Updated for Winter '26 Release
Last Updated: November 2025 | Exam Version: Winter '26
This Platform Administrator II guide reflects the latest Salesforce Winter '26 release (November 2025), including changes to Activity custom fields, enhanced Flow + AI automation, improved monitoring & security tooling, and the new unified Agentforce Testing Center.
⚡ What Changed from Spring '25 to Winter '26?
These changes matter even more for Platform Administrator II, where scenarios often combine security, automation, and data at scale.
Custom field limit for Activities (Tasks & Events) raised to 300 – important for complex sales & service processes.
AI-powered decisioning & unstructured data handling in Flow – shows up in advanced automation scenarios.
Type-ahead search and small UX improvements in Flows, List Views & Setup make complex admin work smoother.
Salesforce Certified Platform Administrator II
Formerly: "Salesforce Certified Advanced Administrator"
Your guide to mastering advanced Salesforce administration, complex security models, powerful automation, and enterprise-scale solutions.
📊 Platform Administrator II Exam at a Glance
📝 Note: From July 21, 2025, all Salesforce exams are delivered via Pearson VUE through Trailhead Academy. You can take the exam at a testing center or online with remote proctoring (no mobile exams).
Exam Objectives & Weightage (Platform Administrator II)
1. Security and Access
20%Deep-dive into record access, field access, authentication, and complex account models. You must choose the best combination of OWDs, roles, sharing rules, permission sets, and territory management for a given scenario.
Expect scenarios mixing advanced sharing with monitoring & audit (e.g., ensuring the right people see the right data, plus proving it via logs and monitoring tools).
View Key Topics ▼
- OWDs, Role Hierarchy, Sharing Rules, manual sharing
- Profiles vs Permission Sets vs Delegated Administration
- Login & identity: SSO, MFA, login IPs, login hours
- Person Accounts, Contacts to Multiple Accounts, complex account models
- Territory Management and its impact on access
- Securing Experience Cloud access
2. Objects and Applications
19%Focus on choosing the right data model (lookup vs master-detail, junction objects, record types) and building efficient Lightning apps & pages for complex user needs.
More custom Activity fields and better page performance mean you’ll see questions around scaling page layouts, Dynamic Forms, and Activity tracking.
3. Auditing and Monitoring
10%Understand how to trace issues, prove compliance, and troubleshoot access and performance using Salesforce monitoring tools.
View Key Topics ▼
- Debug Logs, Setup Audit Trail
- Login History, Field History Tracking
- Monitoring security updates & pending changes
- Sandbox vs production data considerations & compliance
4. Cloud Applications (Sales, Service & Beyond)
11%This section tests how well you understand Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Knowledge – especially entitlement processes, Omni-Channel, chat, and forecasting.
5. Data & Analytics Management
13%Go beyond basic reports. You’ll see scenarios involving data quality, complex reporting, external data, and backup/archiving strategies.
6. Environment Management & Deployment
7%Understand sandboxes, change sets, packages, and deployment best practices from an admin perspective.
7. Process Automation
20%This is a huge chunk of the exam. You’ll pick the best combination of Flows & other tools for complex business problems, and understand the order of execution deeply.
Expect more emphasis on Flow as the primary tool, plus questions about AI decisions and testing/debugging complex automations.
📝 Sample Platform Administrator II Questions
💡 Test Your Advanced Admin Knowledge
These questions are closer to real exam scenarios – you must pick the best solution, not just a valid one.
Question 1: Security & Access
A sales manager should see all Opportunity records in their region, even when the Opportunity owner belongs to a different role and no direct role hierarchy exists between them. The organization-wide default for Opportunities is Private. What is the best way to meet this requirement?
A) Grant “View All” on Opportunities in the manager’s profile
B) Create a public group for the region and a criteria-based sharing rule on Opportunities
C) Move the manager above all regional reps in the role hierarchy
D) Enable “Grant Access Using Hierarchies” and rely on standard role access
✓ Correct Answer: B) Create a public group for the region and a criteria-based sharing rule on Opportunities
Explanation: “View All” is too broad and bypasses sharing for the entire object. Reworking the role hierarchy can be complex and may not match the org’s structure. A criteria-based sharing rule that shares Opportunities with a regional public group gives least-privilege access while meeting the requirement.
