What is Salesforce?

This is one of the most basic salesforce interview questions, where the
interviewer is simply checking if you can club your knowledge into a quick
answer or not! Here’s a short and straightforward answer to this
salesforce interview question - Salesforce is the most effective Customer
Relationship Management (CRM) product that is delivered to subscribers
as a cost-effective software-as-a-service (SaaS).

2. What is a custom object in Salesforce?

In Salesforce, custom objects refer specifically to database tables that

store data related to your company in Salesforce.com.

3. What does a custom object permit the user to do?

Once the custom object is defined, the subscriber can perform the
following tasks:

 Create custom fields

 Relate the custom object to other records

 Track events and tasks

 Build page layouts

 Create a custom tab for the custom object

 Analyze custom object data

 Create dashboards and reports

 Share custom tabs, custom apps, custom objects, and various

other related components.

None of these tasks can be accomplished until the custom object has a
definition.
4. What is Self-Relationship?

A Self-Relationship is a lookup relationship to the same object. It is this

premise that allows users to take the object “Merchandise” and create
relationships with other objects.

What is Object Relationship Overview?

In Salesforce, the object relationship overview links custom object records

to standard object records in a related list. This is helpful to track product
defects in related customer cases. Salesforce allows users to define
different types of relationships by creating custom relationship fields on
an object.

6. What can cause data loss in Salesforce?

Data loss in Salesforce can be caused by a number of reasons, including:

 Changing data and date-time.

 Migrating to percent, number, and currency from other data

types.

 Changing from the multi-select picklist, checkbox, auto number to

other types.

 Altering to multi-select picklist from any type except picklist.

 Changing to auto-number except for text.

 Changing from text-area to e-mail, phone, URL, and text.

7. How is SaaS beneficial to Salesforce?

SaaS is subscription-based, so clients can choose not to renew and

discontinue using the program at any time without penalty other than not
being able to use Salesforce. SaaS is intended to help users avoid heavy
initial startup fees and investments. SaaS applications use a simple
Internet interface supported by easy integration.

How does Salesforce track sales?

Salesforce is a tracking program that records a number of helpful basic

details, such as:

 Number of customers served daily

 Daily sales volume

 Detailed reports from Sales Manager

 Sales figures by month or quarter

 Most importantly, Salesforce tracks and reports repeat customer

activity, which is the key to any sales organization.

9. How many types of relationships are offered by

Salesforce.com?

Salesforce recognizes two relationship types: Master-detail relationships

and Lookup relationships.

10. What is the trigger?

The trigger is the code that is executed before or after the record is
updated or inserted.

11. What is the difference between Trigger and Workflow?

This is one of the most frequently asked Salesforce interview question.

Workflow is an automated process that fires an action based on evaluation
criteria and rule criteria. As described above, Trigger is the code that is
executed on or after the record is updated or inserted.
 5min read Difficulty
level: Easy
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Interview Q&As!

The more experienced we are, the more we grow to understand that the
questions we ask or the answers we give in an interview say a lot about
our enthusiasm and level of interest for a product, company, or
organization. This is definitely the case with Salesforce, the
mightiest Customer Relationship Management (CRM) service in the world.
And if you wish to crack your next interview, these salesforce interview
questions should help you out to prepare beforehand and crack the
interview seamlessly!

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Salesforce Interview Questions and Answers

1. What is Salesforce?

This is one of the most basic salesforce interview questions, where the
interviewer is simply checking if you can club your knowledge into a quick
answer or not! Here’s a short and straightforward answer to this
salesforce interview question - Salesforce is the most effective Customer
Relationship Management (CRM) product that is delivered to subscribers
as a cost-effective software-as-a-service (SaaS).

Enroll in this Salesforce Administrator Basics now, unlock the verified

certificate & become job-ready for Salesforce-related job roles!

Learn more about what Salesforce is and how it works.

Read more: What does a Salesforce Professional Do

Want a Top Software Development

Job? Start Here!
Full Stack Developer - MERN StackEXPLORE PROGRAM
2. What is a custom object in Salesforce?

