the migration of customizations.

24. What is a Data Loader?

Data Loader is a client application used to bulk import, export, update, and delete Salesforce records.

25. What is SOQL?

SOQL (Salesforce Object Query Language) is used to query data from Salesforce objects. It’s similar to SQL but specifically designed for Salesforce data.

26. What is SOSL?

SOSL (Salesforce Object Search Language) is used to perform text searches in records. It searches all objects and fields and returns records that match the search criteria.

27. What is Apex?

Apex is a strongly-typed, object-oriented programming language used by developers to execute flow and transaction control statements on the Salesforce platform.

28. What is a Trigger in Salesforce?

A Trigger is an Apex code that executes before or after DML events on Salesforce records, used for complex logic execution.

29. What is Visualforce?

Visualforce is a component-based UI framework for building sophisticated, custom user interfaces in Salesforce.

30. What are Governor Limits?

Governor Limits are Salesforce’s way to ensure that no single customer monopolizes shared resources, enforcing limits on the amount of data and operations during transactions.

31. What is Salesforce Shield?

Salesforce Shield is a set of security tools, including Event Monitoring, Field Audit Trail, and Platform Encryption, designed to enhance data protection and compliance.

32. What is Salesforce Einstein?

Salesforce Einstein is an AI technology built into the Salesforce platform, providing advanced AI capabilities like predictive analytics and natural language processing.

33. What are Reports in Salesforce?

Reports are lists of records that meet the criteria you define. They help in analyzing data and generating insights.

34. What are Dashboards in Salesforce?

Dashboards are visual representations of report data, offering a real-time graphical view of key metrics and trends.

35. What is a Report Type?

A Report Type is a template that makes reporting easier. It defines the set of objects and fields available to the report.

36. What is a Custom Report Type?

Custom Report Types allow you to create custom templates for reports, combining data from multiple related objects.

37. What is a Joined Report?

A Joined Report allows you to create multiple report blocks, each with its own fields, filters, and sorting, combining different views of your data in a single report.

38. What is Dynamic Dashboard?

Dynamic Dashboards show data tailored to the specific user viewing it, based on their security settings and permissions.

39. What is Chatter in Salesforce?

Chatter is a collaboration tool that allows users to communicate and share information in real-time within Salesforce.

40. What is Salesforce Mobile App?

The Salesforce Mobile App allows users to access Salesforce data and functionalities on mobile devices, providing flexibility and convenience.

41. What is the difference between Salesforce Classic and Lightning?

Salesforce Classic is the older user interface, while Lightning offers a modern, more responsive interface with advanced features and improved performance.

42. What are Custom Settings?

Custom Settings are similar to custom objects and provide a way to store configuration data that can be used by your application.

43. What are Custom Metadata Types?

Custom Metadata Types allow you to create your own metadata, defining new custom types and their relationship to other metadata and data.

44. What is a Territory in Salesforce?

A Territory is a way to manage and segment sales team assignments and data access based on geographic regions, product lines, or other criteria.

45. What is Field History Tracking?

Field History Tracking allows you to track changes to values in specified fields and view the change history of those fields.

46. What is the Global Picklist?

A Global Picklist is a set of picklist values that can be shared across multiple objects, ensuring consistency in data values.

47. What is Salesforce Communities?

Salesforce Communities are branded spaces for employees, customers, and partners to connect and collaborate.

48. What is a Queued Job in Salesforce?

A Queued Job is a job that has been added to the queue for execution. These jobs run asynchronously in the background.

49. What is the use of Future Methods in Apex?

Future Methods are used to run processes in the background asynchronously, ensuring that long-running operations do not hold up the main transaction.

50. What is Salesforce DX?

Salesforce DX is a set of tools and best practices designed to improve the development, continuous integration, and continuous delivery of applications on the Salesforce platform.

Conclusion

Understanding these fundamental Salesforce concepts will give you a solid foundation for any Salesforce role. By mastering these questions, you’ll be well-prepared for your next interview and on your way to a successful career in Salesforce. Good luck!