Salesforce Interview Questions

Top Answers to Salesforce Interview Questions

1. What is the difference between private cloud and public cloud ? Is
salesforce.com is a private cloud and public cloud?
Public Cloud: Cloud services are provided “aaS” as a Service over the
Internet with little or no control over the underlying
infrastructure.Same resources are used by more than one
tenant(customer).
Private Cloud: Cloud services are provide “as a service” but is
deployed over a hosted data center or company intranet. This is
private product for an organization offering advance security.
Salesforce.com: Is a public cloud as data of more than one tenant
resides on same servers
and is hosted on salesforce.com data centers.
2. What are different kinds of reports?
1. Tabular: Tabular reports are the simplest and fastest way to look at
data.They are made of ordered set of fields in columns, with each
matching record listed in a row. They can’t be used to create charts or
groups of data, and only can be used in dashboards if rows are
limited.Tabular reports are best for creating a list with a single grand
total or lists of records. Examples include activity reports and contact
mailing lists.
2. Summary: These are similar to tabular reports, but they also allow
users to view subtotals, create charts and group rows of data. They can
be used as the source report for dashboard components. These are
used for a report to show subtotals of the value of a particular field or
when you want to create a hierarchical list, such as all opportunities for
your team, subtotaled by Stage and Owner. On the report run page,
summary reports with no groupings are shown as tabular reports.
3. Matrix: Matrix reports are similar to summary reports but allow you
to group and summarize data by both rows and columns. For
dashboard components, they can be used as the source report. Use
this type for comparing related totals, especially if you have large
amounts of data to summarize and you need to compare values in
several different fields, or you want to look at data by date and by
geography, product, or person.Matrix reports without at least one row
and one column grouping show as summary reports on the report run
page.
4. Joined: Joined reports let you create multiple report blocks that
provide different views of your data. Each block acts like a “sub-
report,” with its own columns, sorting, fields, and filtering. A joined
report can even contain data from different report types.
3. What are different kinds of dashboard component?
 1. Chart: If you want to show data graphically.
2. Gauge: If you have a single value which you want to show within a
range of custom values.
3. Metric: It is used t when you have one key value to display.
Enter metric labels directly on components by clicking the empty text
field next to the grand total.
Metric components placed directly above and below each other in a
dashboard column are displayed together as a single component.
4. Table: It is used to show a set of report data in column form.
5. Visualforce Page: It is used t when you want to create a custom
component or show information not available in another component
type
6. Custom S-Control: It can contain any type of content that can be
displayed or run in a browser, for example an ActiveX control, an Excel
file, a Java applet,, or a custom HTML Web form
4. What actions can be performed using Workflows?
Following workflow actions can be performed in a workflow:
1. Email Alert:
Using an email template by a workflow rule or approval process,
approval actions are generated and sent to Salesforce users or others,
are called email alerts.
2. Field Update:Field updates are workflow and approval actions that
specify the field you want updated and the new value for it. Depending
on the type of field, you can choose to make the value blank , apply a
specific value,, or calculate a value based on a formula you create.
3. Task:
Assigns a task to a user you specify. You can specify the Status,
Priority, Subject,, and Due Date of the task. Tasks are workflow and
approval actions that are triggered by workflow rules or approval
processes.
4. Outbound Message:
An outbound message is a workflow, approval, or milestone action that
sends the information you specify to an endpoint you designate, such
as an external service.It the data in the specified fields in the form of a
SOAP message to the endpoint.
5. What are groups in SFDC and what is their use?
Groups are sets of users. They can contain individual users, other
groups, the users in a particular role or territory, or the users in a
particular role or territory plus all of the users below that role or
territory in the hierarchy.
There are two types of groups:
Personal groups: Each user can create groups for their personal use.
Public groups: Only administrators can create public groups. They can
be used by everyone in the organization.
You can use groups in the following ways:
To set up default sharing access via a sharing rule
To add multiple users to a Salesforce CRM Content library
To share your records with other users
To specify that you want to synchronize contacts owned by others
users
To assign users to specific actions in Salesforce Knowledge
6. What is Visualforce View State?
Visualforce pages that contain a form component also contain an
encrypted, hidden form field that encapsulates the view state of the
page. This view state is automatically created, and as its name
suggests, it holds the state of the page – state that includes the
components, field values and controller state.
