SF-Data-Arch Master Data Management — All Questions With Answers

Question 1

Refer to the exhibit. The Data Architect is implementing a validation policy for incoming master data. What does this specific JSON policy achieve?

Accepted Answer

It rejects any record where the BillingCountry does not match the two-letter ISO code.. This policy implements a strict format validation for the BillingCountry field. By using a regex pattern requiring exactly two uppercase letters, it enforces ISO country code standards at the point of ingestion. This ensures data consistency for reporting and downstream integrations, preventing dirty data from polluting the CRM and avoiding errors in systems that rely on standardized country formats for tax or shipping calculations.

Answer

It converts all incoming country names to a two-letter format.

Answer

It automatically updates the BillingCountry to the correct value if an error is found.

Answer

It allows any country code but logs it for later manual review by a steward.

Question 2

Universal Containers is implementing a master data management strategy in Salesforce. The data architect needs to ensure that when customer information is updated in the master system, it is propagated to all downstream systems within 15 minutes. Which Salesforce feature should the architect use to achieve this near real-time synchronization?

Accepted Answer

Platform Events. Platform Events provide a scalable, event-driven mechanism to publish master data changes and have downstream systems subscribe and react in near real-time. This meets the 15-minute synchronization requirement while decoupling systems. Other options either lack real-time capability or are limited to Salesforce-internal changes.

Answer

Outbound Messaging

Answer

Change Data Capture

Answer

Scheduled Batch Apex

Question 3

A global financial services company uses Salesforce as its CRM and has multiple business units that each maintain their own customer data. The data architect needs to implement a master data management strategy that provides a single view of the customer while respecting data residency requirements that prohibit certain customer data from leaving the EU. Which Salesforce feature should be used to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Salesforce Hyperforce with a data residency policy that pins data storage to the EU region.. Hyperforce allows organizations to select the region where their Salesforce data is stored and processed. By choosing an EU region and configuring data residency, the company ensures that customer data never leaves the EU. This satisfies regulatory requirements while still enabling a single view of the customer across business units within that region.

Answer

Salesforce Shield Platform Encryption with a tenant secret stored in a Hardware Security Module (HSM) in the EU region.

Answer

Salesforce Multi-Org strategy with separate orgs for each business unit and a master org for consolidation.

Answer

Salesforce Connect to external data sources hosted in the EU, using cross-org adapters to unify customer records.

Question 4

A Salesforce data architect is implementing a master data management solution for 'Supplier' data. The company wants to ensure that the golden record is consistently maintained and trusted across the organization. Which two practices are essential for effective master data governance? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Define and enforce data quality metrics and thresholds.. Effective master data governance requires data stewards to own data quality and resolve issues, and defined data quality metrics to measure and enforce standards. These practices ensure the golden record remains accurate and trusted. A single source system or per-business-unit versions are not governance best practices; they can undermine the master data approach.

Answer

Store all master data in a legacy system and replicate to Salesforce.

Answer

Allow each business unit to maintain its own version of the golden record.

Answer

Implement a single source system for all master data attributes.

Question 5

A company uses Salesforce as its CRM and has a custom object 'Product__c' that stores product master data. The data architect needs to ensure that product records are only created or updated by a trusted external system via API. Which Salesforce feature should be used to enforce this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Create a validation rule that checks the running user's profile and only allows updates if the user is the integration user. A validation rule that checks the running user's identity against a designated integration user is the most precise way to restrict record modifications to that external system. It is declarative, easy to maintain, and applies consistently across all entry points. Other options either block all users or do not fully prevent unauthorized changes.

Answer

Set the object's organization-wide default to Private and remove all profiles' create/edit permissions

Answer

Use a before trigger to check the user's profile and throw an error if not the integration user

Answer

Enable field-level security to make all fields read-only for all profiles except the integration user

Question 6

A Salesforce data architect is designing an MDM solution that must support real-time access to golden records for a customer service application. The source systems include Salesforce, a legacy mainframe, and a cloud ERP. The architect must choose an integration pattern that ensures low latency and data consistency. Which pattern is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Virtual MDM with real-time data federation from source systems.. Virtual MDM with real-time data federation queries source systems on demand, providing the lowest latency and ensuring data consistency by always reflecting current source values. Batch ETL and manual entry introduce delays, while physical replication can have lag. For real-time customer service access, federation is the most appropriate pattern.

