Appendix
Tips and Tricks, and the Way Forward
You have covered several topics throughout this book and learned how to deal with different challenges you may encounter during the CTA review board. In this chapter, you will learn about an additional set of tips and tricks that can help you pass the review board exam.
Though this exam puts a lot of mental strain on a candidate, you need to remember that the reward is worth it. Passing the exam grants access to an exclusive elite club and provides a significant career boost.
You must mentally prepare for the exam. You need to be relaxed, fresh, and focused before going into your review board (or joining it online). For that, you need to have a good night’s sleep. Put on your war helmet on the exam day. Find out what makes you energized and utilize it. Some are energized by the feeling of being challenged. For others, it is simply the desire to prove themselves.
Your motives should be positive to push yourself forward. The fear of failing is not good. The motive you choose should make you feel confident and ready to fight until you complete the exam.
Here, you will learn various tips and tricks that you can follow to prepare for the review board exam. In this chapter, you are going to cover the following topics:
- Anatomy of a review board scenario
- General solving tips
- Managing the review board
- Time management
- Your presentation: make or break
- Your exam, your way
- Next steps
- Community and available training
By the end of this chapter, you will have learned a set of tips, tricks, and techniques that you can use to increase your chances of passing. This will include activities that you can do before and during the exam.
You will also learn where to go from here onward, that is, what to do next and where to find additional useful information.
Anatomy of a Review Board Scenario
As you learned in Chapter 12, Practice the Review Board: First Mock, and Chapter 14, Practice the Review Board: Second Mock, the review board scenarios are usually structured in a specific way. They typically contain the following sections:
- Project overview: This section provides general information about the company (which is what the scenario is all about), the services it provides, pain points, geographic locations covered by the company, growth plans, and so on. This section is generally helpful for you to understand the bigger picture. It can also help you develop your initial understanding of potential actors (the group of users who would eventually interact with the solution) and the role hierarchy details.
This section might include some important figures, such as the number of employees (which could be the potential users of your proposed solution). However, this is not necessarily the only place where such figures can exist. You have learned from several previous scenarios in this book that these figures could significantly impact the target data volume.
- Current landscape: The scenario typically has a section that explains the existing customer’s system landscape. This section is helpful for you to start drafting your landscape architecture. As you have learned in previous chapters, including retiring systems in your landscape will help give you a complete picture. Moreover, this section will provide you with a good early understanding of the task accomplished by each system. You can also find important information about the specifications of the systems in the landscape, such as their support of APIs and flexibility to change. Such information can help you determine the applicable/non-applicable integration patterns.
This section might also include brief information about supported business functionalities, the company’s strategy in retaining or replacing some of its existing systems, and overall general pain points and risks.
- Business use cases/business process requirements: This section is the meatiest and, most likely, the longest in the scenario. This section contains most of the scenario’s business requirements and describes the general processes used by the business. The business processes are usually described in a series of bullet points. Each bullet point could include one or more requirements. The business process will consist of functional, data, and integration requirements.
In previous chapters, you learned that the best way to handle this section is by creating a business process diagram (per process). This will help you not only present the business process in a structured and attractive way but also organize your thoughts and spot potential gaps.
- Data migration requirements: This might be a standalone section or be part of another section. This section will normally describe the expected data volumes in source systems. These volumes/figures should help you craft your data migration strategy and plan. This section might also impact your definition of Large Data Volumes (LDVs) as well as your LDV mitigation strategy.
- Accessibility requirements: This section usually contains IAM requirements, mobile accessibility specifications, and the internal and external expected user experience. You can expect information such as where the user’s credentials are stored and whether there is a need to support social sign-in for external users. This section might add more requirements to those shared in the business processes section, particularly when it comes to system and data accessibility. This section could be combined with the security requirements section in some exam scenarios.
- Security requirements: This is one of the most critical sections and could be considered the second most complex (after the business use cases section). This section normally contains application and network security requirements. It may also include requirements to challenge your knowledge of several platform security features (such as sharing rules, profiles, permission sets, platform encryption, MFA, and sharing sets).
- Reporting requirements: This section includes a description of key required reports. It might also indicate the necessary data for these reports (for example, records from multiple systems). Details about the availability of these reports and the impacted actors are also likely to be included.
- Project development requirements: This section will include a description of the current release process. It may also list some pain points that would help you define the right development and release strategy and the appropriate governance model to control it.