In Salesforce, custom objects refer specifically to database tables that

store data related to your company in Salesforce.com.

3. What does a custom object permit the user to do?

Once the custom object is defined, the subscriber can perform the
following tasks:

 Create custom fields

 Relate the custom object to other records

 Track events and tasks

 Build page layouts

 Create a custom tab for the custom object

 Analyze custom object data

 Create dashboards and reports

 Share custom tabs, custom apps, custom objects, and various other
related components.

None of these tasks can be accomplished until the custom object has a
definition.

4. What is Self-Relationship?

A Self-Relationship is a lookup relationship to the same object. It is this

premise that allows users to take the object “Merchandise” and create
relationships with other objects.
 Become job-ready for Salesforce Administrator roles now with this Salesforce
Administrator Basics course for free!

5. What is Object Relationship Overview?

In Salesforce, the object relationship overview links custom object records

to standard object records in a related list. This is helpful to track product
defects in related customer cases. Salesforce allows users to define
different types of relationships by creating custom relationship fields on
an object.

6. What can cause data loss in Salesforce?

Data loss in Salesforce can be caused by a number of reasons, including:

  Changing data and date-time.

 Migrating to percent, number, and currency from other data types.

 Changing from the multi-select picklist, checkbox, auto number to other

types.

 Altering to multi-select picklist from any type except picklist.

 Changing to auto-number except for text.

 Changing from text-area to e-mail, phone, URL, and text.

7. How is SaaS beneficial to Salesforce?

SaaS is subscription-based, so clients can choose not to renew and

discontinue using the program at any time without penalty other than not
being able to use Salesforce. SaaS is intended to help users avoid heavy
initial startup fees and investments. SaaS applications use a simple
Internet interface supported by easy integration.

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8. How does Salesforce track sales?

Salesforce is a tracking program that records a number of helpful basic

details, such as:

 Number of customers served daily

 Daily sales volume

 Detailed reports from Sales Manager

 Sales figures by month or quarter

 Most importantly, Salesforce tracks and reports repeat customer

activity, which is the key to any sales organization.

9. How many types of relationships are offered by

Salesforce.com?

Salesforce recognizes two relationship types: Master-detail relationships

and Lookup relationships.

10. What is the trigger?

The trigger is the code that is executed before or after the record is
updated or inserted.

11. What is the difference between Trigger and Workflow?

This is one of the most frequently asked Salesforce interview question.

Workflow is an automated process that fires an action based on evaluation
criteria and rule criteria. As described above, Trigger is the code that is
executed on or after the record is updated or inserted.

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12. What is a static resource in Salesforce?

With Salesforce’s static resource, subscribers can upload zip files, images,
jar files, JavaScript, and CSS files that can be referred in a Visualforce
page. The optimum size of static resources in Salesforce is 250 MB.

13. What is the difference between Force.com and

Salesforce.com?

Force.com is Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), while Salesforce.com

is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

14. Is there a limit for data.com records?

Salesforce users can see their limit form setup easily by simply clicking
data.com administration/Users. From the data.com users section, the
users can see their monthly limit and exactly how many records are
exported during the month.
15. What are the three types of object relations in Salesforce?

The three types of object relations in Salesforce are:

 One-to-many

 Many-to-many

 Master-detail

The relation types are quite logical once the user becomes familiar with
the software program.

16. What are the different types of reports available in Salesforce?

The different types of reports in Salesforce are:

 Tabular report that displays the grand total in table form

 Matrix report where grouping is based upon both rows and

columns

 Summary reports are detailed reports in which the grouping is

based on columns.

 Joined report which allows two or more reports to be joined in a

single report

17. Is it possible to schedule a dynamic dashboard in Salesforce?

In Salesforce, it is not possible to schedule a dynamic dashboard.

18. What is the junction object and what purpose does it serve?

Junction objects are used to build many-to-many relationships between

objects. For example, the user can take a recruiting application where a
position for a job can be linked to many candidates or can link a candidate
to many other jobs. In order to connect the data model, a third party
object is referred to as a junction object. In the given example, the
junction object is “job application.”

