What a wonderful Easter break surprise! Last week I received an email stating;
Just Announced – Maintain your credentials for free on Trailhead!
Salesforce took the opportunity at the TrailheadX main keynote to announce that the certifications maintenance are moving to Trailhead, as you know these were previously hosted in Webassessor.
So from the next release onwards (Summer’18) the Administrator, Platform App Builder and Platform Developer I maintenance exams will join the Marketing Cloud Email and Social Specialist maintenance exams on Trailhead. With more making the same move throughout the year and with January 2019 as the target date for all certification maintenance exams to have migrated over to Trailhead.
With the increasing number of certification tracks, and therefore the increased number of maintenance exams, this is a fantastic step in the right direction for Salesforce who last year announced that they would cap maintenance fees at $300 a year.
Consultants and Admin certification require the same 3 maintenance exams a year, one per release; similar to App builder another 3, one for Pardot and one more for Sales Accredited.
So it’s not only the cost-saving element this news brings but also the ability for Trailhead to walk you through the new releases and digest the content. Think about it this way, you will be able to login to one central platform, go through the module with images, videos, and examples, with a standard Trailhead quiz at the end, amazing!
To make sure this works as you want (i.e. passing trailhead maintenance modules applies to your current credentials) you do need to make sure that your Trailhead and Webassessor accounts are linked. Here is how.
Oh! And in case you are wondering all other exams will remain as they are, via Webassessor proctored either onsite or online and the same fees.
Not long ago we talked about the ‘Certification Status Request‘ so there is a clear effort from Salesforce University / Trailhead, I can foresee some more news coming up within the year. What’s your take?