- Other requirements: This section may or may not exist as, in some cases, it might be combined with the project development requirements section. This section could contain other requirements that previous sections have not covered, including information and risks that could impact your proposed governance model.
Note
The naming of these sections could vary from one scenario to another. The structure explained in this chapter can be considered a general structure, so expect the real exam scenario to include more or fewer sections, or to have a completely different structure. You should be prepared to handle the scenario regardless of its structure.
Salesforce has the right to define and change the structure of its exams. This chapter, and the elements it describes, should not be considered an official document as it is based on the author’s knowledge and experience only.
Next, you will go through a set of general solving tips, that is, things that you should keep in mind while crafting your end-to-end solution.
General Solving Tips
Start with a set of general tips on tackling, organizing, and structuring your solution. You have learned many in the previous chapters and will learn a few more in this section.
Go through the Scenario and Annotate First
This is something you have practiced multiple times in previous chapters. Before you start with scenario-solving, go through the whole scenario, take notes, and add annotations next to each requirement.
You will not get a printed copy of the scenario in a virtual review board. Instead, you will get an editable MS Word document. You can highlight sections and add annotations directly to the MS Word document. You can also use different colors to annotate various topics, for example, potential LDVs.
Going through the whole scenario and taking notes should help you during both the scenario-solving and the catch-all presentation stages. The review board scenarios are complex and lengthy (as you have experienced yourself in the previous four chapters). You can easily miss or forget some requirements if you do not highlight or annotate them clearly.
Provide a Solution, Not a Set of Options
As a CTA, you are expected to come up with a clear and justified solution for a particular requirement. Providing a salad of solutions will not be acceptable. For example, when dealing with LDVs, you cannot simply list the possible solutions, such as custom indexes, archiving, and skinny tables. You have to be specific, select a solution based on the shared requirements, and justify it.
It is okay to mention the other solution options you have considered (if you have enough time for that), but you have to be crisp and clear about your recommended solution and its rationale.
Avoid using excessive buzzwords. For example, you will not get points for knowing the buzzword CI/CD, but you could earn points if you explain it correctly, highlighting its benefits and explaining how it fits into your solution to address a shared requirement.
You Have a Limited Set of Tools to Solve a Problem
There is a finite number of possible solutions for most of the requirements. You might feel a bit overwhelmed while creating your solution and get the feeling that you have an unlimited toolset to choose from. This is not actually true.
Take LDVs as an example. There is a limited number of LDV mitigation solutions to choose from. Data sharing is another example; you have a limited number of data-sharing features that you can use in Salesforce, such as sharing sets, sharing rules, manual sharing, groups, and Apex.
One of these options will be the ideal solution based on a set of considerations (extracted from the scenario) or assumptions that you can make.
Use the Common Architects’ Language
You need to use the common language of architects. Diagrams are crucial to visualize a solution and communicate with your audience. Diagrams can also help you organize your thoughts and ensure you cover all that needs to be covered.
Use standard diagrams wherever applicable. For example, use standard sequence diagrams to explain a sequence of activities rather than coming up with an unusual or non-standard diagram. This is like speaking a common language understood by everyone.
Sometimes, you might need to come up with a non-standard diagram to explain a particular topic. Do not hesitate to do so but just make sure that you use standard diagrams wherever possible and easy-to-follow non-standard/custom diagrams otherwise.
Next, you will learn a set of tips and tricks that you can follow to help you manage the review board.
Managing the Review Board
The judges on the review board are seasoned CTAs who are trained to judge the exam professionally and neutrally. This means that they are trained to mask emotion. They will maintain a poker face during your presentation and Q&A. This means they won’t disturb or mislead the candidate with positive or negative reactions. In the virtual review board, judges will turn off their cameras, and they will turn them back on only during the Q&A session.
However, you can use the following simple tips to help you manage the board.
Help Them to Keep Up with You
When you present your solution, help the judges follow you by highlighting the relevant requirement’s location in the scenario. There is a chance that judges might miss one of your statements. You can help them by reiterating the requirement you are solving whenever you feel a need for that.
Tie Your Solution back to the Requirement
Avoid presenting a dry solution that isn’t tied to a requirement (also known as a solution without a requirement). Make sure you articulate the relationship between your proposed solution and a shared requirement.
This shows that you understand the requirement. You can then explain the assumptions, rationale, and trade-offs you followed in choosing a particular solution among the possible others.
Watch and Observe Their Reactions if Possible
The judges are trained to mask any emotion. However, the judges will be taking notes during your presentation and Q&A. They usually do that using their laptops. Sometimes, you might be able to observe whether they are typing something or not.