Answer

Physical MDM hub with real-time replication from all source systems.

Answer

Manual data entry into a single Salesforce org as the master.

Answer

Batch ETL to a physical MDM hub, with nightly synchronization to Salesforce.

Question 7

A data architect is implementing a master data management solution for customer data. The company wants to ensure that when a customer record is updated in the master system (Salesforce), the change is propagated to downstream systems (ERP, marketing automation) within 5 minutes. The downstream systems can consume REST APIs but cannot be called by Salesforce. Which integration pattern should the architect use?

Accepted Answer

Use Change Data Capture; a middleware subscribes to the change event stream and updates downstream systems via their REST APIs. Change Data Capture with a middleware subscriber is the best fit. It provides near real-time events, and the middleware can use the downstream systems' REST APIs to push updates. This avoids direct Salesforce-to-downstream calls and meets the tight time window. Other patterns either require unsupported protocols, introduce latency, or add unnecessary complexity.

Answer

Schedule a batch job in Salesforce that exports changed records to a file; downstream systems poll the file every 10 minutes

Answer

Salesforce calls a middleware REST endpoint on customer update; middleware then updates downstream systems

Answer

Salesforce publishes a Platform Event on customer update; downstream systems subscribe via CometD

Question 8

A global organization uses Salesforce as its CRM and SAP as its ERP. They need to ensure that customer data remains consistent across both systems. Which approach best supports a Master Data Management strategy for this landscape?

Accepted Answer

Implement a centralized MDM hub to mediate data exchanges and manage the golden record.. Establishing a centralized hub or golden record strategy is critical for large enterprises. By defining a source of truth for specific data attributes and orchestrating updates through an integration layer, organizations prevent data drift. This approach ensures that downstream systems consume validated, reliable data, which is essential for maintaining compliance, improving reporting accuracy, and providing a unified customer experience across disparate business units and global regions.

Answer

Perform nightly batch updates from Salesforce to SAP using flat files.

Answer

Allow bi-directional synchronization between Salesforce and SAP without a mediation layer.

Answer

Migrate all customer data from SAP into Salesforce to eliminate the need for an external hub.

Question 9

A company is implementing a Customer Data Platform (CDP) to consolidate data from Salesforce, a web store, and an email marketing tool. Which TWO steps are critical for successful identity resolution?

Accepted Answer

Define deterministic and probabilistic matching rules.. Identity resolution is the process of linking data points from disparate sources to create a unified profile. By defining clear matching rules and prioritizing data attributes, the CDP can accurately identify unique individuals even when they use different identifiers across channels. This is vital for personalized marketing and accurate customer analytics, ensuring that the organization does not treat the same individual as multiple distinct records.

Answer

Migrate all Salesforce CRM data into the marketing tool's database.

Answer

Remove all personally identifiable information from the incoming data streams.

Answer

Automate the deletion of all records that do not contain a phone number.

Question 10

A large enterprise discovers duplicate accounts across Salesforce and their legacy system. Before importing data, they decide to implement a 'Data Stewardship' program. What is the primary role of a data steward in this context?

Accepted Answer

Managing data quality, including defining rules and resolving data conflicts.. Data stewards bridge the gap between IT and business by overseeing the quality and lifecycle of master data. They define policies, resolve data conflicts, and ensure compliance with governance standards. This role is crucial because technical solutions alone cannot solve issues stemming from inconsistent business processes or ambiguous data definitions, requiring human oversight to make final decisions on data accuracy and business logic interpretation.

Answer

Writing custom Apex code to automate the merging of all duplicate accounts.

Answer

Performing daily backups of the Salesforce database to ensure disaster recovery.

Answer

Configuring Salesforce sharing rules to restrict access to sensitive account data.

Question 11

A company is planning to migrate legacy customer data into Salesforce. Before the load, the data architect recommends data profiling. Why is this activity mandatory for a successful MDM project?

Accepted Answer

It identifies patterns, anomalies, and quality issues within the legacy data set.. Data profiling uncovers hidden quality issues, such as inconsistent formatting, missing values, or unexpected dependencies. By understanding the true state of the source data, the architect can design effective cleansing and transformation rules. Failing to profile leads to 'garbage in, garbage out,' where inaccurate data undermines the value of the new Salesforce implementation and causes significant post-migration remediation costs and user frustration.

