My Trailhead Accelerator Presentation

Trailhead
Tutorial,
Terminology, &
Tips
by
Roy
Moore
v3 01/17/2019

What is Trailhead?
Salesforce’s fun and FREE way to
learn Salesforce. Trailhead has
hundreds of modules and projects
giving us thousands of hours of
content to study and explore
pretty much EVERYTHING
Salesforce has to offer, with new
content added regularly.
Tutorial Terms Tips Time to Go

Objectives of this Presentation
1. Tutorial to get you on the path quickly
2. Terminology so you stumble less
3. Tips (9 of ‘em) to help you hit the trail running

If you’re brand new to Trailhead
(or you just want to start fresh), then you need
Trailhead credentials. This is one way to get
them:
1. Set up a new developer org HERE. (Developer
orgs are free.)
2. Fill out the form. For your username, choose
something you’ll associate to your Trailhead
account. Something like:
first.last@trailhead.com (Note: DO NOT use
your email address as your Username… just…
don’t).
3. When finished, click Sign me up >

4. Go to your inbox and open
the “Welcome to Salesforce”
email and click Verify
Account.
5. Finish setting up your new
org by changing your
password and choosing a
security question and click
Change Password.
6. Log out of your new dev org.
Nunya Bidness

NOTE: Do NOT use this developer org for
anything EXCEPT your Trailhead credentials. Use
playgrounds* and other developer orgs for all
Hands-on Challenges*
*we’ll cover these terms shortly

7. Go to Trailhead HERE and click
Sign Up in the top right corner.
8. In the pop up window, select the
Sign Up with Salesforce option.
9. Use your dev org credentials you
just created as your Trailhead
login.
10.Click Allow in the next window
and...

There you are! All set! Bookmark the Trailhead website
in your browser and from now on, click Login to get back
on the trail.

Your very first (or next) trail should be this one.
It’s a clever use of Trailhead to walk you through
Trailhead. But before you get started, we still need to
cover the terms and tips.

Modules and Projects These are a
collection of related learning blocks
called units or steps. In general,
Modules walk you through
concepts. Projects allow you to
practice building out solutions
based on what you are learning.
Badges Using the scouts’ theme of
merit badges, these icons are
added to your Trailhead profile
each time you successfully
complete a module/project.

Units and Steps These are
smaller learning components
that make up Modules and
Projects. Modules are made up
of Units; Projects are broken
down into Steps. Each unit/step
has estimated completion
times ranging from 5 to 60
minutes.

Superbadges These are more
challenging than regular badges. To
earn one, you must first complete all
the prerequisite badges. Once the
Superbadge is unlocked, you complete
several large, sequential challenges.
Superbadges are less guided than
regular badges and are meant to test
your mastery of the subject
knowledge. Think of them as open
book final exams.

Challenges Each unit/step ends with a challenge.
There are two types of challenges:
Quiz Challenges A multiple choice quiz worth 100
points. If you miss any questions on the first
attempt, you can try again for 50 points. Third
attempts and beyond are 25 points.
Hands-On Challenges For these, you log in to a
developer org or playground from Trailhead and
complete a task. To see if you did it correctly, you
click Check Challenge and Trailhead tells you if you
missed anything or if you were successful. Hands-
on challenges are worth anywhere from 25 to 500
points.

Playgrounds These are special
Developer Orgs you can create
from Trailhead to complete the
Hands-On Challenges. You can
have up to 10 playgrounds at a
time, which you can relabel. You
should use a new playground
(or new dev org) whenever you
start a new module/project.

Trails These are collections of
modules and/or projects centered
around a larger theme.
Trailmixes Like Trails, these are
collections of modules and projects.
They differ from Trails in that you
can build your own and share them
publicly for discovery. You can also
search for and work through other
Trailblazers’ shared Trailmixes.

Filters and Searching At the top of
the Trail, Module and Project
pages, there are clickable filters to
help you find the content that is
most relevant to you. You can
filter off role, level, products, and
tags. You can also search Trailhead
for terms to see which
modules/projects reference that
content. Favorites Trails, Modules, and Projects can be
“favorited” by clicking on their heart icons. When
you favorite an incomplete item, it will show at the
top of its respective page until you UN-favorite it
(or complete it).

Ranks Part of the fun of
this resource is the
challenge of moving up in
rank.
As you acquire badges, you
reach higher levels of
Trailblazer stature. This can
be motivating for goal-
oriented Trailblazers.

Those are the key Trailhead terms.
Now for my favorite part…

9 Time Saving
Tips for
Trailhead

Tip 1: Use Dual Monitors Many of
the Modules and Projects require
you to follow along in your own
dev org or playground with step-
by-step instructions. Flipping back
and forth between tabs gets old
very quickly. You’re also more
prone to losing your place,
skipping steps, making mistakes,
getting slowed down, taking
longer to pass a challenge… and
getting frustrated.