7. Which objects can be imported by Import Wizard?
Following objects can be imported using import wizard.
Accounts
Contacts
Leads
Solutions
Custom Objects
8. What is Profile and Components?
profile contains user permissions and access settings that control what
users can do within their organization.
A collection of settings and permissions that define how a user
accesses records
– Determines how users see data and what they can do within the
application
– A profile can have many users, but a user can have only one profile
Profiles Components:
Which standard and custom apps users can view
Which tabs users can view
Which record types are available to users
Which page layouts users see
Object permissions that allow users to create, read, edit, and delete
records
Which fields within objects users can view and edit
Permissions that allow users to manage the system and apps within it
Which Apex classes and Visualforce pages users can access
Which desktop clients users can access
The hours during which and IP addresses from which users can log in
Which service providers users can access (if Salesforce is enabled as
an identity provider)
9. What is PermissionSet?
PermissionSet represents a set of permissions that’s used to grant
additional access to one or more users without changing their profile or
reassigning profiles. You can use permission sets to grant access, but
not to deny access.
Every PermissionSet is associated with a user license. You can only
assign permission sets to users who have the same user license that’s
associated with the permission set. If you want to assign similar
permissions to users with different licenses, create multiple permission
sets with the same permissions, but with different licenses.
Permission sets include settings for:
Assigned apps
Object settings, which include:
Tab settings
Object permissions
 Field permissions
App permissions
Apex class access
Visualforce page access
System permissions
Service providers (only if you’ve enabled Salesforce as an identity
provider)
10. Profile Vs Permission Sets Permissions and Access Settings?
1. User permissions and access settings specify what users can do
within an organization.
2. Permissions and access settings are specified in user profiles and
permission sets. Every user is assigned only one profile, but can also
have multiple permission sets.
3. When determining access for your users, it’s a good idea to use
profiles to assign the minimum permissions and access settings for
specific groups of users, then use permission sets to grant additional
permissions.
The following table shows the types of permissions and access settings
that are specified in profiles and permission sets. Some profile settings
aren’t included in permission sets.
11. What are the Standard Profiles available in Salesforce?
Six (6) Standard Profiles (EE/UE and PE)
Standard User – Can view, edit, and delete their own records
Contract Manager – Standard User permissions + Can edit, approve,
activate, and delete contracts
Read-Only – Can only view records
System Administrator – “Super User,” can customize and administer
the application
Solution Manager – Standard User permissions + Can manage
published solutions + Can manage categories
Marketing User – Standard User permissions + Can import leads for the
organization
12. What is the Force.com Platform?
– Create customize,and integrate enterprise applications as a service
and without software.
– Standard applications provided by salesforce.com, you can customize
or build your own on-demand applications
– Group standard and custom tabs into new custom applications
13. Salesforce Editions and Limits?
– Personal Edition
– Contact Manager
– Group Edition
– Professional Edition
– Enterprise Edition
– Unlimited Edition
– Developer Edition
14. What are Standard Business Objects?
• Campaigns: A Campaign is any marketing project that you want to
plan, manage, and track in Salesforce.
• Leads: A Lead is any person, organization or company that may be
 interested in your products. Sometimes Leads are referred to as
Prospects or Suspects. Leads are not yet customers.
• Accounts: An Account is an organization, individual or company
involved with your business such as customers, competitors and
partners that you wish to track in Salesforce.
• Contacts: A Contact is any individual or influencer associated with an
account that you want to track in Salesforce.
• Opportunities: An Opportunity is any potential revenue-generating
event (“sales deal” ) that you want to
track in Salesforce.
• Cases: A case is a detailed description of a customer’s feedback,
problem or question.
• Solutions: A solution is a detailed description of a customer issue and
the resolution of that issue. The
collection of your organization’s solutions is sometimes referred to as
the solution knowledge base.
• Forecasts: A forecast is your best estimate of how much revenue you
can generate in a quarter.
• Documents:
• Reports: Reports are summaries and analyses of your data, which
you can display or print.
