Trailhead & Salesforce University Merge – Free Certification Maintenance Exam on Trailhead

Update: The Path for Platform Developer II has been released in Trailhead

I was so excited when Trailhead announced that it was merging with Salesforce University (@SalesforceU).  That was really big news for me – Two learning giants of Salesforce getting together as ONE, centralising all learnings.

Everyone was expecting some big changes to happen to the certification with the merger and YES it did happen for Good! Salesforce University has brought couple of Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud certification maintenance exams (release exams) into Trailhead – “Email Specialist” and “Social Specialist”.

What does that it mean? It means “You will need to complete a module on Trailhead instead of taking a release exam in Webassessor.” That’s not it. “You no longer need to pay annual maintenance fees for your release exam for these 2 certifications”  WoW!!!!

Starting on June 14, 2017, to maintain your Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Email Specialist and Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Social Specialist certifications for the Spring ‘17 release, you will need to complete a module on Trailhead instead of taking a release exam in Webassessor – Trailhead!

Maintaining your certification on Trailhead has many benefits: it’s free, all learning content is centralized on Trailhead, making everything easier and more accessible; and you can earn more Trailhead badges!

Here are the two trailhead modules for these certification maintenance

Marketing Cloud Email Specialist Certification Maintenance (Spring ’17)

Marketing Cloud Social Specialist Certification Maintenance (Spring ’17)

Note: For candidates who do not hold Marketing Cloud certification, successful completion of a release module on Trailhead will not issue a Salesforce Certification credential.

Programmatic Assignment for PDII

Also you might already know, the Programmatic Assignment for Platform Developer II (earlier 501) has already been moved to Trailhead.  Earlier the Programmatic Assignment was manually checked by Salesforce specialist, now it is automated.  For PD2, you just need to do the online/offsite multiple choice exam and then the Programmatic assignment on trailhead.

Future?

I guess eventually all certification maintenance exams will be moved to Trailhead and both accounts will be merged! That would be cool.  But will Salesforce make all maintenance certifications free? Let’s wait and watch. What do you think? Comment and let me know.