It has been a long time since I took another professional certification examination. I got the PMP (Project Management Professional) from PMI (Project Management Institute), then CISA (Certified Information Systems Auditor) from ISACA (Information Systems Audit and Control Association), and stopped for professional or product certification as I found the renewal process is so tiring. I was then going for postgraduate education as continued education.
To my surprise, I am doing very well in terms of learning and passing examinations, as I was that good back when I was young and before I started working. I passed the PMP with the highest rank “Proficient” in 4 out of 5 domains, passed the CISA with a little trophy for the highest score in the Asia region, and passed the postgraduate degree from the University of Hong Kong with distinction where “A” in 10 out of 12 modules. (Yes, I am showing off now 😁)
I don’t have much intention of taking another professional certification until a combination of factors to take the Adobe Analytics Architect. Firstly, got an exam voucher for Adobe certification for my participation in Adobe’s activity which is going to expire. Secondly, the renewal process for Adobe certification is simpler than other professional certifications, just taking some online courses and passing the assessments and free of charge. Lastly, with all my participation and contribution to the Adobe Analytics community, I believe it is also good to have a certification.
The certifications I am concerning are those related to the Adobe Experience Cloud. Adobe has another track of Adobe Certified Professional focusing on creative cloud solutions which is less relevant to me. I can’t remember when Adobe has the certification for Experience Cloud solutions but it should not be a long history. I was looking for that in the early days when adopting Adobe Analytics and other Marketing Cloud solutions but can’t find it. Now they have a clear path to certifications on Experience Cloud products. With experience levels ranging from qualified to master and targeting business users/practitioners, developers, and architects.
The Adobe Analytics Architect is the highest tier of certification in Adobe Analytics. It is expecting a full coverage of knowledge of the product and how to use it.
The preparation
The years of experience in running Adobe Adobe, which cannot be achieved in a short time, is the most important thing to prepare for the examination. The examination tests for a wide range of experience and knowledge, from planning on how to track website traffic and visitor behaviour in alignment with business requirements, to a full understanding of Adobe Analytics configuration, to knowing each of the parameters on the web beacon, to getting data out from Adobe Analytics for additional analysis, till to setting up product profiles and user groups in Experience Cloud Admin Console. That requires someone to run the Adobe Analytics shop by himself/herself, at scale and in-depth. I am lucky enough to have such experience running the Adobe Analytics shop alone supporting hundreds of users from almost 20 markets and covering over 100 digital properties.
Whether such an experience or not, it is good to have some preparation study to secure a one-time pass on the examination. This can help revisit known knowledge and fill in any loophole missing from the day-to-day operation. Of course, the official sources are the best for the preparation.
Adobe is consistently updating resources for examination preparation, the new and current version at the time of writing is in the format of an online course at https://app.rockinfo.com/courses/223. It contains links to documentation on Experience League.
However, I am more preferred on the old version of the preparation materials. It listed the knowledge required and Experience League documentation in more detail. The online content of the old version was gone but can be found in the following three attachments as part of the Adobe Community Mentorship Program in 2023.
The first and most important official documentation is of course the Adobe Analytics documentation itself, https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/analytics. There are 11 sections within and most of them should be familiar by heart. We may skip a few sections. The “Getting Started” is simple and with little details. The “Media Analytics” is a very specific analytics feature to track and report media/video streaming. The “Customer Journey Analytics” is another analytics product. The “Tech Notes” contains a lot of piecemeal information and some of them are indeed quite important to know.
Data collection is another important piece of documentation to get familiar with, https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/data-collection. Due to the changes in tracking implementation over the past years, from page code to DTM and then to Adobe Launch, Adobe organizes the current documentation on data collection from the perspective of the Adobe Experience Platform.
As a result, not all sections may be relevant to Adobe Analytics. Three sections are important to be familiar with. The “Tags” is about the Adobe Launch and the current way to implement tracking. The “Web SDK” is how to implement tracking for websites with the new JavaScript library. The “Mobile SDK” is how to implement tracking for mobile apps. Sections “Experience Platform Assurance” and “Experience Platform Debugger” are good to know. I feel that they are less important for the examination. but important to the daily work. We want to ensure a proper tracking implementation from both the server side and the client side.
Adobe Experience Cloud Identity Service is not a direct product of Adobe Analytics. However, it is a very important service to the Adobe Experience Cloud, how Adobe recognizes each individual across their products to create magic. The documentation, https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/id-service/using/home, contains lots of information other than Adobe Analytics. It can go very technical beyond the expected knowledge level for an Adobe Analytics architect. However, I still recommend reading through and getting familiar with content directly related to Adobe Analytics.