• Dashboards: Dashboards give you a real-time snapshot of corporate
metrics and key performance
indicators. A dashboard is a group of different charts (or components)
that graphically display your custom
report data.
• Calendar and Task: Activities are both tasks and scheduled calendar
events. You can define and track
activities for many different objects, including campaigns, accounts,
contacts, and leads.
• Products: Products are the individual items that you sell on your
opportunities. (Please note that Products are available in EE/UE and
Developer and in PE for an additional fee.)
Please note, not all Standard Objects are depicted in the above slide or
discussed in the notes.
Please refer to Help in Salesforce for more information.
15. What is a Company Profile?
Contains core information for your company
• Language, Locale and Time Zone
• Licenses
• Storage and Used Space
• Fiscal Year
• Primary Contact and Address information
• Manage Currencies
16. What is a Fiscal Year in Salesforce?
– Used for an organizations financial planning
– Usually a year in length
– Impacts forecasts, quotas and reports
Salesforce allows two types:
–Standard Fiscal Years are periods that follow the Gregorian calendar,
but can start on the first day of any
 month of the year. (A Gregorian Year is a calendar based on a 12
Month Structure and is used throughout
much of the world.)
–Custom Fiscal Years are for companies that break down their fiscal
years, quarters and weeks in to custom fiscal periods based on their
financial planning requirements.
Forecasting can NOT be used with Custom Fiscal Years
Customizable Forecasting must be enabled for use with Custom Fiscal
Years
17. What is Standard and Custom Fields in Salesforce?
Standard Fields
What is a Standard Field?
– Standard Fields are pre-defined in Salesforce
– You cannot delete standard fields but you can remove non-required
standard fields from a page layout
Standard Field customizations include the ability to change standard
field labels and tabs
You can change the display labels of standard tabs, objects, fields, and
other related user interface labels so they better reflect your
organization’s business requirements.
Renamed labels – for example, “Accounts” changed to “Companies” –
display on all user pages, in Outlook Edition, and in Offline Edition.
It’s important to note that all pages in the Setup area use the default,
original labels.
Reports and views are not renamed based on the new label value.
Custom Fields
What is a Custom Field?
– Capture information unique to your business process by creating
custom fields with custom field help for each of the tabs that your
organization uses – Limits:
–Recycle Bin for Deleted Custom Fields
–Custom fields are deleted permanently after 45 days
18. Is it possible to change the existing data types of custom fields,
if Yes please explain?
Yes. It’s possible but Changing the datatype of an existing custom field
can cause data loss in the following situations:
Changing to or from type Date or Date/Time
Changing to Number from any other type
Changing to Percent from any other type
Changing to Currency from any other type
Changing from Checkbox to any other type
Changing from Picklist (Multi-Select) to any other type
Changing to Picklist (Multi-Select) from any type except Picklist
Changing from Auto Number to any other type
Changing to Auto Number from any type except Text
Changing from Text Area (Long) to any type except Email, Phone, Text,
Text Area, or URL
19. What is a dependent picklist?
– Dependent fields can help make your data more accurate and
consistent by applying filters.
– A dependent field works in conjunction with a controlling field to filter
 its values. The value chosen in the controlling field affects the values
available in the dependent field.
– 300 is the maximum number of values allowed in a controlling
picklist.
– A custom multi-select picklist cannot be the controlling field for a
dependent field
20. What is Page Layout and Record Types?
Page Layout:
– How detail and edit pages are organized
– Page section customizations
– Which fields, related lists, and Custom Links a user sees
– Field properties – visible, read-only and required
Record Types:
– Allows you to define different sets of picklist values for both standard
and custom picklists
– Record Types help you implement your custom business processes
21. What do you mean by Business Process?
• Allows you to track separate support, sales, and across different
divisions, markets, groups, or Available Business Processes:
– Sales Processes – Create different sales processes that include some
or all of the picklist values available for the Opportunity Stage field
– Support Processes – Create different support processes that include
some or all of the picklist values available for the Case Status field
– Lead Processes – Create different lead processes that include some or
all of the picklist values available for the Lead Status field
– Solution Processes – Create different solution processes that include
some or all of the picklist values available for the Solution Status field
22. What are the Objects available in the Salesforce Business
Process and Give some Business Process Example?
