Salesforce Certified Platform Foundations & Best Practice

Last updated: 5 January 2026 - aligned to the official Salesforce Certified Platform Foundations Exam Guide (Winter ’25).

Salesforce is everywhere, but when you’re brand new, it can feel like you’ve opened a cockpit full of buttons with no idea which ones matter.

This course is designed to give you a clear, structured path from “I’m new to Salesforce” to passing your first Salesforce certification and feeling genuinely confident using the platform.

You’ll learn the essentials in a beginner-friendly way, with hands-on practice and real-world context, so you don’t just scrape through an exam… you actually understand what you’re doing.

What certification is this for?

This course prepares you for the Salesforce Certified Platform Foundations credential (formerly known as Salesforce Certified Associate).

It’s aimed at people with no experience of Salesforce or how CRM connects teams and customer data.

Exactly what you’ll learn (mapped to the official exam domains):

Salesforce tells you precisely what the exam covers, and we follow that blueprint so your study time stays focused.

That’s the structure of this course too, so you always know where you are and why you’re learning it.

How you’ll learn in this course:

Every lesson falls into one of three clear types, so learning feels simple and predictable:

1. Theory / exam knowledge: what you need to know, explained clearly

2. Lab exercises: practical tasks inside Salesforce so it sticks

3. Best practice: the real-world habits that make you effective (and help you in interviews)

This means you won’t just memorise terms,  you’ll understand how Salesforce works as a platform and how people use it day-to-day.

What you’ll be able to do by the end:

By the time you finish, you’ll be able to:

• Explain what CRM is and why organisations use Salesforce Customer 360

• Navigate Salesforce quickly and confidently (search, records, lists, tabs, and key user behaviours)

• Understand the core standard objects and how they relate (Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, Cases)

• Make sense of the data model at a foundational level (objects, fields, visibility, and data integrity basics)

• Build and interpret reports and dashboards, and understand what they’re used for in the real world

• Know where learning happens in the ecosystem (Trailhead, community, events) and how to keep progressing

  
  

Who am I (and why learn with me)?

I’m Francis Pindar: I’ve been working in the Salesforce ecosystem for nearly 20 years, I hold 30+ Salesforce certifications, and I’m known for teaching Salesforce in a way that’s clear, practical, and exam-aligned.

I don’t teach to show off features, I teach you how Salesforce fits together so you can use it, explain it, and pass the exam with confidence.

Who this course is for:

This course is a great fit if you are:

• Brand new to Salesforce and want a guided, structured start

• A career changer looking for a first credential to prove foundational knowledge

• A new Salesforce user (sales, service, operations, admin support) who wants to understand the platform properly

• Planning to progress to Platform Administrator later and want rock-solid foundations first.

Requirements:

No Salesforce experience is required. You’ll just need:

• A computer and internet connection

• A free Salesforce practice environment (I show you how to get set up)