Question 2: Objects & Applications
A customer implementation requires tracking training sessions where a single Contact can attend many sessions, and each Session can have many Contacts. You also need to track attendance-specific fields such as “No-Show?”, “Score”, and “Feedback”. How should you model this?
A) Lookup from Contact to Session
B) Master-detail from Contact to Session
C) Junction object between Contact and Session with two master-detail relationships
D) Custom multi-select picklist of Contacts on Session
✓ Correct Answer: C) Junction object between Contact and Session with two master-detail relationships
Explanation: This is a classic many-to-many use case. A junction object (e.g., Attendance__c) with master-detail to Contact and Session lets you store attendance-specific details and leverage roll-up summaries.
Question 3: Cloud Applications (Service & Knowledge)
A support director wants to ensure VIP customers receive faster resolution times with additional SLA tracking. VIP Cases should have stricter milestones and escalations. What should a Platform Administrator II configure?
A) A separate Case Record Type and Page Layout only
B) A new Entitlement Process with milestones tied to a VIP entitlement
C) A case escalation rule with shorter escalation times
D) A workflow rule that sends an email to VIP managers
✓ Correct Answer: B) A new Entitlement Process with milestones tied to a VIP entitlement
Explanation: Entitlements and Entitlement Processes are the best practice way to track SLAs, milestones, and timeline-based escalations in Service Cloud. Escalation rules and emails alone don’t provide full SLA tracking.
Question 4: Data & Analytics Management
A leadership dashboard should show monthly pipeline trends over the last 12 months, based on historical snapshots of Opportunities. The admin wants this automated with no manual exports. Which feature should be used?
A) Joined Report with cross filters
B) Reporting Snapshot (Analytical Snapshot)
C) Role Hierarchy and bucket fields
D) Dynamic Dashboard with filters
✓ Correct Answer: B) Reporting Snapshot (Analytical Snapshot)
Explanation: Reporting Snapshots allow you to store historical report data into a custom object on a schedule, then build time-based trend reports and dashboards from that object.
Question 5: Process Automation
A complex business requirement updates multiple related child records, sends different notifications, and calls an external system. The solution must be mostly declarative, easy to maintain, and respect the order of execution. Which design should a Platform Administrator II choose?
A) Multiple workflow rules on the same object
B) One large Process Builder process with sub-processes
C) Record-triggered Flow with subflows and an outbound call, plus Apex only where necessary
D) Apex trigger for everything (no declarative tools)
✓ Correct Answer: C) Record-triggered Flow with subflows and an outbound call, plus Apex only where necessary
Explanation: Salesforce recommends Flow as the primary automation tool. A record-triggered Flow with subflows keeps logic modular and declarative. Apex is reserved only for parts that can’t be handled in Flow.
💡 Exam Tip: Platform Administrator II is scenario-heavy. Read each question twice and eliminate answers that are technically possible but not best practice.
📚 Study Plan for Platform Administrator II (4–6 Weeks)
🎯 Suggested Roadmap
Master Security & Access and Objects & Applications. Rebuild your org’s sharing model in a Developer Edition org to truly understand it.
Focus on Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Knowledge, Entitlements, and complex reports & dashboards.
Build complex record-triggered Flows, practice deployments, and take multiple full-length practice exams under timed conditions.
💡 Exam Day Tips (Platform Admin II)
Ask: “Is this scalable? Is this best practice? Does this break security or maintenance?” – then pick the option that ticks those boxes.
Remove answers that use retired tools (Workflow, heavy Process Builder-only designs) or overly broad permissions (“View All Data”).
You have ~1.6 minutes per question. If you’re stuck, choose your best option, flag it, and come back later with a fresh mind.