Part 1 Study Guide: Bringing Data In

The study guide for Part 1 of the Data 360 Architect course: eight chapters, from Data 360 in one picture to the model, and Checkpoint 1. Each chapter has its own study guide with the full checklist; this page puts them together by exam section.

About this study guide. It’s built only from this course’s own content and the published Salesforce exam guide’s list of objectives. It is never based on real exam questions, and it doesn’t claim to know what’s on the exam. If you’ve taken the exam, please don’t send me questions from it: the certification agreement forbids sharing them, and memorizing answers is the wrong way to become an architect.

How to Use This Page

Part 1 is the foundation: everything that has to be right before Data 360 can unify, analyze or act. This course covers the Data 360 Consultant exam and goes beyond it, and Part 1 covers more of the exam than its title suggests. Work through it in this order:

1. Finish each chapter, then tick off its own study guide.
2. Come back here and check each exam section below. If a line doesn’t feel solid, follow it back to its chapter guide.
3. Try the Checkpoint 1 challenge before you read my walkthrough. It’s the best test of whether Part 1 has come together.

By Exam Section

The weights come from the published exam guide. Check the current version before you book: Salesforce revises it.

Solution Positioning (14% of the exam)

Mostly Part 1.

• SP-1, key terms and business value: the walk of one record, from stream to lake object to model to unified individual to segment to enrichment; the tenant and the home org; why Data 360 isn’t the system of record; what it sits on. Chapters 1 and 2.
• SP-2, the foundation for AI: grounding, retrieval over documents, predictions, memory; when an agent answers badly, look at the data. Chapter 1; more in Part 3.
• SP-3, first use cases: one use case, its stakeholders, and only the data it needs. Chapter 1.
• SP-4, ethics and governance: collect only what a use needs, classify at the dictionary, keep personal data reachable by a deletion request. Chapter 3; the tooling is Part 3.

Data 360 Setup and Administration (13% of the exam)

Started in Part 1.

• SA-1, permissions and settings: Data Cloud Setup and the Data Cloud Architect permission set; the default data space; the Allow All policy; the connector’s permission set in each org. Chapters 1 and 5.
• SA-3, the development lifecycle: connectors exist in every environment before anything that needs them; installed data kits; the org alias that must match across orgs. Chapters 4 and 5; deployment is Part 3.
• SA-4, troubleshooting: problem records, the first-load checklist, Refresh History and a flow that tells someone; a transform that won’t save, a sample that isn’t the whole data, an output in no data space. Chapters 6 and 7.

Data Source Connection and Ingestion (18% of the exam)

Mostly Part 1. Data collaboration and zero copy (ING-3) are Part 2.

• ING-1, data transforms: batch and streaming; the nodes; keys built after the aggregate; layers that build on each other; flattening, pivoting, incremental runs, Code Extension. Chapter 7.
• ING-2, bringing data in: the shapes of data; keys; pull or push; File Upload, Amazon S3, SFTP and the Ingestion API; your orgs, bundles and custom objects; refresh modes and freshness; streams, lake objects and categories. Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Harmonization and Unification (17% of the exam)

Half in Part 1: modeling. Unification itself (HU-1) is Part 2, chapter 9.

• HU-2, modeling: keys and the dictionary; the Customer 360 Data Model; reference data one to one; people into the Individual and its contact points; the Party and Party Identification; E.164. Chapters 3 and 8.

Data Enhancements, Sharing, and Analysis (18%) and Data Activations and Utilization (20%)

These are Part 2: identity resolution, insights, segments and activation, back to core, real time, the APIs and zero copy. Part 1 walks them once, in chapter 1’s one long flow.

The Threads Through Part 1

Eight chapters, and a few ideas that keep coming back. If you can explain these in your own words, Part 1 has done its job.

• Know it before it comes in. Names, types, keys and categories are set when the stream is built. Decide them in the dictionary first. Chapters 3 and 6.
• The key decides everything that follows. Unique, unchanging, meaningless, never personal data; and a qualifier when sources share values. Chapters 3, 6 and 7.
• Feed-based, not the system of record. Every change, even a delete, comes through the stream; a correction goes to the source. Chapters 1 and 2.
• Bring in the data you need to make good decisions, not everything you can. Chapters 1 and 3.
• Flights are other data. Engagement is a person’s activity at a time that never changes. Chapter 6.
• Nothing happens until it’s mapped, and a line you didn’t draw is a line you haven’t checked. Chapter 8.
• Every run costs something. Pick the slowest schedule the use case allows, and watch credits from the first week.

Check Yourself

Each chapter’s study guide has its own Check Yourself questions. For Part 1 as a whole, the test is Checkpoint 1: three of Steve Trucking’s sources, each with its door, its category, its key and its path to the model. Try the challenge first, then compare your reasoning with my walkthrough.

The chapter study guides:

1. Data 360 in One Picture
2. Under the Hood: What Data 360 Sits On
3. Understanding Your Data Structures
4. The Doors In
5. Bringing In CRM Data
6. Streams and the Lake
7. Data Transforms
8. From the Lake to the Model

Where You Are

Great work getting through Part 1. Your data is in, shaped and mapped, ready to be unified. The exam draws on all three parts, though: next is Part 2: Working the Data, where it gets unified, analyzed and put to work.

Here’s the whole exam, and where each part of it is taught:

Exam section (weight)	Part 1 (this part)	Part 2	Part 3
Solution Positioning (14%)	SP-1, SP-3, most of SP-2, start of SP-4	—	the rest of SP-2 and SP-4
Data 360 Setup and Administration (13%)	start of SA-1, SA-3, SA-4	—	SA-2, the rest of SA-1, SA-3, SA-4
Data Source Connection and Ingestion (18%)	ING-1, ING-2	ING-3	—
Harmonization and Unification (17%)	HU-2	HU-1	—
Data Enhancements, Sharing, and Analysis (18%)	—	DE-1, DE-2, DE-3	DE-4
Data Activations and Utilization (20%)	—	ACT-1 to ACT-5	—

Explore

• Salesforce Certified Data 360 Consultant Exam Guide (opens in a new tab), Salesforce Help: the official list of objectives and their weights. Always check the current version before you book the exam.