Trailhead is referred to as “the fun and free way to learn“. Trailhead is a valuable tool for all Salesforce users, known as Trailblazers. Trailhead is for everyone. It has topics and lessons for all Salesforce users, from admins and developers to sales leaders and everyday users. You can learn technical, business, and soft skills that may help you in your Salesforce journey.
Let’s start your Salesforce journey by exploring the blog. In this blog, you will learn about – What is Salesforce Trailhead? its features, benefits and more!
What is Salesforce Trailhead?
Salesforce Trailhead is a free online learning platform that helps you build a successful career with Salesforce. Launched in 2014, Trailhead offers interactive trails, modules, hands-on exercises and a gamified learning experience, you can learn in-demand skills in Salesforce development, administration, sales, service, and more. With points, badges, and challenges, Trailhead makes learning fun and engaging.
Trailhead provides access to real-world practice environments, allowing you to apply your knowledge and prepare for Salesforce certifications. Beyond technical skills, Trailhead fosters a strong community of Trailblazers where you can connect, collaborate, and share experiences. According to a report, more than 70% of users reported that the skills they learned on Trailhead contributed to a promotion or raise.
Trailhead provides a tailored learning path for all skill levels to support you in achieving your professional objectives.
What Does Salesforce Trailhead Do?
Trailhead empowers users to learn Salesforce skills through practical application and project-based learning. It provides a platform for skill development, certification preparation, and career advancement.
Trailhead makes learning Salesforce easy and accessible for everyone. It gives small businesses the same training opportunities as big companies.
Trailhead helps Salesforce developers switch from Salesforce Classic to Salesforce Lightning Experience, a modern platform that uses simple code. Even people with limited coding skills can build applications. Trailhead modules teach users how to program in Apex, JavaScript, and Visualforce.
Interactive assessments are part of the program to see how much you’ve learnt. Trailhead employs gamification as well, allowing you to receive badges for completing objectives.
You gain points and advance through the ranks by finishing troops; the top level is an All-Star Ranger. You can see the badges you earn on your Trailblazer.me profile. With the mobile app, you can learn on the go, making it even easier to gain new skills.
Features of Trailhead
1. Gamified Learning Experience
Trailhead incorporates gamification elements such as points, badges, and ranks to make learning enjoyable and rewarding.
2. Badges
Trailhead breaks down learning topics into modules, each with units. After finishing a unit, you’ll complete a quiz or hands-on challenge to earn points. When you finish all units in a module, you get a badge that shows on your profile. These badges show your skills in different Salesforce products and general skills like project management.
3. Superbadges
Superbadges are advanced tests that check your knowledge of real-world problems. They help you prove that you can solve real business issues. You need to finish some basic modules first. Then, you unlock the Superbadge and solve complex problems without step-by-step instructions. Superbadges take about 8 to 14 hours to complete.
4. Projects
Projects give you step-by-step instructions to help you build something and get hands-on experience quickly. They cover different areas and help you practice Salesforce technologies.
5. Trails
Trails are groups of modules that guide you through specific learning paths, like “How to Become a Certified Administrator.” Trailmixes are custom learning paths you can create or follow, made by other Trailblazers.
6. Trailblazer Profile
Your Trailblazer profile shows your details, accomplishments, interactions, and skills. It acts like a Salesforce resume for employers. You can add a “Hire Me” button to show you’re looking for work and create a personalised profile URL.
7. Maintenance Exams
To keep your Salesforce certifications up to date, you must complete yearly maintenance exams. These exams moved to Trailhead in 2018, making them free and easy to access. Trailhead notifies you when maintenance is due, so you don’t forget.
8. Certification Preparation Webinars
Free, half-day webinars delivered by industry experts are called Salesforce Certification Days. They cover the main points of the exams, focusing on important areas, and helping you get closer to earning your certification.
9. Trailhead Quests
Every month, Salesforce releases “Monthly Quests” to motivate you to learn. Complete challenges, earn badges and win prizes. Visit the Trailhead Quests homepage to find available quests, read the rules, complete the challenge in the given time, and enter to win prizes.
10. Hands-on Practice
You can practice in a simulated Salesforce environment called a Trailhead Playground. For example, you can learn to create reports in Sales CRM by following a specific trail. Each module ends with hands-on challenges to test your skills.
11. Personalised Learning
You can personalise your learning experience with Trailhead. Businesses can add specialised training materials, custom trails, and their branding.
Navigating Trailhead
Trailhead Salesforce offers a variety of learning paths to cater to different learning styles and goals. Aside from creating customised learning experiences using trailmixes and modules, you can explore organised trails and go deeper into specific topics through projects and modules.
Getting Started
To embark on your Trailhead journey, start by creating an account on the Trailhead website. Giving basic information and creating your Trailblazer profile, which will display your credentials and learning accomplishments, are the only steps in this quick process.
Learning Paths
Trailhead offers a variety of learning paths to cater to different needs:
- Trails: Structured learning paths that guide users through related modules and projects. For instance, the “Get Started with Salesforce” trail helps you establish a solid foundation by guiding you through the fundamentals of the program.
