If you have made the leap and successfully achieved gaining the CPQ Specialist exam certification, congrats! Now on to the next hard thing about CPQ, passing their maintenance exams. Unlike the Admin exam which can be passed with just the release notes, passing the CPQ maintenance exams requires a little bit more practice and finesse.

Here are my four pointers on how to pass:

1. Have the release notes open. If you have been taking these since the days of Steelbrick, you may be wondering where they live now. The CPQ release notes are now officially apart of the standard Salesforce release notes as of Spring ’18.
2. For each question, read the question carefully, and then read each answer carefully. Salesforce likes to sneak things in there that if you are just breezing through will actually make the answer incorrect.
3. If you are having trouble figuring out a question that talks about fields or specific aspects in Salesforce – open Salesforce up! Look at the fields and the objects, read the Help Text that Salesforce has provided. You will be surprised by the things you will find this way.
4. Lastly, when all else fails to work, try to actually replicate the scenario that Salesforce is providing you. Doing the scenario will not only help you understand what the correct answer is, it will help you when you come across that scenario in real life.

I hope that these tips help you pass your Salesforce CPQ Specialist Maintenance exams. And for those of you who are still looking to get certified, don’t forget to check out my post on how to do just that here: Passing Salesforce CPQ + Study Guide