This is particularly helpful during the Q&A. If you are explaining something and they are not typing, then perhaps you are not adding anything to what you have previously described.
Seed Some Questions
You came across this technique in Chapter 9, Forging an Integrated Solution, and experienced it again in Chapter 13, Present and Defend: First Mock, and Chapter 15, Present and Defend: Second Mock.
You can use this technique during your presentation to draw the judges’ attention to a particular topic that you have not covered in full detail. If that topic is interesting to the judges, they will come back to it during the Q&A to ask for further information.
You usually seed questions that you are comfortable answering. For example, you could describe an integration interface with just enough details and mention the name of the authentication flow it will use. If the judges are interested in knowing more about that authentication flow or want to test your knowledge, they will come back to this point during the Q&A. You can then use a sequence diagram to explain the authentication flow with all the required details.
Be careful not to abuse this technique. You are still expected to explain your solution from end to end with all the required details. Seeding too many topics could leave the judges with the impression that you have gaps in your knowledge. You can seed a question where the level of detail is not impacting the clarity or completeness of your proposed solution.
Show Your Professionalism
During the presentation and Q&A phases, be professional. Avoid bluffing your way through a challenging question, as that will simply backfire. The judges will recognize the attempt and might consider it unprofessional, in addition to failing to answer the question.
Show that you can listen and understand well during the Q&A. Be confident, defend your solution, and hold your ground, but at the same time, be humble and accept that your answer might be incorrect. If that happens, admit the mistake in a professional manner and adjust your solution if needed. After all, communicating and socializing your solution is one of the domains you need to demonstrate that you master.
Time Management
Time management is crucial in this exam. The importance of time management cannot be stressed enough, no matter how many times it is reiterated throughout this book.
Here are some tips and tricks to help you manage your time during the review board exam.
Plan ahead and Stick to Your Plan
You need to have a time plan for every stage of the exam: the solving, presentation, and Q&A stages. Your solving stage’s time plan could look like the following:
|
Activity |
Sub-activity |
Minimum time (mins) |
Maximum time (mins) |
Recommended time (mins) |
|
Full-scenario reading and annotation |
Read, understand, and highlight or annotate potential solutions |
20 |
40 |
30 |
|
Creation of draft artifact scribbles | ||||
|
Detailed solving |
Read, understand, and solve |
90 |
130 |
110 |
|
Draft artifacts’ creation | ||||
|
Solution review |
Review your solution and adjust it if needed |
10 |
25 |
15 |
|
Artifact finalization |
Create the final version of the artifacts |
10 |
30 |
20 |
|
Buffer |
Buffer time reserved in case any other activities take longer than expected |
5 |
10 |
5 |
Appendix-Table 1 – Proposed time plan: solving stage
You can develop your own time plan based on your own skills and abilities. For example, you could be a slow reader but a speedy diagram creator. In that case, you can increase the time allocated for the initial scenario reading and annotation and reduce the time allocated for the artifacts’ finalization. However, it is recommended not to go above or below the maximum and minimum suggested boundaries.
Your presentation stage’s time plan could look like the following:
|
Activity |
Sub-activity |
Minimum time (mins) |
Maximum time (mins) |
Recommended time (mins) |
|
Introduction |
Self-introduction |
1 |
3 |
1.5 |
|
High-level scenario and client overview | ||||
|
Structured presentation |
High-level solution introduction |
5 |
10 |
5 |
|
Introduce the actors and licenses and the rationale behind the license selection | ||||
|
Introduce the landscape architecture and the rationale behind product selection | ||||
|
Business processes: proposed solution |
10 |
25 |
15 | |
|
Accessibility and security: proposed solution |
5 |
10 |
5 | |
|
LDV mitigation strategy |
3 |
5 |
3 | |
|
Data migration strategy |
3 |
5 |
3 | |
|
Governance, including the development and release strategy |
3 |
5 |
3 | |
|
Catch-all presentation or buffer |
Go through the scenario and call out any missing points |
3 |
10 |
9.5 |
Appendix-Table 2 – Proposed time plan: presentation stage
Time management can be a bit trickier during the presentation. The catch-all stage could act as a buffer if you slightly run over in one of the previous sections. As a matter of fact, a lot of that depends on the nature of the scenario. The scenario might include more challenging business processes or security requirements, and you might need to extend their respective presentation slots accordingly.