- Trailmixes: You can design custom learning pathways by putting your favourite projects, trails, and modules together. You can share trailmixes with other users to promote cooperation and personalised learning experiences.
- Modules: Individual units that cover specific topics. Each module includes a mix of reading materials, videos, quizzes, and hands-on challenges.
- Projects: Practical exercises that provide step-by-step instructions to help users gain hands-on experience with Salesforce technologies.
Benefits of the Trailhead Learning Program
Benefits from Trailhead include extensive learning modules, easily understood information, worthwhile certifications, instructor-led classes, and an engaging community.
1. Wide Range of Learning Modules
Trailhead has many modules on every Salesforce topic. These small and easy-to-follow modules are called trails. Users can follow a set path or create their own custom trails.
2. Easy-to-Understand Content
Each Trailhead Salesforce tutorial is made up of short units that take about 10-15 minutes to read. The content is designed for self-paced learning, making it easy to fit into your schedule and learn at your own pace.
3. Badges and Certificates
Trailhead gives you badges and certificates for completing units and modules. You can show these on your Salesforce profile and social media, like LinkedIn, to highlight your skills and get recognition.
4. Instructor-Led Classes
Trailhead Academy offers online classes led by instructors on popular topics. Some classes even have the option to attend in person. These classes provide a more interactive and guided learning experience.
5. Corporate Training
Trailhead offers training for various business roles, such as IT, customer service, sales, human resources, and management.
6. Career Advancement
Earning superbadges and certificates on Trailhead can enhance career prospects by significantly strengthening resumes.
7. Trailblazer Community
The global Trailblazer community includes every Trailhead member. This community helps users connect, share ideas, and support each other while learning Salesforce.
Who Uses Trailhead?
Trailhead is for everyone. According to Salesforce, anyone can use Trailhead. It has over 1,300 Trailblazer communities in 90 countries. It’s great for all kinds of people and industries, like sales managers and IT professionals who want to grow their careers. For example, customer service teams can use the KCS module to improve their skills, and sales teams can use the Sales Rep training module to learn how to sell better.
To start, anyone can sign up for a free Trailhead account at Trailhead.com. Trailhead knows that Trailblazers come from different backgrounds and are at different career stages. For this reason, it provides programs such as Salesforce Talent Alliance, Salesforce Military Alliance, Trailblazer Connect, and Pathfinder.
Is Salesforce Trailhead Free?
Yes, Trailhead’s guided learning paths are free for everyone. This makes learning Salesforce accessible to all. But, companies that want customised Salesforce training for their employees pay $25 per user each month.
Trailhead offers a free tier with access to a vast library of courses and resources. Paid options provide additional benefits such as instructor-led training and specialised support.
Salesforce also offers paid courses through Trailhead Academy. These are bootcamps and courses where you learn from experts instead of learning on your own.
Salesforce certifications cost between $75 and $400. With a paid Trailhead license, users get access to webinars, events, and fast support within two days.
Salesforce Trail Tracker
If you want to track badges and other Trailhead activities of your team, use Trail Tracker. It’s a free tool that syncs data into Salesforce reports and dashboards.
What Trail Tracker Does
- Syncs Activity: Updates your employees’ Trailhead activities (in-progress and completed badges) automatically in Salesforce each day.
- Customises Training: Lets you assign specific Trailhead badges to your employees to personalise their training.
- Tracks Progress: Uses ready-made reports and dashboards to show badges earned by each user and team.
What Is the Highest Rank in Trailhead?
Trail Tracker helps users follow their Salesforce learning path on Trailhead. Managers can assign, track, and report on badges earned by their teams using the pre-built reports and dashboards, all within Salesforce.
In Trailhead, the highest rank used to be Ranger, which you could reach by earning 100 badges. But since many people earned way more than 100 badges, Salesforce added new ranks in the Winter ‘23 update.
Here are the new Ranger ranks:
- Double Star Ranger: 200 or more badges (100,000 or more points)
- Triple Star Ranger: 300 or more badges (150,000 or more points)
- Four Star Ranger: 400 or more badges (200,000 or more points)
- Five Star Ranger: 500 or more badges (250,000 or more points)
- All Star Ranger: 600 or more badges (300,000 or more points)
Image Source: Salesorce.com
Is Trailhead Enough to Learn Salesforce?
Trailhead is a great tool for learning Salesforce, but it’s not the only one you need. Real-world experience is very important. Salesforce tries to help with this by offering projects and Superbadges on Trailhead that give you hands-on practice.
Trailhead is good for learning about different features and testing what you know. However, if you want a long-term career in Salesforce, you need more than just Trailhead.
You can also use other resources like TechForce Academy’s curated courses, which have practice exams and study guides to help you learn more.
Conclusion
Salesforce Trailhead is a powerful learning platform that offers a comprehensive, engaging, and accessible way to acquire new skills and advance your career. Whether you’re an individual looking to enhance your knowledge or a business aiming to upskill your workforce, Trailhead provides the resources and support needed to succeed. Start your learning journey today and join the Trailblazer Community to unlock new opportunities and drive your career forward.
Trailhead is for everyone, everywhere, at every stage of the career!
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