Plat-Arch-201 Salesforce Certified Platform Data Architect Practice Questions
Prepare for Plat-Arch-201 with more than an answer.
- Exam fee
- $400 USD
- Level
- Architect
- Valid for
- Maintained through release-based maintenance modules
Domains covered on the exam 6
- Data Modeling / Database Design25%
- Salesforce Data Management25%
- Large Data Volume Considerations20%
- Data Migration15%
- Data Governance10%
- Master Data Management5%
- 1
A company is planning to archive 50 million old 'Case' records to an external data warehouse to reduce storage costs. However, they still need to view these archived cases within the Salesforce Case related list on the Account record. Which solution provides this capability with the LEAST custom development?
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Correct answer: B
Salesforce Connect allows external data to be represented as External Objects. By using an Indirect Lookup relationship (matching an external column to a unique custom field on Account, like Legacy_ID__c), the external records can appear in the related list of the Account object. This requires configuration, not custom code.
- 2
Which TWO actions are critical when preparing for a data migration of 5 million records into a Salesforce org to ensure data integrity and performance? (Select TWO)
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Correct answer: A, C
For large data volumes, calculating sharing rules during insertion slows down the process significantly. Deferring sharing allows the data to be loaded quickly, with sharing rules processed asynchronously afterwards.
Using External IDs is crucial for idempotent loads (allowing upserts) and for maintaining relationships between records without needing Salesforce IDs beforehand.
- 3
A Data Architect is designing a solution for a company that needs to store high-volume IoT sensor data (1 billion records/year). The data is write-heavy and rarely read, but must be available for audit within Salesforce. The architect decides to use Big Objects. Which TWO limitations must be considered when querying Big Objects? (Select TWO)
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Correct answer: C, D
Big Object SOQL is restrictive; it does not support LIKE, wildcards, or complex logic that isn't based on the index keys. For complex queries, Async SOQL must be used.
Standard SOQL on Big Objects requires that the query filter matches the defined index fields in the exact order they were defined. You cannot filter by non-indexed fields using standard SOQL.
- 4
A global financial services firm is architecting a Salesforce solution to manage high-net-worth individual (HNWI) client relationships. The data model requires a 'Financial_Account__c' object to store sensitive account details, which must be linked to the 'Account' object representing the client. The security team mandates that access to 'Financial_Account__c' records must be strictly controlled; sharing rules should not automatically grant access based on the parent Account's ownership. However, for reporting purposes, the system must support roll-up summaries of 'Total_Assets__c' on the Account record. Which data modeling approach satisfies these conflicting requirements?
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Correct answer: A
A Master-Detail relationship forces the child record to inherit the sharing settings of the parent, which violates the security requirement that access be strictly controlled independent of the parent Account. Standard Roll-up Summary fields are only available on Master-Detail relationships. Therefore, to satisfy the security requirement (Lookup relationship for independent security) and the reporting requirement (Roll-up), the architect must use a Lookup relationship and implement the roll-up logic via a Trigger or Declarative Flow.
- 5
A telecommunications company uses Salesforce to track customer support tickets. They have accumulated 30 million 'Support_Log__c' records over the past five years. The Support team reports that reports filtering by 'Log_Date__c' and 'Status__c' have started timing out. The 'Support_Log__c' object is a custom object. An architect confirms that 'Log_Date__c' is already indexed. What advanced performance optimization technique should be evaluated next to improve query performance specifically for this custom object without archiving data off-platform?
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Correct answer: B
Skinny tables are a powerful performance optimization tool for custom objects with large data volumes (LDV). They improve performance by avoiding joins (combining fields from the main storage table and the custom field table) and by excluding soft-deleted records. Since the object has millions of records and standard indexing is insufficient, a skinny table is the next logical on-platform optimization step.
- 6
A manufacturing company is migrating 5 million Order History records from a legacy ERP to Salesforce. The migration window is limited to 8 hours. The target object 'Order_History__c' has a Master-Detail relationship to the 'Account' object. The source data is sorted chronologically. During the initial test load using Bulk API 2.0 in Parallel mode, the architect observes frequent 'UNABLE_TO_LOCK_ROW' errors. What is the most effective strategy to resolve these locking errors while maintaining high throughput?
flowchart TD A[Start Migration] --> B{Check Mode} B -- Parallel --> C[Batches Processed Simultaneously] C --> D{Parent Locked?} D -- Yes --> E[Lock Row Error] D -- No --> F[Success] B -- Serial --> G[Batches Processed Sequentially] G --> H[Slower Throughput]Show answer details
Correct answer: D
The 'UNABLE_TO_LOCK_ROW' error in parallel mode occurs because multiple batches are trying to update child records belonging to the same parent Account simultaneously, causing contention on the parent record lock. Sorting the CSV by Parent Account ID ensures that all child records for a specific parent are grouped into the same batch (or sequential batches), virtually eliminating lock contention while still allowing parallel processing of batches for different parents.
