Which Trailhead Superbadge Is Right for You?

So you are thinking about getting your first Superbadge? Or maybe you have already read my article on why Superbadges are awesome and have gotten one or two and trying to decide on your next one. Well, this is the place for that.

Superbadges come in many different flavors and test a variety of skills. While of course, you could strive to catch’em all, Superbadges are there to prove you have a certain skill set and level of understanding, so depending on your goals, different badges will be right for you. Keep reading to learn how to make that decision.

First, let’s list all of the currently available Superbadges and categorize them perhaps slightly differently than Salesforce might.

Alright, now that we have them all listed let’s break it down by category, including what the category represents and what you get out of taking those Superbadges.

Apex

Up first is the APEX category. You can otherwise think of this as what you need if you want to get the Platform II developer certificate. I say this because as of right now, all four of these badges are required to obtain the certification. Platform II is also the only certification that requires Superbadges – but I bet this will become more popular in the future as Trailhead and Web Assessor become more merged.

In addition to being the requirements for gaining the certification, they are also fantastic steps for testing out your knowledge both in APEX and in the Lightning based languages. While, I would not call Trailhead the holy grail for testing your code knowledge, because Salesforce looks for a very specific set of coded lines, and there are many many ways to write the same requirements, the badges to ensure that you have the foundational knowledge set required in becoming a great Salesforce developer.

Admin

Of all of the categories, this is probably the one most generalized for any work anyone is doing in the Salesforce ecosystem. Everything that I have grouped into this category is reliant on click-not-code skills and make up the necessity of being a great and well-rounded admin. The order I listed them in is also not arbitrary. This is a great order to go through if you are working on beefing up your admin skills, or still in the works of getting your admin cert.

The Lightning Experience one I would say is also very important for admin who has spent most of their career admining in Classic and has not had much chance to work in Lighting. This is a great place to get your hands dirty and work through some of the features and challenges that come with using Lightning instead of Classic.

Einstein

Pretty brand new to the Trailhead Superbadges crew are the Einstein Certs. Having not spent a great deal of time working on all things Einstein, I have less here to share. But from reading through the descriptions, if you can pass these two badges, I believe you will be well on your way to be able to successfully set up and manage Einstein whenever the time comes.

Move To LEX

If you don’t know yet, LEX is the acronym for Lightning Experience and is the platform Salesforce is gradually pushing (I think the push is coming a little hard now) for everyone to move to. It is the better and newer platform that is here to stay and here to replace Classic. As part of that push as of Winter ‘20 Lightning will be turned on for everyone – you will still be able to flip back, but you will no longer be able to keep it hidden. As a result, this Superbadge is so important for Admins who are in Classic environments that are going to be preparing for a move to Lightning. I do highly recommend completing the Lightning Experience Specialist, before tackling this one.

Others

Last up is the other category. Right now only two Superbadges live here, although I can imagine more showing up in the future (I am looking for you CPQ Superbadge). I put both the Security and Service Cloud specialist badges here as they don’t particularly belong to another category. However, if you are admining a Service Cloud setup then I highly recommend going through the Superbadge, especially if you are moving over to Lightning as this takes you through the features from the Lightning perspective. Security is also great for pretty much any admin. It covers all the many ins and outs that Salesforce has when it comes to the various levels of security that exist within the system. While time-consuming, I do recommend it.

Overall, there are a lot of great options and there really is a Superbadge to fit many of the skill sets out there. So read through, make your choice, grab a pen, and get started with your Superbadge skills today!