- What the SCAA Certification Validates
- Exam Format and Registration Mechanics
- The Seven Domains at a Glance
- Where the Points Are: Security and Process Automation
- Objects and Applications Deep Dive
- Cloud Applications and Data Management
- Auditing, Monitoring, and Deployment
- The Summer '22 Version Caveat
- Prerequisites and Staying Certified
- Who Hires for This Credential
- Sequencing Your Preparation by Domain
- Frequently Asked Questions
- SCAA here means Salesforce Certified Platform Administrator II, an advanced credential built on the base Platform Administrator certification.
- The exam has 60 scored questions plus up to five unscored, a 105-minute limit, and a 65% passing score.
- Security and Access and Process Automation each carry 20% of the exam, making them the biggest scoring opportunities.
- Registration costs US$200 plus taxes; a retake costs US$100 plus taxes.
What the SCAA Certification Validates
The Salesforce Certified Platform Administrator II credential, referred to throughout this site as SCAA, is Salesforce's advanced administrator exam. Where the first Administrator certification confirms that you can configure and maintain an org, the Administrator II exam checks whether you can handle the harder, more judgment-heavy work: designing layered security models, building multi-step automation that behaves predictably, managing data quality at scale, and moving changes safely between environments.
If you are new to the acronym itself, our explainers on what SCAA certification is and what SCAA stands for cover the naming basics. This article focuses on the certification as a whole: its structure, its content, and what it takes to earn and keep it.
Salesforce describes the candidate as someone with significant hands-on Salesforce Administrator experience who has completed Administer, Extend, and Automate Salesforce (ADX211) or has equivalent experience and knowledge. That framing matters. The exam is not a vocabulary test. It rewards people who have actually untangled a sharing problem or debugged a flow that fired in an unexpected order.
Exam Format and Registration Mechanics
The exam consists of 60 multiple-choice and multiple-select questions, and Salesforce notes that up to five additional unscored questions may appear. You will not be told which ones are unscored, so treat every question as if it counts. You have 105 minutes, which works out to a little under two minutes per scored question, a comfortable pace if you do not stall on scenario-heavy items.
| Exam Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Governing body | Salesforce |
| Question count | 60 scored (multiple-choice/multiple-select) plus up to 5 unscored |
| Time limit | 105 minutes |
| Passing score | 65% |
| Registration fee | US$200 plus applicable taxes |
| Retake fee | US$100 plus applicable taxes |
| Delivery | Pearson OnVUE online proctoring or Pearson VUE testing center |
| Prerequisite | Salesforce Certified Platform Administrator |
| Reference materials | None permitted (no hard-copy or online references) |
Exams are delivered through the Trailhead Academy and Pearson VUE certification experience. You can sit the exam remotely under OnVUE online proctoring or in person at a Pearson VUE testing center. Either way, it is a closed-book exam: no notes, no documentation tabs, no help articles. For a full breakdown of what you will spend, see our SCAA certification cost guide, and for the arithmetic behind the cut line, read about the SCAA passing score.
The Seven Domains at a Glance
Salesforce publishes seven weighted domains in the official exam outline. Memorize these weights, because they tell you where to invest your hours.
| Domain | Weight |
|---|---|
| Security and Access | 20% |
| Process Automation | 20% |
| Objects and Applications | 19% |
| Data and Analytics Management | 13% |
| Cloud Applications | 11% |
| Auditing and Monitoring | 10% |
| Environment Management and Deployment | 7% |
Three domains, Security and Access, Process Automation, and Objects and Applications, account for 59% of the exam combined. A candidate who is rock solid on those three has a major head start. For a domain-by-domain walkthrough, see our complete guide to all seven SCAA content areas.
Where the Points Are: Security and Access and Process Automation
Security and Access (20%)
This domain is tied for the largest on the exam, and it is rarely about memorizing a setting. It is about reasoning through layers. The official objectives cover record and field access, profiles, permission sets, delegated administration, and authentication.
Security and Access: What You Must Master
Expect scenarios where a user cannot see or edit something and you must identify which layer is responsible.