19. What is an Audit Trail?

The Audit Trail function in Salesforce is useful for gaining information or

for tracking all the recent setup changes that the administration has done
in the organization. The audit trail can preserve data for up to six months.

20. Explain the Salesforce dashboard?

In Salesforce, the dashboard is a pictorial representation of the report. 20

reports can be added to a single dashboard.

21. What is the difference between SOQL and SOSL?

SOQL is Salesforce Object Query Language and SOSL is Salesforce Object

Search Language. If you are sensing that Salesforce is a culture unto
itself, you are correct!

What is a Wrapper Class?

A Wrapper Class is a class whose instances are a collection of other

objects and is used to display different objects on a Visualforce page in
the same table.

23. What is the sharing rule?

The sharing rules are applied when a user wishes to allow access to other
users.

24. What are some benefits of using Salesforce?

Salesforce comes with a number of benefits. The most major ones are:
  Helps to understand the needs of the customer

 Provides a single communication platform for all the team

members of a project

 Reporting is quick and seamless

 Has a very high degree of adaptability

 Very easy to manage

 Can integrate with countless apps (eg: Dataloader, Mailchimp,

Ebsta)

What is an object in Salesforce?

An object is a database table that contains data specific to an organization

(columns are fields and rows are records). There are two types of objects
in Salesforce - custom object and standard object.

 Standard object - A standard object is created by default in

Salesforce. Eg: Contact, Account, and Lead.

 Custom object - A custom object is created by the user and can

contain any information that the user wants. Eg: You can create a
custom “Location” object to store information about the location
of various branches of a company.

26. What is the difference between static and dynamic

dashboards?

Static dashboards are the default dashboards which are visible to any
user. You can use it to show organizational-wide data to a set of users.

Dynamic dashboards display data tailored for a specific user. You can use
it to show one user’s specific data, such as the number of sales closed,
leads converted, etc.

27. What do you mean by governor limits?

Governor limits control how much data can be stored on a shared
database. They help to ensure that no one monopolizes the shared
resources (Storage, CPU, Memory).

Here are some few examples of governor limits in Salesforce:

 Maximum CPU time on the Salesforce servers - 10,000ms

 Total number of sendEmail methods allowed - 10

 Total number of records retrieved by a SOQL query - 50,000

 Total number of callouts in a transaction - 100

28. What are some things that you can do to prevent governor
limits?

Here are some best practices you can follow to ensure that a code does
not hit the governor limits.

 Bulkify your Code

 Use @future Appropriately

 Don’t make any SOQL, DML operation inside a loop

 Queue large datasets

 Use batch apex for more than 50,000 records

29. What happens to master-detail and lookup relationships when

a record is deleted?

In a master-detail relationship, all the details are deleted when the master
record is deleted. However, in a lookup relationship, the child record
remains even when the parent record is deleted.

30. What do you mean by a sandbox in Salesforce?

In this salesforce interview question, the interviewer expects a thorough
answer. Try giving as detailed answer as you can to prove your salesforce
knowledge. A sandbox is an exact replica of a database that can be used
for testing and development. It is very helpful because it allows you to
test out new ideas on the duplicate database without disturbing the
original one.

There are four types of sandboxes in Salesforce:

 Developer Sandbox - It contains a copy of the production org’s

metadata and is intended for both development and testing in an
isolated environment.

 Developer Pro Sandbox - It performs the same function as the

developer sandbox, but can contain larger datasets.

 Partialcopy sandbox - It is intended to be used only as a testing

environment. It contains a sample of the production org’s data
and its metadata.

 Full sandbox - It is intended to be used only as a testing

environment. It contains all the data of the production org,
including objects, attachments and metadata.

31. How can you edit apex classes in a production environment?

You cannot edit apex classes directly in a production environment. It

needs to be first done in the sandbox, then deployed in production where
a user with Author Apex permission can make the changes.

32State the important features of Salesforce.

 Contact management: Easier contact management via access to

interaction history and customers' critical data.