Remember that these are suggested figures only, and you need to come up with your own time plan based on your own skills, abilities, and comfort zones. For example, you might know the governance pitch so well that you can cover it in less than three minutes.
You can start practicing with a specific plan in your head and adjust if needed until you find your Zen zone.
Rehearse and Perfect Your Timing
You have to practice and perfect your time plan before attempting the review board. It might feel tough at the beginning, but everything is possible with practice and perseverance.
Ask a colleague or friend to help you with timekeeping during your mock presentations. This activity will be rewarding during the review board.
During the review board, you will be given a timer or have access to a clock, depending on the facility and the exam’s nature (in-person/virtual). You should always keep an eye on the timer or clock. Ensure you do so when you are practicing as well.
Practice the Two-Minute Pitch
You have probably come across the term two-minute pitch or heard of Einstein’s famous quote: If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.
Stick to that principle and practice it during your mocks and rehearsals. Try to explain a topic to a colleague or friend in two minutes. Focus on the key arguments and the rationale behind proposing one approach over the others.
In addition to time management, this skill is essential to having a fair chance of passing the review board.
Balance Where You Spend Your Time
One of the common pitfalls of this exam is that candidates tend to spend too much time on areas that fall within their comfort zones. For example, some candidates could spend 10 minutes merely explaining the release management strategy.
Similarly, some candidates tend to avoid topics that they are not necessarily comfortable with and hope it will pass unnoticed. Make sure you avoid this. Do not leave any topic/requirement/point unanswered as they all count. Stick to your time plan and give every requirement section the deserved amount of attention.
The presentation stage is crucial, and probably the most difficult to master. In the next section, you will explore more tips and tricks that can help you overcome that challenge.
Your Presentation: Make or Break
You are now aware of the importance of the review board presentation phase. You have learned some time management techniques and different ways to manage the board. Next, you will go through a set of tips that are mainly related to your soft presentation skills.
Show Confidence
CTA can be a challenging exam with a challenging presentation stage. You might feel nervous and under a lot of pressure. But you must learn to mask these feelings and radiate confidence throughout the presentation and Q&A.
You need to practice the way you would stand in front of the board. Instead of looking stressed or afraid, look at the judges and make some eye contact. They will not show any emotion (as they are trained not to), but you still must demonstrate your ability to communicate with the audience.
Try holding an object in your hand—a cup, a pen, or paper. Some people feel more confident when they do so.
Cut down fillers such as ah and ehm sounds. Be direct and clear. If you do speed up during the presentation, ensure this is because of the limited time available and not because you are nervous.
Control the Tempo
It is fine if you usually feel uncomfortable in front of an audience. Everything is possible with practice and perseverance. You need to be honest with yourself and know your strengths and weaknesses. Overconfidence can also be a weakness.
Learn some tricks to control your emotions during presentations. You can try to take a 10-second break from time to time during the presentation. Take a sip of water and take your time in doing so. You have budgeted 10 seconds to take that sip of water, so use it. Those seconds are not wasted. They are very helpful to organize your thoughts and control your emotions.
Some people are natural public speakers while others are not. Have confidence in yourself and remember the quote: Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
Understand your strengths and weaknesses, and develop, practice, and perfect your attack strategy accordingly.
Own the Stage
Move around the stage, point at the board (or at a specific part of the slide), and use your body language to show the audience that you own the stage.
During the Q&A, relax and move closer to the person asking you a question. Give the judges the feeling that they are dealing with a peer.
Use Your Artifacts
This topic has been discussed several times before in this book. But it is included here once more to reiterate its importance.
You create artifacts such as the landscape architecture diagram, the data model diagram, and the role hierarchy for a reason. The main reason is to use them to convey your end-to-end solution. In real life, you also use them to document your solution. Besides, the creation of these artifacts would also help you organize your thoughts and spot anything that you might have missed.
Make sure you use your diagrams well. Clearly point to the relevant section. The judges (or any audience) cannot read your mind. A successful presenter delivers their complete message smoothly to the audience.
You have invested a lot of time in developing a great set of tools to help you during your presentation. Make sure you use them well.
Enjoy It
You do not get many chances to present to such a brilliant audience. So, enjoy the experience. This will be reflected in your actions during the presentation and Q&A and will leave a good impression.
Enjoy the Q&A. Being able to stand in front of these technical rockstars, answer their questions, challenge them, and defend your opinion is a joyful experience.
