About

About

Mission

CertifiedOnDemand.com was founded to help test takers prepare for Salesforce.com certification exams and build amazing careers within the Salesforce.com ecosystem.

My Story

My name is John Coppedge, and I am the founder and primary contributor to CertifiedOnDemand.com.

I started my journey in 2008 as an #accidentaladmin (an administrator born from need rather than experience).  I was working as an IT administrator for an organization that purchased Salesforce.com, and I was deemed the administrator.

I quickly realized that Salesforce was a massive platform (and it was MUCH smaller then), but also one that I really loved working with.  At that moment, I realized that’s where I wanted to focus my career.

When Salesforce announced their certification program, I was in.  I started studying and posted my notes to forcecertified.com, the world’s first website dedicated to Salesforce certification.  I also became one of the first 500 people in the world to hold a Salesforce certification.  I’ve since completed many more certifications (see below).

In 2010, I became a full-time Salesforce consultant.  After years of traveling extensively and implementing Salesforce for a range of different customers and verticals, I decided to take a step back and see if I could put together something better to help people obtain their Salesforce certifications.

Six months later, CertifiedOnDemand.com (Version 1) was born.  It both took longer and was more challenging to create than I initially expected (not surprising in retrospect).  I didn’t have much experience with curriculum development or website design.  I didn’t really know what I was creating when I started the project.  But I put something together and launched it, and that really was my goal in itself.  I didn’t really have expectations – and in fact, it would take a few years for the site to pick up speed (I didn’t really know much about marketing either… that hasn’t changed much).  I didn’t imagine I would get feedback that CoD had changed lives or launched careers, but that type of feedback started coming in.  And I am truly grateful to those of you that do send these types of notes as they are tremendously motivating.

After launching CoD, I both needed and wanted to get back to work.  I started consulting once again and was enjoying the work.

Then, an opportunity arose.  A friend joined a Salesforce-based product company and asked if I would be interested in joining.  I interviewed for both professional services and sales engineering positions, and ultimately accepted a position as a sales engineer.  I enjoyed many aspects of sales engineering, however, what I really liked the most was the educational component.  So when another opportunity arose within this company to move into a training position, I jumped.

I got to put to use some of the experience that I gained while working on CoD, and I learned so much from interacting directly with students.  By joining a relatively new training team, I got the opportunity to wear many hats: developing and delivering both admin and end-user training, managing training org configuration as well as the process for creating them, participating in scoping calls, and much more.

All of this experience got me to thinking about how CoD could be done better.  I started playing with some ideas, and many months later CertifiedOnDemand.com (Version 2) was born.

My Certifications

Here is my current list of Salesforce certifications, verifiable here.

69 thoughts on “About”

  1. Hi john,
    I am Salesforce certified Admin , And now want to Pursue my career as Salesforce Business analyst,
    And do not have idea where can i go to get perfect knowledge to Be a successful BA..
    Do you have any resources? or any other ways i can get those skills i am seeking for.
    Please suggest me.
    thank you.
    Tejal.

    1. I’m thinking about writing an article on this-

      Broad strokes:

      Volunteer to get experience (https://success.salesforce.com/answers?id=90630000000h1bhAAA)
      List on odesk, freelance, etc. to get independent experience
      Apply for jobs where you have existing vertical experience (e.g. manufacturing) where salesforce experience is needed
      Work on additional certifications/qualifications
      If you have the opportunity to use salesforce at your current employer, start getting as much experience there as possible.

      Ultimately, you need to focus on building your credentials (certifications, experience) so that you will qualify for your dreamjob. It can and often does take time, but stick with it!

  2. Hi john,
    Can you please suggest me how can i be Successful salesforce Business analyst, what are the skills required, and also where can i learn it from.
    Thank you.
    Tejal.

  5. Hey John,

    Thank you for the great resource…just passed the exam! Too bad you do not have other certification exam prep material because I would definitely be using it to study for my next certification.

    Cheers,

    Anja

  6. Hi John!
    I have been a salesforce.com admin / senior business systems analyst and leader for many years. Thanks for such a wonderful resource. I passed my admin certification exam yesterday at Dreamforce.

    Best,
    Gina

  9. Thanks John! I have just passed my ADM201 exam yesterday! Your concise notes and prompt explanations with questions from different people, really help a lot! The resource kit is definitely worth every cent. Thanks so much. Really great guidance given in this portal. Highly recommended 🙂

  10. Hi John, thanks so much! Your study guide made passing the admin 201 exam a breeze!

    I have a couple quick questions for you (I’ve tried lookin the success community/everywhere, and I think I know the answers, so I’m really looking for confirmation from you)..
    -If an organization wants to be able to generate word documents from an opportunity (using contact/account/opportunity info in some merge fields in the word document), am I correct in concluding that would require the use of an app, or is it possible to do in Salesforce?
    Actually, that’s my only question for now. I hope you can help. Thanks!!

  11. Hi John

    I am preparing for the adm 201 and would like to know if your material supports the study material for Winter 15? this will be my 3 rd time testing and i think i was over engineering the questions. This time around i would like to pass it for sure. Can you please provide any specific tips for the exam.

  14. John – Thank You. I passed my cert exam this weekend, largely due to this site. I will gladly recommend your site to anyone studying for the exam. You are extremely thorough and your explanations are quite clear and concise. I truly appreciate your work.