 Opportunity management: Enables users to view the activity

timeline of their customers, representing several stages of a deal
for taking the next move.
  Quote management: In-built quoting mechanism that quotes
client data tracking the deal products, including their standard
price, quantity, product code, and price.

 Lead management: An activity timeline providing access to up-to-

date contacts. The CRM app is a quick lead converter machine
informing its users about the lead's original source.

 Sales data: Provides accurate sales data at the right time and a
faster connection with key decision-makers.

 Mobility: The mobile app allows users to access CRM data

conveniently.

 Workflow and approvals: Enables visual workflow for rapid

designing and automating business processes via drag-drop
ability. Users can manage flexible approval processes for
expenses or discounts.

 File sync and share: Ease of sharing, discussing, and publishing

content in real-time.

 Dynamic dashboards and custom reports: Users gain a real-time

picture of their business performance in the market. They can
also build their custom dashboard via drag and drop icons, adjust
the fields, and view data with filters. Charts give real-time data
for the latest insights.

 Sales forecasting: Tracks leads' journey and gives forecasting on

sales by analyzing them.

33. What is an App in Salesforce?

An App is a logical container holding various details pertaining to the

company like the name, logo, business operations, and more. The user
can customize apps to suit their needs or develop new apps by combining
standard and custom tabs. The following process is for creating an app in
Salesforce: Setup → Build → Create → App → Click on new.
34. What are the different types of apps you can use in
Salesforce?

 Custom app: Suitable for business owners to build apps that cater
to business requirements from time to time.

 Console app: Suitable only for a client service business, where the
main focus is on tackling the client's issues. It is comparatively
less used in the market.

35. State the main differences between role and profile.

Role Profile

Sets the limitation for what a

Defines data visibility for a user. user can do in an
organization.

Defines what user data a user can see based

Defines permissions.
on the hierarchy.

Mandatory to define a
Not mandatory
profile.

36. What is a profile in Salesforce? Can two different users have

the same profile?

A profile is a collection of permissions and settings that define all a user

can do in Salesforce, giving them the authority to access certain records.
There are various profiles, such as a sales profile, that can access
contacts, leads, campaigns, and more.

People under a department can have the same profiles. For instance,
several people are assigned the same sales profile in a sales department.
So, any number of people can have the same profile.

37. What do you understand about the Master-Detail relationship

in Salesforce?

Master-Detail is a relationship between a child and a parent where the

parent is the master, and the detail represents a child. It is useful to
control the display of detail records based on the value in the master
record.

The master object has complete control over the Detail object behavior.
Also, the child's survival depends on the parent because if the parent gets
deleted, the child will automatically get deleted. Creating Roll-up
summary fields in master records calculates the child records' SUM, MIN,
and AVG.

38. What do you understand about workflow in Salesforce?

Workflow allows automation of standard internal processes for saving time

across an organization. It helps in evaluating records as they are created
or updated. It also determines whether an automated action must occur,
such as functions like follow-up emails, marketing activities, tracking the
customer map journey, and more.

A workflow rule is a container for various workflow instructions, usually

summed up in an if/then statement.

39. What are the key benefits of the Salesforce CRM?

  Communication: Salesforce Einstein Bots help automatically
respond to chats on time and avoid delay.

 Data syncing: Data syncing from other applications like

MailChimp and G Suite helps avoid the challenges of moving from
one software to another. The Salesforce mobile app allows data
tracking anytime and anywhere.

 Data analytics tools: Salesforce's Einstein Analytics provides

insights for users to address the changing data instantly. It has
several reporting tools and dashboards for data collection and
work.

 Track customer activity: The user can understand the customer's

journey via the sales cloud for easier access to their background
and behavior.

 Provide assistance via chat: The service cloud's live agent

provides a chatbox depending on the customer interaction and
followers on the web page.

 Consistent engagement: The gathered data in Salesforce's CRM

allows the creation of consistent marketing campaigns for current
customers.

 Building apps: Force.com simplifies building and customizing apps

for any device.