Show the judges what you are capable of. You wanted the certificate to prove that you belong to the prestigious CTA club. There is no better chance to prove so than this. Go to the review board with the right mindset, and you will enjoy the experience.
Your Exam, Your Way
You have read this book and gone through several suggestions and recommendations. You will also read and hear a lot more from other CTAs, coaches, candidates, and experts while you prepare for your review board.
Some would recommend different approaches than others. If you speak to 10 different CTAs, you will probably hear 10 different bits of feedback on how they prepared for and attended the review board. Along with a significant overlap, there will be different points of view.
For example, some would recommend using MS PowerPoint presentations instead of flip charts. Others would recommend a different structure and time plan. Some might be entirely against the catch-all presentation stage, while others might support it. This feedback could be coming from actual CTAs, which means that what they have recommended worked for them. Yet, it might not work for you.
What you need to keep in mind is that there is no right approach. You need to figure out the approach that works best for you. Use this book and the other resources available to prepare. While preparing, try to figure out what approach fits you best.
You need to ensure that you are still covering what needs to be covered. You have seen several examples throughout this book. How you do that is up to you to figure out based on your own style, skills, experience, strengths, and weaknesses.
Determine your own strategy to identify requirements, your own presentation structure and time plan, and your own technique to put together an end-to-end solution. Fine-tune your strategy with practice and stick to it on the day of the exam. Whatever your plan is, avoid changing it during the exam. Last-minute changes are a guaranteed recipe for failure.
Next Steps
You have come a long way. You have practiced solving several scenarios and successfully handled different functional and technical challenges. Next, you will learn about your potential next steps.
Practice and Practice More
Practice makes perfect. This applies to pretty much everything in life, including preparing for the CTA review board.
Simply put, the more mocks you practice, the better your chance of passing. Put yourself under conditions as close as possible to the real thing. Practice using a timer and presenting to someone. Ask them for feedback.
Candidates are normally expected to practice between five and nine full mocks before they are considered ready for the review board. If you get a chance to do more, grab it. The more mocks you practice (especially using different scenarios), the more you will know about your preferred style and strategy to tackle this exam.
You can even do mocks using the same scenario several times. There is value in using a new scenario. The surprise factor will put you under pressure, which will be like what you will experience during the real review board. However, there is still a lot of value gained from doing the same scenario multiple times; you can even try to do it with different judges each time as every judge has their strong areas of knowledge.
You can also try to create your own variation of a scenario. Some CTAs have already shared tips about that. Other CTAs have published some free mock scenarios as well. You will come across a set of additional resources at the end of this chapter.
Plan Some Time off before the Exam
You are likely busy with a thousand different things at work. Add social and family responsibilities, and your day is nearly full.
You might be able to squeeze in some study activities from time to time. That can help you prepare for the review board, assuming you are utilizing your work hours to practice some of the activities listed throughout this book.
Plan some time off before the review board date for intense preparation activities. Maybe set aside some time for a boot camp, scheduling two or three weeks of intense study, mock, and practice. This is important to help you close any remaining gaps and put you in the right mindset.
Get in Touch with the Community and Study Groups
There are several study groups available. This is a luxury that did not exist a few years back. Make use of it and get in touch with peers to exchange ideas and experiences.
These study groups also host CTAs from time to time and do live mocks. Time zones could be difficult for many candidates but seek local or nearby study groups that you can join. If none exist, create your own. Others will join.
You will find information about some of these study groups at the end of this chapter.
Stay Connected and Share Your Experience
There are several blogs written by CTAs and candidates who were unsuccessful at the review board. Have a look at them and try to make use of their feedback.
Also, do not hesitate to share your own experience. You do not know who might benefit from it. It is an excellent gesture to give back to the community. As a CTA or future CTA, you have a responsibility to develop future architects and help them reach their potential.
Community and Available Training
The market demand for architects is higher than ever. It is beneficial for everyone to develop highly skilled architects: Salesforce, Salesforce Partners, clients, and the architects themselves. There are several valuable resources that can help you prepare for your review board. Here are a few that can help you.
Salesforce Training and Study Groups
Salesforce used to have two valuable training workshops to prepare candidates for the CTA review board. They were called the Certified Technical Architect Preparation Workshop (CTA-601) and the Architect Review Board Readiness Diagnostic (CTA-602). Recently, Salesforce retired CTA-602 and introduced the Architect Review Board Evaluation instead, which became mandatory to earn CTA credentials.
