What is Salesforce Trailhead?
Salesforce Trailhead is a series of online tutorials that coach beginner and intermediate developers who need to learn how to code for the Salesforce platform. The company is best known for its Salesforce customer relationship management (CRM) product, which helps companies easily track customer communications and nurture leads.
Trailhead education, which was launched in 2014, comes in three levels -- trails, modules and units. Lessons are presented in a specific sequence, so users have a predefined path to follow.
What does Salesforce Trailhead do?
Trailhead is Salesforce's free online learning platform. It helps Salesforce developers migrate from Salesforce Classic to Salesforce Lightning Experience, a modern development platform that uses declarative code to enable someone with limited coding knowledge to build applications. Trailhead modules show users how to program in Apex, JavaScript and Visualforce.
The learning program is designed to help users by providing a series of interactive assessments to identify whether they've learned the content. gamification is built into the Trailhead program, so developers can also earn badges for milestones they reach in their Trailhead education.
The following are popular benefits of the Trailhead learning program:
- Collection of learning modules. Trailhead offers a library of courses on every topic encompassing the Salesforce ecosystem. These bite-sized and user-friendly modules are called trails and provide users with a predefined path to follow. Users have the option to either build custom trails or complete premade trails.
- Simplified content. Each Trailhead tutorial is comprised of short, self-contained units and each unit can be typically read in 10-15 minutes. The content is designed to help users learn at their own pace to maximize the education experience.
- Badges and certificates. Trailhead awards valuable accreditation upon the successful completion of units and modules in the form of superbadges and certificates. Users can display them on their Salesforce user profile and social media platforms such as LinkedIn to help earn recognition for their expertise with Salesforce.
- Instructor-led classes. The Trailhead Academy also offers online instructor-led classes that cover a wide range of in-demand topics and some offer optional in-person attendance.
- Trailblazer community. All Trailhead members are part of the global Trailblazer community, which enables fellow trailblazers to connect, share ideas and support each other while learning Salesforce content.
Who uses Trailhead?
According to Salesforce, anyone can use Trailhead and its customizable learning platform consists of over 1,300 Trailblazer communities in 90 countries. It's suitable for all demographics and industry types, whether it's sales managers or IT professionals who want to take their careers to the next level. For example, customer service teams looking to improve their knowledge-centered service (KCS) can train on the Trailhead KCS module, and sales teams can use the Sales Rep training module on Trailhead to help them learn how to sell successfully.
To get started, anyone can sign up for a free Trailhead account at Trailhead.com. Trailhead recognizes that Trailblazers hail from diverse backgrounds and are at different stages of their careers and therefore, offers a variety of workforce development programs such as Trailblazer Connect, Pathfinder, Salesforce Talent Alliance and Salesforce Military Alliance.
What are the features of Salesforce Trailhead?
Salesforce Trailhead offers a vast amount of educational content through a unique gamified platform.
The following are some of the main features and benefits of using Trailhead:
- Caters to all skill levels. Trailhead provides learning paths that are specifically designed to match a user's knowledge level and expertise. A user can start at the beginner level to learn a new skill, skill up for the future, or work their way up to learning advanced materials.
- Corporate training. Trailhead offers standardized corporate training and best practices across all disciplines, including IT, customer service, sales, human resources and management.
- Training with simulation. Users can enter a simulated Salesforce environment, called a Trailhead Playground, to simulate the tasks learned during the lessons. For example, to practice creating a report within a Sales CRM platform, an aspiring professional can use a specific Reports and Dashboards trail within the Playground to polish their Salesforce skills and accomplish the task step by step. Hands-on challenges are also presented at the end of each Trailhead module to test a user's skills.
- Appealing content. Trailhead courses are specifically designed to provide users with a fun and interactive learning experience. For example, the Build a Mars Communication Uplink project in Trailhead encourages Trailblazers to build an automated communication system in Salesforce Chatter and Process Builder to establish communication with rovers on Mars.
- Personalization. Trailhead enables users to personalize and control their learning journey. The Trailhead learning environment can be customized to a company's branding and training content, which may include custom onboarding trails, business-specific color schemes and enablement skills.
- Advancement of admin status. Salesforce admins looking to advance their careers can gain a competitive advantage in their industry by pursuing resume-worthy superbadges and certificates in the Trailhead platform.
- Trailmixes. Trailmix custom learning paths record all the modules, trails, projects and superbadges a user wishes to complete or has favorited.
How much does it cost?
The Trailhead training platform is free for anyone to use. However, companies that wish to provide customized Salesforce training environments for their employees pay a monthly fee of $25 per user.
Salesforce certifications range from $200 to $400. Each paid Trailhead license gives a user access to various webinars and events and a guaranteed two-day response on support tickets.
The popularity of the Salesforce line of products has increased the demand for Salesforce-certified professionals. Here's a look at how Trailhead usage is boosting the salaries for qualified individuals.