Answer

It ensures that the Salesforce data model is fully compatible with the legacy SQL schema.

Answer

It increases the speed of the data load by compressing the CSV files before import.

Answer

It automatically maps all legacy fields to the appropriate Salesforce fields without human intervention.

Question 12

An organization wants to improve their data quality within Salesforce. Which THREE actions should they prioritize to establish a robust Data Governance framework?

Accepted Answer

Assign data owners for each critical data domain.. A robust governance framework requires a combination of clear ownership, standardized processes, and technical automation. Without these pillars, data quality degrades over time due to inconsistent entries and lack of accountability. Prioritizing these actions ensures that all stakeholders understand their responsibilities, data is handled consistently, and the organization has a mechanism to detect and remediate issues before they impact business operations.

Answer

Mandate that every user must manually review all records created daily.

Answer

Delete all historical data to ensure the database starts with a clean slate.

Question 13

When designing a master data management solution in Salesforce, what is the significance of the 'Survivorship' rules?

Accepted Answer

They determine which data source is trusted for specific fields during reconciliation.. Survivorship rules are the logic engine that determines which source provides the 'best' version of a record when multiple systems provide conflicting data. This is essential for MDM because without these rules, the system cannot intelligently reconcile discrepancies, leading to a fragmented customer view. Proper survivorship logic ensures the golden record is reliable, accurate, and reflects the most trusted information available across the entire enterprise ecosystem.

Answer

They define the order in which records should be archived to the recycle bin.

Answer

They enable the automatic encryption of sensitive fields in the database.

Answer

They force users to enter data in a specific order to prevent errors.

Question 14

Which of the following is an example of 'Probabilistic Matching' in the context of an MDM solution?

Accepted Answer

Comparing customer names and addresses using fuzzy logic to generate a match score.. Probabilistic matching uses statistical algorithms to determine the likelihood that two records refer to the same entity based on similarity rather than exact matches. This is vital in MDM because data across systems is rarely perfectly identical due to typos, variations, or formatting differences. Using algorithms allows the system to identify matches that deterministic logic would miss, significantly improving the completeness and accuracy of the resulting golden record.

Answer

Matching two records because they share the exact same Social Security Number.

Answer

Using a strict SQL join condition to link Account records with Contact records.

Answer

Rejecting any contact record that lacks a valid email address field.

Question 15

Why should an organization perform 'Data Cleansing' before migrating data into a master record system?

Accepted Answer

To remove inconsistencies and ensure data accuracy in the destination system.. Data cleansing identifies and fixes errors such as duplicates, invalid formats, and incomplete fields before they are propagated into a new system. If dirty data is ingested, it corrupts the new MDM environment, rendering reports unreliable and forcing developers to build complex, expensive workarounds. Cleaning first ensures the initial state of the master system is pristine, providing a reliable foundation for all future business operations and data-driven decisions.

Answer

To increase the total number of records in the Salesforce database.

Answer

To eliminate the need for any future data governance or stewardship.

Answer

To minimize the Salesforce storage cost by deleting all inactive customer accounts.

Question 16

Which of the following is a classic symptom of poor Master Data Management in a Salesforce ecosystem?

Accepted Answer

Sales and Marketing teams having conflicting views of the same customer.. Fragmented data silos often result in the same customer existing as multiple records across different systems (e.g., Salesforce, SAP, and Marketing Cloud). This leads to poor customer service, conflicting marketing messages, and inaccurate financial reporting. Identifying these symptoms is critical for a Data Architect to justify the investment in an MDM solution, as these issues directly impact the bottom line through operational inefficiency and missed sales opportunities.

Answer

Salesforce users reporting that their dashboards load slowly.

Answer

Excessive use of Apex triggers that cause governor limit exceptions.

Answer

Users forgetting their passwords frequently, requiring support tickets.

