Salesforce interview questions with answers and including real-world scenarios

 a curated list of Salesforce interview questions with answers organized by concepts and including real-world scenarios to help demonstrate your problem-solving skills during an interview.

1. General Salesforce Questions

Q1: What is Salesforce, and what are its key features?

Answer:
Salesforce is a cloud-based CRM platform that helps organizations manage customer data, automate workflows, and improve sales, marketing, and service processes.
Key Features:

• Multi-tenancy
• Customization (Objects, Fields, Visualforce, Lightning)
• Automation tools (Workflows, Process Builder, Flows)
• AI capabilities (Einstein Analytics)
• Integration APIs (REST, SOAP, Bulk)

Scenario:
Imagine you're asked to implement Salesforce for a retail business. How would it help?

• Use Sales Cloud to manage leads and opportunities.
• Use Service Cloud for customer complaints and case tracking.
• Automate follow-ups for abandoned carts using Marketing Cloud.

2. Salesforce Administration

Q2: What are profiles and permission sets, and how are they used?

Answer:

• Profiles: Define base-level access to objects, fields, and tabs.
• Permission Sets: Grant additional access beyond the profile.

Scenario:
A user needs access to create leads but has a profile without this permission. What would you do?

• Assign a Permission Set with "Create" access on the Lead object to the user instead of modifying the profile.

Q3: How do you handle record access for external users in a Salesforce community?

Answer:

• Use Sharing Sets to grant access based on the user’s role and related account.
• Leverage Guest User profiles for public data.

Scenario:
A partner community allows distributors to view only their orders. How do you configure it?

• Create a Sharing Rule that shares orders where the Account matches the distributor’s account.

3. Salesforce Automation

Q4: What are the differences between Workflow Rules, Process Builder, and Flows?

Answer:

• Workflow Rules: Trigger simple field updates, tasks, and email alerts.
• Process Builder: Can handle multiple criteria and invoke Flows or Apex.
• Flows: Automate complex processes with user interactions and integrations.

Scenario:
You need to send a reminder email to customers 3 days before their subscription expires.

• Use a Scheduled Flow to evaluate the expiration date and send an email alert.

4. Data Management

Q5: What are the different types of Salesforce relationships?

Answer:

• Lookup Relationship: Links two objects without dependency.
• Master-Detail Relationship: Links two objects with dependency; child records are deleted if the parent is deleted.
• Many-to-Many Relationship: Implemented using a junction object.

Scenario:
A travel agency needs to track trips booked by customers and the destinations they visit. How would you model this?

• Use a Many-to-Many Relationship:
  • Create a junction object (e.g., “Trip Booking”) to link Customers and Destinations.

Q6: How do you handle data migration in Salesforce?

Answer:

• Use Data Loader or Import Wizard for bulk data.
• Ensure proper mapping, and clean data before import.
• Perform validations and backup data before starting migration.

Scenario:
A company migrates from another CRM to Salesforce. How do you ensure smooth migration?

1. Identify key objects (e.g., Accounts, Contacts).
2. Export data from the old system, clean it, and format it for Salesforce.
3. Use Data Loader to insert records while maintaining relationships using IDs.

5. Salesforce Development

Q7: What are Governor Limits in Salesforce, and why are they important?

Answer:
Governor Limits enforce resource usage rules in Salesforce's multi-tenant environment to ensure fair use for all tenants.

Examples:

• SOQL query rows limit: 50,000
• Apex DML operations per transaction: 150

Scenario:
You’re writing an Apex class that retrieves 60,000 records. How do you handle the limit?

• Use Batch Apex to process records in chunks of up to 2,000.

Q8: What is a Trigger, and how do you avoid recursion?

Answer:
A Trigger is an Apex script executed before or after DML operations (e.g., before insert, after update).

To avoid recursion, use a static Boolean variable to track whether the trigger has already executed.

Scenario:
When updating an account, all related contacts must also update their status. How do you implement this?

• Write an after update trigger on the Account object to update related contacts while using a static variable to prevent multiple executions.

6. Integration

Q9: What are the different Salesforce APIs?

Answer:

• REST API: Lightweight, uses JSON, great for mobile apps.
• SOAP API: XML-based, used for complex integrations.
• Bulk API: For handling large volumes of data.
• Streaming API: For real-time notifications.

Scenario:
A financial app needs real-time updates when Salesforce Opportunities are closed. How would you integrate?

• Use the Streaming API to push Opportunity updates to the financial app.

Q10: What is a Change Set, and how do you deploy it?

Answer:
A Change Set is a tool to deploy metadata between Salesforce environments.
Steps:

1. Create an outbound Change Set in the source environment.
2. Add components like objects, fields, and workflows.
3. Upload and validate the Change Set in the target environment.

Scenario:
You need to deploy a custom object and its fields from Sandbox to Production.

• Add the custom object and related fields to a Change Set. Test the deployment in a Staging environment before final deployment.

7. Advanced Topics

Q11: What is Salesforce DX, and how does it improve development?

Answer:
Salesforce DX is a modern development model for version control, collaborative development, and CI/CD pipelines. It uses Scratch Orgs, Salesforce CLI, and Source Tracking.

Scenario:
A team is working on a new app. How do you ensure collaborative development without overwriting each other's changes?

• Use Salesforce DX and Git for version control. Developers can work in isolated Scratch Orgs and merge changes into a shared repository.

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Q12: How do you troubleshoot a performance issue in Salesforce?

Answer:

1. Identify slow queries using Debug Logs or Query Plans.
2. Optimize SOQL queries by indexing fields.
3. Reduce automation conflicts (e.g., multiple triggers on the same object).
4. Archive old data using Big Objects or external storage.

Scenario:
A dashboard is loading slowly. What steps do you take to resolve it?

• Check the underlying reports and optimize filters or reduce the number of rows returned.

8. Behavioral Questions

Q13: Tell me about a challenging Salesforce project you worked on.

Example Answer:

• Project: Implementing a Partner Community for a manufacturing company.
• Challenge: Complex data sharing rules for partners with overlapping territories.
• Solution: Used Sharing Rules and Account Teams to control access. Created custom LWCs for order tracking.