- Record-level access: organization-wide defaults, role hierarchy, sharing rules, manual sharing, and how they open up access rather than restrict it
- Field-level security and how it interacts with page layouts
- Profiles versus permission sets, and when to grant access through each
- Delegated administration: what delegated admins can and cannot manage
- Authentication options, including login policies and how they affect user access
- Sensitive-data controls, a theme that also surfaces in the objectives for protecting regulated information
The recurring trap: candidates reach for a sharing rule when the real culprit is a field-level restriction, or vice versa. Always ask first whether the problem is about seeing the record, seeing the field, or performing the action.
Process Automation (20%)
The other 20% domain is declarative automation, and the official objectives specifically include the order of execution. This is the area where hands-on experience pays off most, because exam scenarios describe an automation that misbehaves and ask you to diagnose why.
Process Automation: What You Must Master
Know what each automation tool can do, what it cannot, and what happens when several fire on the same record save.
- The order of execution for a record save, including where validation rules, flows, and workflow-style actions fall relative to one another
- Choosing between flow types for a given business requirement
- Approval processes, including submission, routing, and recall behavior
- Validation rules versus automation that updates the same fields
- Recursion and unintended re-triggering when one automation updates a record another depends on
Objects and Applications Deep Dive
At 19%, Objects and Applications is the third pillar. The official objectives include the account and contact models, object relationships, and UI/UX configuration. This is where the data model meets the user experience.
Objects and Applications: High-Value Topics
Questions here often present a business requirement and ask which relationship or model fits.
- Account and contact models, including how contacts relate to multiple accounts and when to use each approach
- Lookup versus master-detail relationships and the consequences for sharing, deletion, and roll-up summaries
- Many-to-many modeling through junction objects
- Lightning page and record page configuration, including dynamic behavior
- Console and app design decisions that affect how teams work day to day
One practical tip: when a question describes a relationship, check what must happen when the parent record is deleted or its owner changes. Those downstream effects usually separate the correct relationship type from the tempting wrong one.
Cloud Applications and Data Management
Cloud Applications (11%)
This domain tests breadth across Salesforce's product areas. The official objectives reference Sales capabilities such as forecasting and territory management, Salesforce Knowledge and entitlements, and Service and Experience Cloud capabilities. Current Salesforce materials also list Agentforce Sales and Agentforce Service capabilities within the broader objectives, so be comfortable with how the AI-assisted features in those clouds are positioned alongside classic functionality.
- Forecasting setup and how territory management shapes record access and reporting
- Knowledge article lifecycle and entitlement-driven support processes
- Experience Cloud site capabilities and how external users get access
- How Service-side features like case management connect to the rest of the org
Data and Analytics Management (13%)
The objectives here include data quality, reporting and analytics, external data access, and imports. Think of this domain as keeping an org's information trustworthy and usable.
Data and Analytics: What Gets Tested
Scenarios center on choosing the right tool and preventing bad data from entering in the first place.
- Duplicate management and data-quality controls
- Choosing the right import tool for the volume and complexity of a load
- Report types, joined reports, and dashboard filtering behavior
- External data access options and when each is appropriate
Auditing, Monitoring, and Deployment
These two domains are the smallest, together about 17% of the exam, but they are far from throwaway. Auditing and Monitoring (10%) covers audit and monitoring tools: knowing which log or trail answers a given question about who changed what and when. Environment Management and Deployment (7%) covers sandboxes, change sets, and AppExchange deployment.
- Which monitoring tool reveals setup changes versus login activity versus field history
- Sandbox types and what each is meant for, including how refresh affects data
- Change set mechanics: what can and cannot be included, and the dependency pitfalls
- Evaluating and deploying AppExchange packages responsibly
Key Takeaway
Do not skip the small domains because the weights look low. At 7% and 10%, these are the fastest points to lock in, since the content is narrower and more factual than the scenario-heavy domains.
