The ARC-101 exam validates your ability to design and build integration solutions on the Salesforce platform. This certification is ideal for architects, developers, and technical leads who architect scalable, secure integration patterns across enterprise systems. This page guides you through the exam syllabus, question formats, and a focused preparation strategy to help you pass with confidence.
Use this topic map to guide your study for Salesforce ARC-101 (Design and Build Integration Solutions) within the Salesforce Architect path.
The ARC-101 exam blends knowledge validation with practical reasoning. You will encounter multiple question types that test both conceptual understanding and the ability to apply integration principles to real situations.
Questions progress in difficulty and emphasize practical application. Success depends on understanding not just "what" integration tools exist, but "why" and "when" to use them.
Build a structured study plan that maps the six core topics to weekly milestones. Allocate time proportionally: Integration Patterns and Security typically carry more weight, so invest extra effort there. Balance reading, hands-on practice, and review to reinforce connections between concepts.
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Integration Patterns and Integration Security consistently represent the largest portion of the exam. These topics test both conceptual knowledge and the ability to make sound architectural decisions. Allocate at least 35-40% of your study time to these two areas, with the remainder distributed across the other four topics.
Every integration pattern has security implications. For example, a synchronous request-reply pattern requires real-time authentication and encryption, while a fire-and-forget pattern must handle credential storage and audit logging differently. Understanding these connections helps you design solutions that are both effective and secure. The exam tests your ability to recognize and articulate these trade-offs.
Build at least one end-to-end integration using REST APIs and another using Pub/Sub API or Change Data Capture. Practice implementing OAuth authentication, error handling, and retry logic. Lab work with Salesforce APIs, middleware platforms, and monitoring tools directly translates to exam confidence and real-world readiness.
Many candidates overlook security considerations in scenario questions, focusing only on functionality. Others confuse similar patterns or misapply a pattern to the wrong use case. A third common error is failing to justify trade-offs, the exam rewards explanations of why one approach is better than another given specific constraints. Read every scenario carefully and always consider security, scalability, and maintainability.
Shift focus from learning new material to reinforcement and pacing. Complete two full-length practice tests under timed conditions, review every explanation, and create a short reference guide of key patterns, APIs, and security best practices. In the last 2-3 days, review your weak areas and do a quick read-through of the syllabus to refresh your memory. Avoid cramming new topics; instead, consolidate what you already know.
Northern Trail Outfitters is planning to create a native employee facing mobile app with the look and feel of Salesforce's Lighting Experience. The mobile ap needs to integrate with their Salesforce org.
Which Salesforce API should be used to implement this integration?
A Salesforce customer is planning to roll out Salesforce for all their Sales and Service staff.
Senior Management has requested that monitoring is to be in pla for Operations to notify any
degradation in Salesforce performance.
How should an integration consultant implement monitoring?
Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) has hired an Integration Architect to design the integrations between existing systems and a new instance of Salesforce. NTO has the following requirements:
1. Initial load of 2M Accounts, 5.5M Contacts, 4.3M Opportunities, and 45k Products into the new org.
2. Notification of new and updated Accounts and Contacts needs to be sent to 3 external systems.
3. Expose custom business logic to 5 external applications in a highly secure manner.
4. Schedule nightly automated dataflows, recipes and data syncs.
Which set of APIs are recommended in order to meet the requirements?
A company accepts payment requests 24x7. Once they accept a payment request, their
service level agreement (SLA) requires them to make sure each payment request is processed
by their Payment System. They track payment requests using a globally unique identifier created at the Data Entry Point. Their simplified flow is as shown in the diagram.
They encounter intermittent update errors when two or more processes try to update the same Payment Request record at the same time.
Which two recommendations should an integration architect make to improve their SLA and update conflict handling?
Choose 2 answers
Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) has an integration set up between a Salesforce org and a quoting system. NTO would like to show a notification to all sales representatives that use Salesforce anytime the quoting system will be taken down for maintenance.
Which Salesforce API should an Integration Architect use to fulfill this requirement?
