Part 1 Study Guide: Becoming a Data Architect

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The study guide for Part 1 of the Data Architect course: six chapters, from thinking like an architect to master data, 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 anyway.

How to Use This Page

Part 1 is the foundation, and it covers more of the exam than you might expect. Four of the exam’s six sections are mostly here; the other two, Large Data Volumes and Data Migration, are Part 2. 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.

Data Modeling and Database Design (25% of the exam)

Mostly Part 1. Data skew and scale (DM-5) come in Part 2.

• DM-1, the data model: conceptual, logical and physical models; crow’s-foot notation; cardinality and optionality; junction objects; unique IDs, natural and surrogate keys, External IDs; normalization; picklist or lookup; lookup or master-detail and the platform’s shape (three levels deep, two parents wide). Chapters 2 and 3.
• DM-2, sharing and scale in the model: master-detail children inherit access; parent-child and ownership skew past about 10,000 records; who owns records that integrations and agents create. Chapter 3.
• DM-3, metadata: the business dictionary, lineage and classification, and the classification fields on every field. Chapter 5.
• DM-4, big objects: owned, referenced, archived or content; external objects; big objects and their index. Chapter 3.

Salesforce Data Management (25% of the exam)

Mostly Part 1. Combining data from several orgs (SDM-4) is introduced in chapter 4 and comes back in Part 2.

• SDM-1, licenses and objects: licenses are part of the data model; what Platform and Customer Community users can’t use; the external license tiers; member-based versus login-based; the Integration license; high-volume users outside the sharing model. Chapters 3 and 1.
• SDM-2, consistent data: the consistency ladder, restricted picklists and global value sets, validation rules scoped with ISNEW() and ISCHANGED(), duplicate and matching rules; provisional records and governed attributes. Chapters 3 and 5.
• SDM-3, a single view of the customer: Data 360 identity resolution, match and reconciliation rules, and why a unified profile isn’t a golden record. Chapter 6.
• SDM-4, several orgs: one org first; the real boundaries that justify another; what multiple orgs cost. Chapter 4.

Data Governance (10% of the exam)

All Part 1.

• GOV-1, personal and sensitive data: the laws to recognize; encryption, masking, pseudonymization and anonymization; the consent data model; the right to be forgotten; Shield Platform Encryption’s trade-offs; field history, Field Audit Trail and Event Monitoring. Chapter 5.
• GOV-2, a governance program: record owner versus data owner; owner, steward and custodian; a RACI; an enforcement point for every policy. Chapter 5.

Master Data Management (5% of the exam)

All Part 1.

• MDM-1 to MDM-4: authority per attribute and the authority map; registry, consolidation, coexistence and centralized MDM; harmonize, match, consolidate; survivorship rules and their owners; what a Salesforce merge does; hierarchies, often split-mastered; two-way data as requests to the master. Chapter 6.

Large Data Volumes (20%) and Data Migration (15%)

These are Part 2: Designing for Scale, Query and Retrieval, Transactions, Integration and Migration. Part 1 sets them up with the Number of Zeros and 30 percent growth (chapter 1), where data lives and big objects (chapter 3), and reconciling a load that “completed” (chapter 1).

The Threads Through Part 1

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

• The data model is the bones. Model the business before Salesforce; trace every physical decision back to a business reason. Chapters 1, 2 and 3.
• The Reversibility Test. How hard is this to reverse, and how much will depend on it? It decides how much attention a decision gets, from a field type to a merge.
• Count the zeros. Volume and growth change the design, and so does where the volume concentrates (skew).
• The platform has a shape. Look to the mothership; every object is a commitment; licenses are part of the data model.
• Draw the landscape first. Salesforce is one system among many, and a copy isn’t authority. Chapter 4.
• Owners set policy; architects enforce it. Every policy needs an enforcement point. Chapter 5.
• Authority belongs to an attribute. A unified profile is a map; a golden record is a decision. Chapter 6.
• AI raises the stakes. It speeds up building, so the decisions underneath matter more: trust but verify.

Check Yourself

Each chapter’s study guide has its own Check Yourself questions. For Part 1 as a whole, the test is Checkpoint 1: draw and defend Steve Trucking’s data design. Try the challenge first, then compare your reasoning with my walkthrough.

The chapter study guides:

1. Thinking Like a Data Architect
2. Modeling Data for Meaning
3. Salesforce Data Architecture
4. Understanding Enterprise Data
5. Data Quality and Governance
6. Master Data and Identity

Where You Are

Great work getting through Part 1. You’re a third of the way there, and you now see data the way an architect does. If you’re an admin, this is the part that changes how you build every day. The exam draws on all three parts, though: next is Part 2: Architecting at Scale, where you’re almost there, and then Part 3 takes you over the finish line. The course page shows the path, and the newsletter tells you when each part is out.

Explore

• Salesforce Certified Platform Data Architect Exam Guide (opens in a new tab), Salesforce Help (checked 2026-09-25): the official list of objectives and their weights.