40. What is Apex in Salesforce?

Apex is a strongly typed OOP language that allows developers to execute

transaction control statements and flow on Salesforce platform servers in
conjunction with calls to the API. Its syntax is similar to Java and serves as
database stored procedures. The code can be initiated via triggers on
objects and requests from web services, and they run on the Lightning
platform.

Apex enables developers to incorporate business logic to system events,

including button clicks, Visualforce pages, and related record updates.
41. What are Permission sets?

Permission sets are a collection of permissions/settings useful for giving

the user access to numerous functions and tools. Permission sets can be
used for various users to extend their functional access without altering
their profiles. So, one can create a permission set instead of a separate
profile every time.

42. What is the Force.com platform?

Force.com is the framework and codebase for the Salesforce application.

It is a Platform as a Service (PaaS), allowing users to simplify the design
and deployment of cloud-based websites and applications. Developers
working on the Cloud IDE can deploy the applications on the servers of
Force.com.

43. What are the various components of the Salesforce

dashboard?

Some important components of the Salesforce dashboard are:

 Gauge: Displays a single value from a custom value range.

 Visualforce page: Helps in forming a custom component as a

display of information unavailable in other component types.

 Metric: Shows a single pair of key–values.

 Table: Displays report data in list form.

 Charts: Provide comparisons and are divided into six types: line
chart, horizontal bar chart, vertical bar chart, donut, funnel, and
pie.

44. What do you understand about validation rules in Salesforce?

Validation rules comprise a formula/expressions for evaluating the data in
one or more fields in a record for meeting the standards one specifies
before the user saves the record. Based on the data evaluation, the result
is a "True" or "False" value.

They display an error message to the user if the condition is "True" due to
an invalid value.

These rules are helpful for the enforcement of integrity constraints against
the data. If a rule fails, Salesforce proceeds to check other validation
rules. One can create validation rules for objects, fields, case milestones,
or campaign members.

45. What is Visualforce in Force.com?

Visualforce is the UI for the Force.com platform, allowing developers to

create sophisticated, custom UI suitable for native hosting on the
Lightning platform.

Its framework has a tag-based markup language and standard server-side

controllers for basic database operations like queries. Every Visualforce
tag corresponds to a UI component such as a field, related list, or page
section.

Visualforce works on the standard MVC model. A developer can control its
components by utilizing the logic used in standard Salesforce pages. They
can also associate their own logic written in Apex with a controller class.

46 What are record types in Salesforce?

Record types allow you to associate different business processes and

present various page layouts and picklist values to users based on the
user profile.
Administrators can associate record types with user profiles.
Consequently, different users can see different page layouts and picklist
values in the record's detail page. The two prominent benefits of record
types are as follows:

 They modify user interaction experience as per business needs.

 Allow simple administration as there are fewer fields to maintain.

47. What are page layouts in Salesforce?

Page layouts control the layout and organization of fields, buttons,

Visualforce, custom links, and related lists on object record pages. They
help organize user interface pages by determining which custom links,
fields, and related lists are required, read-only, and visible to the user.

For a customized experience, one can create multiple page layouts and
apply them to various user groups.

48. What are the different types of Apex triggers in Salesforce?

The two main types of Apex triggers are as follows:

 Before triggers: For updating and validating record values before

they are saved to the database.

trigger TriggerName on ObjectName(before event) //Here event can be

insert, update or delete

code_block

}
  After triggers: For accessing field values of the records set by the
system and stored in the database. You can use these field values
for making changes in other records.

trigger TriggerName on ObjectName(after event) //Here event can be

insert, update or delete

code_block

49 What do you understand about the term fiscal year or

economical year in Salesforce?

The economical or fiscal year is a time period used for calculating annual
financial statements. It is based on a company's financial year's starting
and ending date. The business that Salesforce conducts and the
Salesforce revenue are considered. The two types of economical years in
Salesforce are:

 Normal or standard fiscal year: It follows the Gregorian calendar

for estimations and has a 12-month structure. It can begin with
the first day of a month of your choice belonging to a particular
year.