  15. Hi John,

    I have been a SF USER for 6 months and recently completed the ADM201 class training on my path to becoming a SF admin.
    I have no experience in SF administration and I would like to know whether i need some practical experience to passing the exam?
    Or can I simply review the classroom materials and this study guide on CertifiiedonDemand?

  16. Finally I passed my Admin 201 certification today in my second try.
    Thanks John for help and support through this wonderful site.
    I highly recommend this site to everyone for Salesforce Admin 201 certification

  17. Hi John,

    I’m preparing for the ADM201 cert. Do you keep your material updated to current release? Also, how long are the materials available (is there any expiration on access)?

    Thanks!

    1. No expiration on access. Content is typically a release or two behind (updated when I have time) – it is current to winter 14 and there is a link to the Spring and Summer release training to ensure that you don’t miss anything in-between.

  18. Hi John,

    What is your opinion, is the best way to go about learning the material for the Salesforce admin exam? I am just starting with the SF 201 material. Would you recommend going over that in tandem with working through your website? I’m trying to streamline the process, since time is short for me to learn the material. Any suggestions you have would be great! Thanks!

    1. I would recommend the following (likely in this order):

      -in person training from sfdc (if company paid, I wouldn’t pay out of pocket)
      -premiere training (online sfdc training)
      -CertifiedOnDemand.com
      -SFDC study guide
      -other websites/resources/blogs/etc.

      Hope this helps. Cheers,

      John

  19. Hi John

    I’m going to attend the Admin Certification exam next month(201), I’v been working on Salesforce for around 2 years, but I’m not sure I can pass, So I’m so happy to find this site, I have a question about how to use the website to help me pass the exam, generally, we should use the resources here and study by ourselves, right? And, If I pass the exam, I’d like to prepare for the next exam(Advance Admin), are the resources here also helpful for the Advance Admin exam?

    Thanks
    Sunway Yang

  21. I just finished going through your course and feel so prepared for the exam now! I’m going to take it this week. I wanted to share the Excel doc I used to track my progress through your course. It helped me set a study plan and stay on track so I thought it might help others too. I estimated the hours needed for each section before I started the course just based on how many short/medium/long items in the section, and it ended up being pretty accurate. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvXawrA8JeZjdFlLUWFoYm8xcG1OV2tMWHZCWkpCcFE&usp=sharing. Thanks so much for organizing all of this great content in one place for us!

  23. Hi John,

    I am scheduled to take the ADm 201 Exam on March 7th. Can you please walk me through the entire process of your study guide and how i should approach studying for it. I get very anxious with tests and want to be well prepared and not fail in the test. Can you kindly help at your earliest convenience.

  26. Hello John,

    Yesterday I passed the ADM201 exam thanks to your website. The $ 40,- signup fee saved me an investment of € 3.500,- for the ADM201 training course.

    Please keep up the good work!

    P.s. My next goal is the ADM211 advanced administrator certification. Do you have advice for me how to prepare this exam? Is your website also sufficient for passing this exam?

    1. John,

      Did you have an answer to this somewhere ? I think you mentioned this guide to be helpful for Dev 401 in some sections but I don’t think you specified which sections would be helpful to Dev 401. Can you please tell us which sections ? Do you plan to have a study guide specifically for Dev 401 ?

      Thank you.

      1. I’ve answered it on a few comments – I’ll look at adding this to a FAQ page (in my long to-do list).

        Yes- this site will help for DEV 401. There is a large overlap (at least 60%) between the two exams – however, the admin guide on this site will not cover the material that does not overlap (e.g. visualforce, MVC, etc.).

  29. This site looks promising.. Im a student with a major in Business Information Systems. I’ve been trying to learn SalesForce by myself and it hasn’t been easy. I have a year left of school and want to try and get a job with SalesForce, but its hard trying to teach yourself. I can’t afford to take the Certification class, as I am already spending money on tuition at the moment. Looking forward in trying this site out. Thanks

  30. Hi John,

    I wanted to send you a quick thank you for putting together this amazing site! I passed the Salesforce Certified Admin exam last week and this site was such a great resource as I prepared for the exam. More than the passing the exam, I learned a ton over the last couple weeks and I know I’ll be a better admin because of your site. Thank you!

    Topher

  32. Hi John: I passed the admin exam today, thanks to your wonderful site!! Thank you so much for creating it and making it available to us. Now on to studying for the advanced certificate!

      1. I don’t have exam dumps, nor would I provide them. That’s not what this site is about. This site is a resource to use in preparing for certification – not a place to find and memorize exam questions. The guide materials are posted online already.

  33. hi, m totally new to salesforce..this my first day exploring what is salesforce..pls give me the lead where to start and how…m intrested in the adminstrator certification..how do i make myself eligible for tht in all sort of ways..pls direct me to a path

  34. This is a fantastic resource. It was instrumental in my passing the exam!
    I recommend it to anyone – it’s worth the small fee.
    Are there any plans to include more in-depth material for the advanced exam?
    Thanks!

  35. Hey John! Been a long time – hope all is well.

    I just finished taking an admin certification class – plan on taking my exam at the end of October! Looking forward to using this resource. Thanks!

    Regan Widdifield Curtice

  36. Hi John, I just passed the 201 certification exam, and it’s primarily due to your amazing website! Thanks again for all of this, and I can’t wait for the next course.

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