Lead
Opportunity
Case
SolutionBusiness Process Examples
Lead Processes:
Opportunities Sales Processes:
Case Processes:
Solutions Processes:
23. What about Web-to-Lead and Web-to-Case?
–A lead or case record created through Web-to-Lead or Web-to-Case
will set the record type to that of the default lead owner or automated
case user (optional)
24. On which tabs can I create multiple record types?
–Multiple record types may be created for every tab, with the exception
of the Home, Forecasts, Documents, and Reports tabs.
25. What happens if I need to add a picklist value?
–You will be prompted to select which record types should include the
new value
26. What is Field-Level Security?
 It Defines users’ access to view and edit specific fields in the
application
27. Why use Field-Level Security?
Use Field-Level Security (rather than creating multiple page layouts) to
enforce data security
Users view data relevant to their job function Troubleshooting Tools
28. What are Login Hours and Login IP Ranges?
Used to set the hours when user with a particular profile can use the
system
Used to set the IP addresses from which user with a particular profile
can log in
29. What is a User Record?
Key information about a user
• unique username
• password
• Status of user : active or inactive
• Profile
• Role
30. What is a Record Owner?
The user (or queue for Cases and Leads) who controls or has rights to
that particular data record
31. What are Organization Wide Defaults?
– Defines the baseline level of access to data records for all users in the
Organization (not including records owned by the user or inherited via
role hierarchy)
– Used to restrict access to data
Access levels:
-Private
-Public Read/Write
-Public Read/Write/Transfer
-Controlled by Parent
-Public Read Only
32. What is a Role and Role Hierarchy?
Role:Controls the level of visibility that users have to an organization’s
data
– A user may be associated to one role
Role Hierarchy:
– Controls data visibility
– Controls record roll up – forecasting and reporting
– Users inherit the special privileges of data owned by or shared with
users below them in the hierarchy
– Not necessarily the company’s organization chart
Notes:
• If using Customizable Forecasting, there is a separate forecast role
hierarchy.
• EE can create Account, Contact, Opportunity and Case Sharing Rules.
PE can ONLY create Account and Contact Sharing Rules.
• Assuming no sharing rules have been created, users in the same role
cannot access one another’s records.
Example: Org Wide Default settings for opportunities are private.
 Creating a role and adding two users to that role does not allow those
users access to one another’s opportunities.
• “Grant Access Using Hierarchies” allows you to disable the default
sharing access granted by your role and territory hierarchies. This
option can be changed for custom objects that do not have their
organization-wide default sharing setting set to Controlled by Parent.
33. What is Access at the Role Level?
– Defined when creating a role
– Level of access to Opportunities associated to Accounts owned by the
role
– Level of access to Contacts associated to Accounts owned by the Role
– Level of access to Cases associated to Accounts owned by the role
– Level of access options depend on OWD
34. What is a Sharing Rule?
These are Automated rules that grant access to groups of users for
levels of Access that can be granted like Read Only or Read/Write
35. Types of Sharing Rules in Salesforce and Explain it?
Account Sharing Rules:
– Based on who owns the account
– Set default sharing access for accounts and their associated cases,
contacts, contracts, and opportunities
Contact Sharing Rules:
– Based on who owns the contact (must be associated with an account)
– Set default sharing access for individual contacts and their associated
accounts
– Cannot use with: Territory Management and B2I (Person Account)
enabled orgs
Opportunity Sharing Rules (EE/UE):
– Based on who owns the opportunity
– Set default sharing access for individual opportunities and their
associated accounts
Case Sharing Rules (EE/UE):
– Based on who owns the case
– Set default sharing access for individual cases and associated
accounts
Lead Sharing Rules (EE/UE):
– Based on who owns the lead
– Set default sharing access for individual leads
Custom Object Sharing Rules (EE/UE):
– Based on who owns the custom object
– Set default sharing access for individual custom object records
36. Use cases for Sharing Rules in salesforce?
– Organizations with organization-wide defaults of Public Read Only or
Private can create sharing rules to give specific users access to data
owned by other users.