 Custom fiscal year: It is applicable for the companies following

weekly or quarterly financial planning.

50. What is a skinny table, and what are the major considerations
for a skinny table?

Skinny tables are useful in accessing the frequently used fields while
avoiding joins. They enhance the performance of certain read-only
operations like reports, list views, and more. They are highly effective as
they stay in sync with source tables even in case of a modification in the
source table.

Without contacting Salesforce customer support, one cannot create,

access, or modify skinny tables.

The major considerations for skinny tables are as follows:

 It can contain a maximum of 100 columns.

 It is incapable of holding fields from other objects.

51. What are the different ways to share a record?

 Role hierarchy: When a user is added to a role, all users above

the current user in the role hierarchy have access to reading and
sharing the records and inheriting permissions. The steps for role
hierarchy are:

Setup → Manage Users → roles → set up roles and click on 'add role', →
create a name and click on save.

 OWD: Organization-Wide Defaults allow you to define an

organization's baseline setting and give permissions to the
organization-wide. It helps define a user's accessibility level
where they can view other users' records. For OWD, follow these
steps:

Setup → Security Controls → click on 'sharing settings' → Edit.

 Manual sharing: For sharing a single record/file to a particular

user/group of users via manual access. A button is available on
the detail page of the record when the OWD setting is private.

 Criteria based sharing rules: We have to share records based on

conditions. For instance, share records with a user/group with the
criteria of the country- India. The steps for sharing are:
Setup → security controls → sharing settings → select the object, provide
name and conditions, and then click on save.

 Apex sharing: One can share every object in Salesforce by

creating a record for the shared object.

52. What do you understand about the Future

annotation(@future)?

Future annotations specify methods that are executed asynchronously.

These methods with future annotation should be static and can only
return a void type. The arguments mentioned should be primitive data
types/collections of primitive data types/ arrays of primitive data types.

A method specified with @future annotation will be executed once

Salesforce has available resources.

53. Explain the types of SOQL statements in Salesforce.

The Salesforce Object Query Language or SOQL is employed in querying

the records from database.com as and when required. The two types of
SOQL statements are as follows:

 Static SOQL: It is written using [] (array brackets) and is similar to

IINQ (Ion Integrated Query). It is suitable when there are no
dynamic changes in the SOQL query.

 Dynamic SOQL: It is suitable for referring to the SOQL string

creation at run time with Apex code. It allows the creation of
more flexible applications. For instance, you can create a search
based on updated records or end-user input with varying field
names.

54. What are the various types of email templates available in

Salesforce?
  Text: All the users in an organization have access to creating or
changing these templates.

 HTML with letterhead: Users with the "Edit HTML Templates"

permission and administrators can create these templates based
on a letterhead.

 Custom HTML: These are an extension of HTML with a letterhead.

Administrators and users with "Edit HTML Templates" permissions
can create them without using the letterhead.

 Visualforce: Administrators and developers can create them using

Visualforce. They have advanced functionalities such as merging
with a recipient's data.

55. What is Salesforce Lightning?

Salesforce Lightning is a component-based application development

framework with a collection of tools and technologies for effectively
increasing the Salesforce platform performance. The tools include visual
upgrades, optimized interfaces, and more. It simplifies processes for
business users who have no programming experience.

It allows easy and quick creation of applications that solve business issues
and enhance engagement. Some key features are:

 Provides a drag-drop facility for app creation and customization.

 Has tools and extensions for the development of reusable

components.

 AppExchange for over 50 partner components.

 Has style guides and provides user experience practices for app
development.

 Lightning Connect is an integration tool for applications of

Force.com to consume data from an external source that meets
the OData specification.
56. State two examples of Salesforce API and their usage.

Salesforce has several APIs for developers to interact with the system.
Examples of Salesforce API are:

 Streaming: The Streaming API is useful for triggering and

receiving notifications when a change is made to Salesforce data
according to the defined SOQL query criteria. It can be used to
push notifications from the server to the client based on defined
criteria.

 Bulk: It provides programmatic access for quick loading and

querying a huge amount of data into your Salesforce
organization.