Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:
- Describe the information stored in company settings, including the fiscal year model, business hours and holidays, single and multi-currency management, and the org-wide default locale, language, and time zone.
- Distinguish between the declarative tools used to configure the user interface, including Lightning Apps, navigation styles, themes, page layouts, Lightning record pages, and dynamic forms, and explain which tool fits which requirement.
- Given a scenario, demonstrate the proper setup and maintenance of users, including selecting the correct license type, choosing between deactivating and freezing, and delegating administration responsibilities.
- Explain the various organization-wide security controls available to an administrator, including the Setup Audit Trail, login hours, login IP ranges, session settings, password policies, MFA configuration, and Salesforce Health Check.
- Given a user request scenario, apply the appropriate security controls based on the Salesforce sharing model, covering public groups, org-wide defaults, role hierarchy, sharing rules, manual sharing, team sharing, and report and dashboard folder sharing.
- Given a scenario, determine the appropriate use of a custom profile, permission set, permission set group, role, or user alias to grant or restrict the right access without disturbing the baseline security posture.
Executive Summary
- The org-wide settings define the identity of the Salesforce tenant: a single fiscal calendar, one corporate currency (with optional secondary currencies), one set of business hours per support process, and one combination of locale, language, and time zone applied as a default to every new user.
- Declarative UI configuration is layered: a Lightning App contains tabs and a utility bar; a Lightning record page composes components (including dynamic forms, related lists, and highlights panels); a page layout still controls field detail behaviour where dynamic forms are not in use; record types swap picklist values and the visible page layout per business process.
- The user record is the security anchor: it carries the license, the profile, optional permission sets and permission set groups, the role for record visibility, and the alias that appears on reports and approval messages.
- Organization-wide security controls operate above any individual record: they decide who can log in, from where, during which hours, after how much inactivity, and with what authentication factors. The Setup Audit Trail records who changed those controls.
- The Salesforce sharing model is built in fixed layers: org-wide defaults set the most-restrictive baseline, then access is opened upward through role hierarchy, sharing rules, manual sharing, team sharing, and (for reports and dashboards) folder sharing. Profiles and permission sets control object and field access; the sharing model controls record visibility.
Assumptions
- The reader has approximately six months of hands-on Salesforce administration experience and can find any feature inside Setup using the Quick Find box.
- All references are to Lightning Experience. Salesforce Classic is mentioned only where the exam still tests it (for example, when distinguishing page layouts from Lightning record pages).
- The org is assumed to be a Production org running the Enterprise Edition or higher unless a different edition is named explicitly; some features (custom profiles, sharing rules on standard objects, delegated administration) are unavailable in lower editions.
- Sample object and user names are fictional (
Acme Logistics,Northwind Health,Riley Carter) and are reused consistently throughout the chapter. - Workflow Rules and Process Builder are retired tools; every automation reference uses Flow Builder. The cert positions Flow as the only supported low-code automation tool.