Salesforce Certified Business Analyst Advanced Practice Exam: Hard Questions 2025

During discovery for a global B2C service org, stakeholders insist the primary success metric is “reduce average handle time (AHT) by 15%.” However, early interviews reveal agents frequently bypass required fields and select incorrect categories to save time, causing repeat contacts and rework in back office teams. As the Business Analyst, what is the BEST next step to validate the real problem and avoid optimizing the wrong outcome?

A Sales + Service transformation spans three regions with different regulatory constraints. In discovery interviews, APAC stakeholders claim they must store customer identifiers locally, while EMEA claims the same identifiers must be centrally mastered to support reporting. Both groups present “non-negotiable” requirements, and the sponsor is pressuring the team to finalize scope. What should the Business Analyst do FIRST to resolve the conflict effectively?

A company is implementing a new intake process in Salesforce. Executives want a single dashboard for "time to resolution" across Cases, custom Requests, and external tickets synced nightly. Teams disagree on what "start time" means (creation vs. first agent touch vs. customer submission) and "resolution" (closed vs. solved vs. customer-confirmed). What is the MOST appropriate BA artifact to produce to prevent inconsistent reporting and rework?

A cross-functional steering committee frequently overturns decisions made in working sessions, causing churn. Meeting time is limited, and key SMEs complain they are "being ignored" when decisions change. What should the Business Analyst implement to MOST effectively improve decision quality and stakeholder trust?

In a backlog refinement session, Product insists on prioritizing "nice-to-have" enhancements while Operations insists on compliance-related changes. Both claim their items are urgent, and the team lacks a consistent method for prioritization. What is the BEST approach for the Business Analyst to facilitate prioritization in a way that stands up under audit and executive scrutiny?

A BA is supporting a program with Salesforce, an ERP, and a marketing platform. Stakeholders report that requirements are "met" but users still reject the solution due to subtle workflow mismatches and handoffs. What is the MOST effective collaborative technique to surface these issues early and align stakeholders on the future state across systems?

A company has two parallel intake channels: phone (agent creates Case) and web (customer submits form creating a custom Request). The business wants a single process with consistent SLAs and routing, but insists the web channel must remain "lightweight" and not expose Case fields to customers. When mapping the future state, what is the BEST recommendation to reduce process divergence while honoring channel constraints?

While creating an as-is process map for lead-to-cash, the BA discovers teams are using undocumented workarounds: duplicating Accounts to bypass approval steps and manually editing close dates after contracts are signed to hit quotas. Leadership wants a future-state map "without politics" and requests the BA exclude these behaviors. What is the BEST response and action by the BA?

A stakeholder provides the requirement: "The system must prevent duplicate customers." In practice, the business has multiple valid scenarios: household members sharing an address, subsidiaries sharing a parent company name, and customers whose names change. What is the BEST way for the BA to refine this requirement to support solution design and testing without over-constraining the business?

A team writes the user story: "As an agent, I want the system to auto-route cases so that customers get faster service." During sprint execution, developers implement routing based on a single field, but after release, the business says routing is wrong for high-value customers and for cases created from chat. What is the BEST improvement the BA should make to the story writing approach to prevent this type of gap?