Salesforce Certified Platform App Builder Advanced Practice Exam: Hard Questions 2025

A global sales org wants a custom object (Deal_Review__c) to be editable only by (1) the record owner, (2) users above the owner in the role hierarchy, and (3) members of a Review Team. However, executives want to keep the org-wide default (OWD) for Deal_Review__c as Private and do NOT want users in the same role to automatically gain access. Which design best meets the requirement with least privilege?

A service team reports that their new record-triggered flow on Case sometimes updates the Case multiple times, resulting in excessive CPU time and occasional errors. The flow updates a formula-derived field (stored as a normal field) whenever Case Priority changes, and also updates Priority when the stored field changes under certain conditions. Which change most effectively prevents recursion while preserving the business logic?

A custom object Project__c must support three record types. Each record type has a different business process: different picklist values, different page layouts, and different default values for a custom picklist field Stage__c. Users complain that Stage__c defaults inconsistently depending on how they create records (global action vs object tab vs related list). Which configuration ensures consistent defaults per record type regardless of entry point?

A company uses a junction object Assignment__c with two master-detail relationships: one to Consultant__c and one to Engagement__c. They need to restrict deletion of an Engagement__c record if it has ANY related Assignments, but still want roll-up summaries from Assignment__c to Engagement__c. What is the best solution?

Sales leadership wants an Account-level metric showing the count of open Opportunities where (1) Amount > 50000, (2) Close Date is within the next 90 days, and (3) Opportunity Type is not blank. The metric must be available for reporting and list views and should not require manual recalculation. What is the best declarative approach?

A Lightning App page contains a custom screen flow component that should display only when a Case is in Status = 'Escalated' AND the running user has a specific permission set. The admin wants this to be controlled declaratively without duplicating pages. What is the best solution?

After deploying a change set, users report they cannot see new fields on a Lightning record page even though the fields exist and are on the page layout. The org uses Lightning App Builder record pages with dynamic forms enabled on some objects. What is the most likely cause and fix?

A record-triggered flow updates a related child record collection. In production, the flow intermittently fails with errors indicating it attempted to update records the user cannot access. The business requirement is that updates should occur regardless of the end user’s permissions, but the audit trail must still show the initiating user. Which approach best meets the requirement while staying within Platform App Builder scope and best practices?

A team is building a new custom object Asset_Request__c. They must allow users to relate an Asset_Request__c to either an Account OR a Contact, but not both, and reporting should allow grouping by the related entity. Which data model best balances flexibility and reporting needs?

An admin needs to deploy a new Flow, a custom field, and updated permission sets from a sandbox to production. After deployment, they want to ensure the Flow is not active until a final smoke test is completed in production, but they also want to avoid users seeing runtime errors due to missing permissions. What is the best deployment strategy?