Education Cloud Consultant Advanced Practice Exam: Hard Questions 2025

A university is implementing Education Cloud and must support multiple affiliated schools (Business, Engineering, Law). Each school wants different page layouts, automations, and analytics for prospects and applicants, but leadership requires a single 360-degree person record to avoid duplicates and enable cross-school reporting. The institution also needs to support an applicant who can apply to multiple programs across schools concurrently. What solution design best satisfies these requirements with least long-term technical debt?

An institution is migrating from a legacy SIS/CRM into Education Cloud. The legacy system contains multiple identifiers per person (state ID, alumni ID, applicant ID) and inconsistent name/address history. The school expects ongoing integrations from the SIS to update demographics nightly, while Admissions staff will also update data during recruiting events. The solution must minimize data overwrites and maintain a clear audit of where data came from. What is the most appropriate architecture approach?

Admissions needs to implement an application review process where each application is evaluated by 3 reviewers. Reviewers must not see each other’s scores/comments until all have submitted, after which a committee chair can see everything and finalize a decision. The institution also needs to support external faculty reviewers who authenticate via Experience Cloud. What is the best solution that meets sharing and timing requirements?

A university runs recruitment campaigns across multiple channels. Marketing wants to trigger a personalized email journey when a prospect’s 'Program Interest' changes, but Admissions also updates Program Interest frequently during advising calls. The institution must avoid sending duplicate journeys, must respect contact consent, and must ensure that changes from integrations do not trigger marketing journeys unintentionally. What is the best approach?

Admissions leadership requires a funnel dashboard that shows counts and conversion rates by stage (Inquiry → Applicant → Admitted → Deposited) for each term and program. Prospects can apply to multiple programs in the same term and can have multiple inquiries over time. The current implementation stores stage on Contact and term/program as fields on Contact, leading to inaccurate reporting. What data model and reporting approach best resolves the issue?

Student Success wants to assign cases and success tasks based on risk signals. Risk comes from multiple sources: LMS inactivity, low grades, and financial holds. Signals arrive at different times and can be reversed (e.g., hold removed). Advisors need a single risk score and an explanation of contributing factors, and the institution must prevent automation from repeatedly creating duplicate cases/tasks when signals fluctuate. What is the best design?

An advising center uses appointment scheduling and wants automated follow-ups. Requirements: (1) Advisors should only see appointments for their assigned students, (2) students may meet with multiple advisors across departments, (3) appointment notes must be visible to a limited set of roles due to sensitive topics, and (4) aggregated metrics (no notes) should be visible to leadership. Which approach best meets these privacy and reporting requirements?

A school wants to increase student engagement by sending targeted messages to students based on combined criteria: academic standing, participation in specific programs, and recent case outcomes. Messages should be consistent across email and SMS, support opt-out, and allow advisors to preview what a student will receive. Data changes frequently, and the school wants to avoid building complex one-off flows per message type. What architecture is best?

Advancement wants to track relationships among alumni, parents, and friends for giving influence and moves management. A single person can have multiple roles (alumnus and parent) and may have relationships to multiple students. Reporting needs include: household giving totals, soft credit attribution, and relationship-based solicitation restrictions (e.g., do not solicit if related student has a privacy flag). What is the best overall data modeling strategy?

An advancement office integrates a third-party donation platform that sends payment events in near real time. Requirements: create opportunities and payments, prevent duplicates when the platform retries events, support refunds/chargebacks that can occur weeks later, and ensure fundraising dashboards reflect both pledged and collected amounts accurately. What is the best integration and data handling pattern in Salesforce?