– Cases Sharing
– Account Sharing
37. Best Practices of Creating Contact Sharing Rules?
– Account Org-Wide Default must be set to at least “Public Read Only”
in order to set the Contact Org-Wide Default to “Public Read/Write”.
 – To share ALL contacts in the system with a group of users or a
specific role, create a sharing rule that uses the “All Internal Users” (or
“Entire Organization”) public group as the owned by option.
– Use “Roles and Subordinates” over “Roles” where possible to
minimize the number of sharing rules.
38. What is a Public Group?
– A grouping of:
• Users
• Public Groups (nesting)
• Roles
• Roles and Subordinates
– Mixture of any of these elements
– Used in Sharing Rules – for simplification (when more than a few roles
need to be shared to)
– Also used when defining access to Folders and List Views
For example, if a new user is assigned a role that belongs to an
existing public group, that user will be
automatically added to the public group
39. What is Manual Sharing?
– Granting record access, one-off basis
– Owner, anyone above owner in role hierarchy and administrator can
manually share records
– Available on Contacts, Leads, Cases, Accounts and Opportunity
records and Custom Objects
– Like sharing rules, irrelevant for Public Read/Write organizations
40. What is a Sales Team? (EE/UE)
– Used for collaborative selling
– Used for sharing as well as reporting purposes
– Ad hoc or may use Default Sales Team (defined for user)
– Default Sales Teams may be automatically added to a user’s
opportunities
– Who can add a Sales Team?
• Owner
• Anyone above owner in role hierarchy
• Administrator
41. What is an Account Team? (EE/UE)
– Used for collaborative account management
– Used for sharing as well as reporting purposes
– Manually added to Account records
– Default Account Teams may be automatically added to a user’s
accounts
– Who can add an account team?
• Owner
• Anyone above owner in role hierarchy
• Administrator
Please note that Account Teams are not available for Professional
Edition.
42. What is an Case Team? (EE/UE)
Case teams enable full communication and collaboration on solving
customer issues. You can:
 – Add teams of users to cases
– Create a workflow for case teams
– Predefine case teams for users
– Determine the level of access
– Administrators can predefine case teams for users and determine the
level of access each team member has to a case, such as Read/Write
or Read/Only.
43. What are Folders?
– Used for organizing email templates, documents, reports and
dashboards
– Access is defined – Read or Read/Write
– Access is explicit – does NOT roll up through role hierarchy
44. What is Workflow?
Salesforce Workflow gives you the ability to automatically:
Create and send email alerts
Create and assign tasks
Update field values to either specific values, or based on formulas
Create and send outbound API messages
Create and execute time-dependent actions
45. What are Workflow Components available?
Workflow Rules – trigger criteria for performing various workflow
actions
Workflow Tasks – action that assigns a task to a targeted user
Workflow Email Alerts – action that sends an email to targeted
recipients
Workflow Field Updates – action that updates the value of a field
automatically
Workflow Outbound Messages – action that sends a secure
configurable API message (in XML format) to a designated listener
46. What is a Workflow Rule?
– Defined trigger criteria based on your business requirements
– Evaluated when record is created, when created/updated, OR when
created/updated and did not previously meet trigger criteria
– When trigger criteria is met workflow actions, such as email alerts,
tasks, field updates, or outbound messages are generated
47. What is a Workflow Task?
When a Workflow Rule is met, a Task may be assigned to designated
users to follow-up and respond to the Business Conditions in the
Workflow Rule
– Workflow Tasks may be assigned to a user, role, record owner, record
creator, sales team role, or account team
48. What is a Workflow Alert?
Workflow Alerts are emails generated by a workflow rule whenever
specific Business Actions trigger the rule
49. What is a Workflow Field Update?
Field updates enables you to automatically change the value of a field
to a specific value.
Depending on the type of field you can:
• Change it to a specific value
 • Make it blank
• Calculate a value based on a formula you create
50.What is Salesforce?