Tip 2: Use the Topics Index which has “Jump-to-Section” Logic The Topics
section on the right side of the screen not only tells you the headers of the
sections in the step/unit you are studying, but it’s also click-able, saving you
some scrolling and searching.

Tip 3: Glance at the Resources At the bottom of most steps/units, there is a Resource
section with hyperlinks to related content. Before skipping over them to go to the Challenge,
click on the resources and see if you found a new favorite bookmark. For example, this
super handy Salesforce Glossary is a listed resource in the Get Started with the Salesforce
Platform module (Hint: you should go find this resource and bookmark it in your browser
NOW)

Tip 4: When Starting a NEW Module/Project, Check the Challenge Type FIRST Scroll to the
bottom of the page and see if it ends with a Hands-on Challenge. If so, immediately click on
the dropdown and click the Create a Trailhead Playground link. A new playground can take 5
to 15 minutes to generate, so while that is going on in the background, you can scroll back to
the top of the page and begin working through the content. By the time you get to the
challenge, your new playground should be ready.

Tip 5: Relabel your Playgrounds When you create a new playground, a “My Trailhead
Playground [#]” label is auto-generated. After creating a few playgrounds, it’s easy to
forget which playground was used for which module/project. Avoid having to hunt down
the right org and/or redo work by adopting a naming convention for each playground.
Example: The date you created the playground and the name of the Module/Project for
which it was created.

Tip 6: Silence the Distractors If you plan to work on a module/project for 30
minutes, you’ll get further and retain more if email is closed, IM tools are turned
off and alerts are silenced.

Tip 7: Don’t just Read… Listen Use a text reader to
read the steps/units to you while you (1) study the
examples or (2) practice in your playground or (3) just
read along. I find that it helps me focus better and
move through content more quickly and retain more.
There are many free websites and browser plug-ins
that will read text to you. A good free one is
ttsreader.com. You can either copy and paste the body
of the text into the ttsreader webpage. Or, if you have
the Chrome plug-in, you can highlight the text, right
click and tts will read it to you. Also, make sure to
play with the voice, accent and speed to find the
combination that is easiest for you to understand.

Tip 8: If you get Stuck, use the Forum Sometimes challenges are just too challenging and you
can’t figure out what you’re missing that’s keeping you from passing. When that happens,
there’s a Questions, feedback or help link, below the Topics side bar, of every unit/step. Click
on it, login with your Trailhead credentials and click the Help each other button and search for
the your challenge. You’ll probably find a post that will clue you in to what you’ve missed. If
you don’t, you can create a post and get helpful feedback from the community.

Tip 9: Don’t “game” the Game There are
ways you can get through a step or unit
without learning anything. If you guess at the
multiple choice answers long enough, you will
eventually pass the challenge (with a measly
25 points). You can copy and paste other
people’s solutions off the trailblazer
community and save yourself some formula
or rule writing. But if you didn’t learn
anything, what’s the point?

Bonus Tip for the Superbadges: “Sort”
the Superbadge (part 1)
The text in the body of the Superbadges’
line up sequentially to their related
challenges. There may be some details
that you need to know that are
imbedded in the body or in the
challenge, but not in both. It can be
difficult scrolling back and forth from the
challenge to the relevant point in the
body and mentally put them together.
So… (next page).

Bonus Tip for the Superbadges: “Sort” the Superbadge (part 2)
When starting a Superbadge, copy/paste the body and the challenge text into a
notepad (to remove formatting) and then copy/paste that into a Word doc. Next,
highlight the challenge text. Read through the body and the challenge and as you
identify the overlap, copy/paste the challenge text INTO the body right after each
challenge is described. When you’re done, your word doc will look something like
this...

Bonus Tip for the Superbadges: “Sort” the Superbadge (part 3)
After you successfully complete a challenge, gray out and/or strike through all the
related text so you don’t accidentally keep rereading it. That portion of the
Superbadge is done and doesn’t come up again in later challenges (but don’t
delete it just in case Trailhead writers start changing their M.O.). As you complete
challenges, your word doc will start to look like this...
[Paragraphs 1, 2, 3 of background, use case and requirements.]
[Challenge 1 text]
[Paragraphs 4 and 5 of background, use case and requirements.]
[Challenge 2 text]
[Paragraphs 6, 7, 8 of background, use case and requirements.]
[Challenge 3 text]

1. Use Dual Monitors
2. Use Topics Index
3. Glance at Resources
4. See Challenge Type FIRST
5. Relabel Playgrounds
6. Silence Distractors
7. Don’t just Read… Listen
8. If Stuck, use Forum
9. Don’t “game” the Game
Bonus: “Sort” the Superbadges
9 Time Saving Tips for Trailhead

Ok… your boots are tied, you have your walking stick, a bottle of
water and a bag of granola. It’s time to hit the trails. Again, start
here:
And until we meet again…

@Roy_Moore in/roymoore76

My Trailhead Accelerator Presentation

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