Question 17

Universal Containers maintains customer master data in Salesforce and in a legacy Oracle billing system. The data architect must define a survivorship strategy that resolves field-level conflicts when the same customer is updated in both systems during the same nightly integration window. Business rules state that the most recently modified value from the system of record for that attribute should win, and that billing-related attributes must always originate from Oracle. Which approach should the architect implement to satisfy these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Implement attribute-level survivorship rules in the MDM layer, using source priority for billing attributes and last-updated timestamp comparison for all other attributes, then publish the golden record back to both systems.. The requirement combines two distinct survivorship policies: source-priority for billing attributes and last-updated-wins for everything else. Only an MDM layer that resolves conflicts at the individual attribute level can apply different rules per field and then distribute the golden record back to the source systems. Record-level duplicate detection, validation rules, or blunt overwrites cannot express that per-attribute logic and would either leave conflicts unresolved or overwrite valid newer data.

Answer

Use Salesforce Data Loader to export both data sets nightly, then run a batch Apex job that updates Salesforce records with the Oracle values for every field, ensuring Oracle always wins.

Answer

Configure a Salesforce Duplicate Rule with a matching rule on the customer number, and enable Alert on the rule so that integration users receive a notification when a conflict is detected.

Answer

Create a Salesforce Validation Rule on the customer object that prevents updates to billing fields unless the running user is an integration user, and rely on the Oracle system to overwrite Salesforce values during the nightly job.

Question 18

Northern Trail Outfitters uses Salesforce as its system of entry for customer records, but the ERP remains the system of record for billing addresses. A data architect must design the MDM integration so that when a billing address changes in the ERP, Salesforce is updated, but address edits made in Salesforce do not flow back to the ERP. Which MDM pattern should the architect implement?

Accepted Answer

One-way synchronization from the ERP to Salesforce, with Salesforce address fields made read-only for users.. The scenario defines a clear attribute-level system of record: the ERP owns billing address, Salesforce merely consumes it. That maps to a unidirectional publish-and-subscribe integration combined with UI-level protection so Salesforce users cannot create authoritative edits. Bi-directional approaches and federation both contradict either the direction requirement or the expectation that the value is persisted and usable natively inside Salesforce.

Answer

Federated access using Salesforce Connect to display the ERP address in real time without persisting it in Salesforce.

Answer

Bi-directional synchronization with last-write-wins conflict resolution based on the most recent ModifiedDate.

Answer

Bi-directional synchronization with a survivorship rule that always prefers the ERP value for the address field.

Question 19

A data architect at a global manufacturer is defining the match strategy for a new MDM hub. Legal names vary widely across regions, so the architect needs a technique that will correctly link records such as 'Acme Corp.' and 'Acme Corporation Ltd.' even though the strings differ. Which matching approach best satisfies this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Probabilistic (fuzzy) matching using token-based similarity scoring with a configurable match threshold.. The requirement is about linking records whose names differ lexically but refer to the same real-world entity. Deterministic rules and identifier-only matching both fail when the input strings vary, while blocking is a performance layer rather than a matching algorithm. Probabilistic scoring with a tunable threshold is the standard MDM technique for this kind of fuzzy corporate-name reconciliation.

Answer

Deterministic matching on the exact normalized Account Name field using a case-insensitive comparison.

Answer

Blocking on the first three characters of the account name followed by exact comparison of the remaining characters.

Answer

Matching on the external ERP customer number only, ignoring name fields entirely during the match.

Question 20

A Salesforce data architect is asked to recommend a native capability for detecting and merging duplicate person accounts created by multiple intake channels. Which Salesforce feature should the architect recommend as the primary tool?

Accepted Answer

Duplicate Rules combined with Matching Rules and the built-in merge interface.. Salesforce provides declarative Matching Rules and Duplicate Rules that evaluate candidate records on create and edit, plus a standard merge interface for consolidation. Together these cover both prevention and remediation natively. Validation rules, activity capture, and custom Apex each address something adjacent but not the core duplicate detection and merge requirement, so they cannot be the primary recommendation.

Answer

Einstein Activity Capture to reconcile duplicate activities across person accounts.

Answer

Validation Rules that block record creation when the last name matches an existing contact.

Answer

A scheduled Apex batch job that compares Account.Name values using SOQL LIKE queries.

SF-Data-Arch Master Data Management — All Questions With Answers

Refer to the exhibit. The Data Architect is implementing a validation policy for incoming master data. What does this specific JSON policy achieve?

Exhibit

A Salesforce data architect is implementing a master data management solution for 'Supplier' data. The company wants to ensure that the golden record is consistently maintained and trusted across the organization. Which two practices are essential for effective master data governance? (Choose two.)