Salesforce is one of the most flexible and powerful web based
databases available on the market. More than 170,000 companies and
17,000 nonprofit organizations have already discovered the results
Salesforce.com can deliver.Cloud for Synagogues is built on the
Salesforce platform. It is a great starting point for any synagogue
looking to track constituents, members, donors, Yahrzeits, Aliyahs,
donations, Sunday School attendance, volunteers, and cases.
51.What is a cloud computing?
Cloud computing is a type of computing that relies on sharing
computing resources hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and
process data rather than having local servers or personal devices to
handle applications.
52.What is App in Salesforce?
An app is a group of tabs that work as a unit to provide functionality.
Users can switch between apps using the Force.com app drop-down
menu at the top-right corner of every page.You can customize existing
apps to match the way you work, or build new apps by grouping
standard and custom tabs.
Navigation to create app in Sales force: Setup ->Build ->Create-
>App-> Click on new and create your application according to your
requirements.
53.What is object in Salesforce?
Custom objects are database tables that allow you to store data
specific to your organization in salesforce.com. You can use custom
objects to extend salesforce.com functionality or to build new
application functionality.Once you have created a custom object, you
can create a custom tab, custom related lists, reports, and dashboards
for users to interact with the custom object data. You can also access
custom object data through the Force.com API.
Navigation to create object in sales force: Setup->Build->Create-
>Object-> Click on new object and create object according to your
requirement.
54.What is the difference between public cloud and private cloud? Is
salesforce.com is a public cloud or private cloud?
Public Cloud: Could services are provided “as a service” over the
Internet with little or no control over the underlying technology
infrastructure. More than one tenant can use the same
resources.Private Cloud: This also offers activities and functions “as a
service” but is deployed over a company intranet or hosted datacenter.
This is private product for a company or organization offering advance
security.
Salesforce.com: Is a public cloud as it is hosted on salesforce.com
data centers and data of more than one tenant resides on same
servers.
55.What are different kinds of reports?
  Tabular: Tabular reports are the simplest and fastest way to look at
data. Similar to a spreadsheet, they consist simply of an ordered set
of fields in columns, with each matching record listed in a row.
Tabular reports are best for creating lists of records or a list with a
single grand total. They can’t be used to create groups of data or
charts, and can’t be used in dashboards unless rows are limited.
Examples include contact mailing lists and activity reports.
 Summary: Summary reports are similar to tabular reports, but also
allow users to group rows of data, view subtotals, and create charts.
They can be used as the source report for dashboard components.
Use this type for a report to show subtotals based on the value of a
particular field or when you want to create a hierarchical list, such as
all opportunities for your team, subtotaled by Stage and Owner.
Summary reports with no groupings show as tabular reports on the
report run page.
 Matrix: Matrix reports are similar to summary reports but allow you to
group and summarize data by both rows and columns. They can be
used as the source report for dashboard components. Use this type
for comparing related totals, especially if you have large amounts of
data to summarize and you need to compare values in several
different fields, or you want to look at data by date and by product,
person, or geography. Matrix reports without at least one row and
one column grouping show as summary reports on the report run
page.
 Joined: Joined reports let you create multiple report blocks that
provide different views of your data. Each block acts like a “sub-
report,” with its own fields, columns, sorting, and filtering. A joined
report can even contain data from different report types.

56.What is a SALESFORCE.COM?
Salesforce.com is a global cloud computing company headquartered in
San Francisco, California. Though best known for its customer
relationship management (CRM) product, It is currently ranked the
most innovative company in America by Forbes magazine.The
company was founded in March 1999 by former Oracle executive Marc
Benioff.
57. What is a CRM?
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a model for managing a
company’s interactions with current and future customers. It involves
using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize
sales,marketing, customer service, and technical support.
58.What are the benefits of CRM?
– Growth in Number of customers.
– Maximization of opportunities.
– Long term profitability and sustainability.
– Helps sales staff closedealy faster.
– Reduce cost.
– Increase Customer satisfaction
– Ensuring customer focus.
59.What are difference between SOQL and SOSL in Salesforce?
SOQL SOSL
It’s a Salesforce Object Query Language. It’s a Salesforce Object Search Language.
Search in Entire Organization or Data
Search in Single Object.
base.
Returns Records. Returns Fields.
It can use in Triggers. It can use in Triggers.