The final bit on Admon Console is about how to provision access and many people may easily overlook it. It is least related to Adobe Analytics and more on the overall administration of Adobe Experience Cloud products. But there are questions on them as well.
The documentation, https://helpx.adobe.com/enterprise/admin-guide.html, contains once again many contents from other products. The most important parts of the Adobe Analytics architect to know are about “Manage users” and “Manage products and entitlements”.
It can take a long time to go through all the documentation above. You may even find some of them are not particularly relevant. Don’t skip too easily, try to read/skim all of them.
Finally, don’t miss the practice test offered by Adobe. It is a valuable tool to find out how ready for the real examination.
The examination
The examination is conducted by Examity and there are clear instructions on how to schedule. I am not going to repeat that and share a few points we should pay attention to. We can schedule an examination as late as 24 hours before that without paying extra. So take time and prepare first.
It is a real and proctored examination. Just like those we have back in school, even if it is an online version. So get yourself ready like taking an exam in school. You should isolate yourself from anything else, so it is you taking the examination and not cheating. It is truly a serious examination.
The setup
As the examination is proctored, someone will be watching all the time during the examination. The computer being used for the examination needs to have a camera, a speaker, and a mic. A notebook is better than a desktop, and don’t challenge yourself with using mobile devices. Examity has a system test page where they only accept Mac and Windows operating systems.
Make sure Zoom is installed on the computer. The proctor will ask for a video call to watch who is taking the examination. The proctor will also ask for screen sharing to monitor what is happening on the computer. The examination requires using the computer speaker and mic, no headphones during the examination. The proctor needs to hear any sound from the surroundings and you are not getting help to answer questions. If using a company notebook for the examination, make sure video calls and screen sharing are enabled. To avoid any trouble on the day, it is better to schedule a testing Zoom call with someone. Use the computer prepared for the examination to do a video call and share screen.
Don’t take the examination at home in the study room, living room, or kitchen. Those are usually full of distractions, and people/objects around. Book a meeting room in the office so you can lock yourself up. The examination lasts for 100 minutes and there are checks before starting and a survey after completing. Make sure the booking time is sufficient. The proctor will ask to use the camera to show the surroundings. It ensures you are alone and nothing around you provides any support. The desk must be clean, and move any objects on the desk far away. No wallets, no phones, and of course no paper, no book, and nothing similar can be on the desk.
On the day
Get the government-issued photo ID ready. The proctor will ask to check the name on the ID to match the record in the system. It is better to register for the examination with the name on the photo ID to avoid any issues. Even Examity says minor differences are acceptable but no difference is always better than any minor differences. The proctor will also check the photo on the ID against you sitting in front of the camera. So no fancy glasses, make-up, or custom.
During the examination, stay in the video frame constantly, so sit and get comfortable before starting. Don’t move away from the video frame. Don’t even stand up and pace to think about the answer to any difficult questions. We are not doing this either in school examinations. Sit still, scratch the head, and pull the hair.
Answering questions
There are 50 multiple-choice questions in the examination and 100 minutes to answer them. Simple math, 2 minutes per question on average. The examination system allows flagging questions and easy navigation to all questions, so makes good use of that. Answer questions quickly for the first pass and flag any questions in doubt. But still read carefully on those questions and answers. I completed the first pass of answering in 50 minutes and flagged about 10 questions. This gave me a good amount of time to crack those 10 questions in another 30 minutes. I even have time to comment on a question in which I think the question and answers are unclear.
Most questions choose 1 option from 4 as the correct answer. Some of the questions may have multiple options that seem viable. The correct answer should be the best option, in terms of addressing the need of the question.
Some questions may test very detailed knowledge, like the correct name of the parameter on the web beacon. I cannot remember all either. Use the question navigation to go for other questions to get hints if available.
Product string and attribution are the common things Adobe loves to test. Everyone can observe from the practice test as well, so get familiar with them.
There are also questions on something different from the current recommendations from Adobe. Such as Adobe is now actually recommending evar and prop still covered in the examination. They are still available features and everyone can use them as is, so they will also appear in the examination. We need to get familiar with them by going through documentation if not used regularly in the daily operation.
After all, knowledge and experience are the main objectives for the examination. No matter how many studies on documentation and examination techniques are applied, none of them works better than the real world and hands-on experience accumulated over the years. So put more thinking and understanding of the details from the day-to-day operations.
Good luck.
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