A company uses Salesforce as its CRM and has a custom object 'Product__c' that stores product master data. The data architect needs to ensure that product records are only created or updated by a trusted external system via API. Which Salesforce feature should be used to enforce this requirement?

A global organization uses Salesforce as its CRM and SAP as its ERP. They need to ensure that customer data remains consistent across both systems. Which approach best supports a Master Data Management strategy for this landscape?

A company is implementing a Customer Data Platform (CDP) to consolidate data from Salesforce, a web store, and an email marketing tool. Which TWO steps are critical for successful identity resolution?

A large enterprise discovers duplicate accounts across Salesforce and their legacy system. Before importing data, they decide to implement a 'Data Stewardship' program. What is the primary role of a data steward in this context?

A company is planning to migrate legacy customer data into Salesforce. Before the load, the data architect recommends data profiling. Why is this activity mandatory for a successful MDM project?

An organization wants to improve their data quality within Salesforce. Which THREE actions should they prioritize to establish a robust Data Governance framework?

When designing a master data management solution in Salesforce, what is the significance of the 'Survivorship' rules?

Which of the following is an example of 'Probabilistic Matching' in the context of an MDM solution?

Why should an organization perform 'Data Cleansing' before migrating data into a master record system?

Which of the following is a classic symptom of poor Master Data Management in a Salesforce ecosystem?

A Salesforce data architect is asked to recommend a native capability for detecting and merging duplicate person accounts created by multiple intake channels. Which Salesforce feature should the architect recommend as the primary tool?

A data architect is designing a data governance program for a Salesforce MDM implementation that spans Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and an external data warehouse. Which two capabilities are essential to include in the governance model? (Choose two.)

A Salesforce data architect is explaining the concept of a 'golden record' to business stakeholders. Which statement best describes a golden record in a master data management context?

A data architect is designing a master data management strategy for customer data in Salesforce. The company wants to ensure data quality and consistency across systems. Which two practices should the architect recommend to maintain a single source of truth? (Choose two.)

SF-Data-Arch Master Data Management — All Questions With Answers

Refer to the exhibit. The Data Architect is implementing a validation policy for incoming master data. What does this specific JSON policy achieve?

Exhibit

A Salesforce data architect is implementing a master data management solution for 'Supplier' data. The company wants to ensure that the golden record is consistently maintained and trusted across the organization. Which two practices are essential for effective master data governance? (Choose two.)

A company uses Salesforce as its CRM and has a custom object 'Product__c' that stores product master data. The data architect needs to ensure that product records are only created or updated by a trusted external system via API. Which Salesforce feature should be used to enforce this requirement?

A global organization uses Salesforce as its CRM and SAP as its ERP. They need to ensure that customer data remains consistent across both systems. Which approach best supports a Master Data Management strategy for this landscape?

A company is implementing a Customer Data Platform (CDP) to consolidate data from Salesforce, a web store, and an email marketing tool. Which TWO steps are critical for successful identity resolution?

A large enterprise discovers duplicate accounts across Salesforce and their legacy system. Before importing data, they decide to implement a 'Data Stewardship' program. What is the primary role of a data steward in this context?

A company is planning to migrate legacy customer data into Salesforce. Before the load, the data architect recommends data profiling. Why is this activity mandatory for a successful MDM project?

An organization wants to improve their data quality within Salesforce. Which THREE actions should they prioritize to establish a robust Data Governance framework?

When designing a master data management solution in Salesforce, what is the significance of the 'Survivorship' rules?

Which of the following is an example of 'Probabilistic Matching' in the context of an MDM solution?

Why should an organization perform 'Data Cleansing' before migrating data into a master record system?

Which of the following is a classic symptom of poor Master Data Management in a Salesforce ecosystem?

A Salesforce data architect is asked to recommend a native capability for detecting and merging duplicate person accounts created by multiple intake channels. Which Salesforce feature should the architect recommend as the primary tool?

A data architect is designing a data governance program for a Salesforce MDM implementation that spans Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and an external data warehouse. Which two capabilities are essential to include in the governance model? (Choose two.)

A Salesforce data architect is explaining the concept of a 'golden record' to business stakeholders. Which statement best describes a golden record in a master data management context?

A data architect is designing a master data management strategy for customer data in Salesforce. The company wants to ensure data quality and consistency across systems. Which two practices should the architect recommend to maintain a single source of truth? (Choose two.)