The Summer '22 Version Caveat
A detail worth knowing before you build a study plan: the current official Platform Administrator II exam guide still states that exam questions align to the Summer '22 release. Salesforce continues to list the certification as active in its 2026 materials, and no newer public exam-outline version was located in the official sources. The seven weighted domains are authoritative, but the version statement itself is stale relative to today's product.
What does this mean in practice? Study the concepts in the official exam guide first, since those define what is tested. Where current Salesforce features have evolved, treat the current Salesforce documentation as helpful context, but let the exam guide's objectives set your priorities. Always check the official exam guide directly before you register, in case Salesforce updates it.
Prerequisites and Staying Certified
You cannot sit this exam cold. The prerequisite is the Salesforce Certified Platform Administrator certification, so you must hold the base credential first. Our SCAA requirements guide walks through eligibility in more detail.
Earning the credential is not the finish line. Salesforce certifications require maintenance, and the current exam guide states that the Administrator certification maintenance badge must be completed three times a year. If required maintenance is not completed, the certification expires. Build this into your calendar the moment you pass, since the maintenance modules are short but the consequences of ignoring them are real.
For timing questions about when and where you can test, see our SCAA exam dates guide.
Who Hires for This Credential
The Administrator II credential signals that you operate above the entry level of Salesforce administration. Employers that run complex orgs, such as those with multiple clouds, layered security models, heavy automation, and regular releases between sandboxes and production, tend to value it most. Typical roles where it strengthens a candidacy include senior Salesforce administrator, Salesforce systems administrator, business systems analyst, and Salesforce consultant positions on the admin side of an implementation partner.
The certification also pairs well with other Salesforce credentials as you move toward architecture or consulting tracks. For a look at open roles, see our overview of SCAA jobs. If you are weighing the investment, the ROI analysis and salary guide examine the earnings picture qualitatively, since compensation varies widely by region, employer, and experience.
Sequencing Your Preparation by Domain
Rather than a generic schedule, sequence your preparation around how the domains depend on one another. Security concepts underpin almost everything else, so learn them first. Automation questions often assume you already understand objects and relationships, so cover the data model before diving deep into flows.
Security and Access
- Rebuild the access model from organization-wide defaults upward
- Practice diagnosing "user cannot see/edit" scenarios layer by layer
- Review authentication and delegated administration
Objects and Applications
- Drill relationship types and their sharing and deletion consequences
- Work through account and contact model scenarios
- Review Lightning page and UI configuration
Process Automation
- Memorize the order of execution and trace multi-automation examples
- Compare flow types and approval process behavior
- Practice predicting final field values after several automations fire
Data, Clouds, Auditing, and Deployment
- Cover data quality, imports, reports, and external data access
- Skim Sales, Service, Knowledge, and Experience Cloud objectives
- Lock in audit tools, sandbox types, and change set rules
Finish with timed practice under closed-book conditions, since that is exactly how you will be tested. Our SCAA study guide expands on this plan, and the SCAA cheat sheet gives you a compact review for the final days. If you are gauging readiness, how hard the SCAA exam is sets realistic expectations. You can also test yourself with realistic questions on our SCAA practice test site, which is designed to mirror the scenario-based style of the real exam.
Frequently Asked Questions
On scaaexam.com, SCAA refers specifically to the Salesforce Certified Platform Administrator II certification. It is the advanced follow-on to the base Salesforce Certified Platform Administrator credential and is governed by Salesforce.
The exam has 60 multiple-choice and multiple-select questions, plus up to five unscored questions. You have 105 minutes to complete it, and you need a 65% score to pass.
Registration is US$200 plus applicable taxes. If you need to retake it, the retake fee is US$100 plus applicable taxes. Check the official Salesforce certification page for the latest pricing before you register.
Security and Access and Process Automation are tied at 20% each, followed by Objects and Applications at 19%. Together they make up 59% of the exam, so they deserve the largest share of your study time.
Yes, it requires maintenance. The current exam guide states the Administrator certification maintenance badge must be completed three times a year, and the certification expires if the required maintenance is not completed.