The Certified Technical Architect Preparation Workshop is workshop-style training. It will help you understand the exam objectives and develop your skills to create an end-to-end solution. The Architect Review Board Evaluation is a short version of a full mock review board exam. It allows you to practice solving, presenting, and defending a full review board mock scenario. You will also receive feedback with a clear summary and recommendations based on your performance.
The Architect Review Board Evaluation has the following structure:
- 60 minutes to read the scenario and create your solution
- 30-minute presentation
- 30 minutes for the Q&A
- 45 minutes for feedback and discussion
You can learn more about the Certified Technical Architect Preparation Workshop and the Architect Review Board Evaluation at the following link: https://packt.link/5w8uv.
Here is also a list of other valuable training and study groups:
- Salesforce Architect website: The Salesforce Architect website contains several useful materials to help you learn more about the different architectural skills. Here is the website:
It also includes the Salesforce Diagramming Framework, which can be used to speed up the process of creating standard architectural diagrams:
Some of the Salesforce Architect’s valuable content are the decision guides and the Well-Architected Framework. Here are the links to them both:
- CTA office hours: This is a Chatter group with regular online meetups and activities:
- Ladies Be Architects: This is a study group that was initially created to inspire female architects. However, it soon developed to become one of the key success groups that provide valuable information to all Salesforce professionals:
and
- Salesforce Architect Group, London, UK: This is a study group for architects in London (in person) and EMEA (remote) in general:
- Salesforce Architect Group, Dubai, UAE: This is a study group for architects in Dubai (in person) and EMEA (remote) in general:
- Architect Group, Melbourne, AU: This is a study group for architects in Melbourne (in person) and Asia (remote) in general:
- Architect Group, Utrecht, NL: This is a study group for architects in Utrecht (in person) and EMEA (remote) in general:
- Architect Trailblazers Community: This is a Chatter group with valuable knowledge and materials for architects:
- Customer Architect Community: This is a Chatter group with valuable knowledge and materials for architects:
- Salesforce CTA Study Group Benelux: This is a study group initially created to cover the Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg (Benelux) region but grew quickly to become international:
- Salesforce SAML and OAuth 2.0 authorization flows using Node.js: This is a GitHub repository that contains example implementations of multiple authentication flows using Node.js
- Apex Hours: Apex Hours is a website that contains a big collection of learning materials, including a set of CTA exam mock scenarios from multiple sources. Their website can be found at the following link:
- The mock scenarios can be found at the following link:
Several other resources can be found on official Salesforce channels. There are also additional ones created regularly. You should keep Googling and exploring.
Stories and Lessons Learned
Many architects have shared their experiences with the review board. Here is a selected list:
- https://packt.link/CNEAU
- https://packt.link/EJdqJ
- https://packt.link/bHNuh
- https://packt.link/d9PU8
- https://packt.link/xsSE7
- https://packt.link/msOl7
- https://packt.link/YYmWn
- https://packt.link/HF3v3
Many other architects have shared their experiences. Some have done that via recorded videos, while others chose blogs. More materials are added regularly. Keep Googling and exploring.
Blogs and Training Providers
In addition to the training launched by Salesforce to prepare for the CTA review board, there are the following useful training resources:
- Bob Buzzard: One of the most famous blogs for Salesforce-related knowledge: https://packt.link/qLohZ
- Salesforce Ben: One of the most famous blogs for Salesforce-related knowledge: https://packt.link/7ySW4
- Gemma Blezard: A blog containing many valuable resources for Salesforce professionals: https://packt.link/25BOU
- FlowRepublic: A coaching and mentoring academy run by multiple talented CTAs: https://packt.link/zq3lS
- Cloud Johann: A blog containing many valuable resources and tips for Salesforce Architects: https://packt.link/uxEum
- CTA 202: A blog containing several valuable resources and tips for Salesforce Architects, including sample CTA mock scenarios: https://packt.link/BkaQo
- Cloud Sundial: A blog containing several valuable resources including details about authentication flows: https://packt.link/8y3L6
Again, this is a limited list from a vast pool of valuable knowledge available on the net. We are all lucky to have Google around.
Finally, one last tip to close this chapter. Reward yourself after attending the review board exam. You will feel exhausted, and in many cases, you will be unsure of the result. Just relax and wait for your result and try to do something cheerful and fun for the rest of that day (and probably one or two more days after).
You are now closer than ever to becoming a Salesforce Certified Technical Architect. Keep up the good spirit and carry on with the next step toward your dream!