CAD Study Plan, Traps, and Practice Strategy
Key Takeaways
- Allocate final review by blueprint weight: Managing Applications is 25%, Security, Data, and Automation are 20% each, User Experience is 10%, and Design Concepts is 5%.
- The exam is 60 questions in 90 minutes with a 70% passing score, so pacing at about 90 seconds per item leaves only a small review buffer.
- Most CAD traps are tool-boundary traps: navigation versus security, UI behavior versus data enforcement, Flow Designer versus Business Rule, update set versus App Repository, and GlideRecord versus GlideRecordSecure.
- The best final practice is one hands-on scoped app that includes a table, roles, ACLs, UX controls, import or data rules, automation, testing, scan findings, and a deployment path.
- Use practice questions to diagnose why an option is wrong, not just to memorize which letter was correct.
CAD Study Plan, Traps, and Practice Strategy
Quick Answer: Spend the most final-review time on Managing Applications (25%), then split serious time across Security, Working with Data, and Automation at 20% each. The CAD exam has 60 questions in 90 minutes with a 70% passing score, so you need both blueprint coverage and quick tool-selection judgment.
CAD is not a memorization-only exam. It rewards candidates who can look at a scenario and choose the platform artifact that solves the requirement with the least risk.
Domain-Weighted Final Review
For a 12-hour final review block, use the official weights as the starting point and adjust for weak areas after practice tests.
| Domain | Weight | 12-hour target | Final-review focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Managing Applications | 25% | 3.0 hours | Update sets, Git, App Repository, ATF, Instance Scan, debugging, dependencies |
| Security and Restricting Access | 20% | 2.4 hours | Roles, groups, ACLs, module access, application access, default deny |
| Working with Data | 20% | 2.4 hours | Tables, dictionary, references, relationships, import sets, transform maps, coalesce |
| Automating Applications | 20% | 2.4 hours | Business Rules, Flow Designer, events, notifications, Script Includes, GlideAjax |
| Application User Experience | 10% | 1.2 hours | Menus, modules, forms, lists, views, UI Policies, client scripts |
| Design and Development Concepts | 5% | 0.6 hours | Scoped apps, requirements mapping, declarative before scripted design |
If you have already passed CSA, do not over-spend on navigation basics. Put the extra time into scoped-app lifecycle, ACL edge cases, and automation timing.
High-Yield CAD Traps
- Module role vs. ACL: A module role hides or shows navigation. ACLs enforce table and field access.
- UI Policy vs. Data Policy: A UI Policy changes form behavior. A Data Policy can enforce requirements beyond the form, including imports and APIs when configured.
- Flow vs. Business Rule: Flow Designer orchestrates readable process steps. A Business Rule handles server-side record timing near database operations.
- Before vs. after vs. async vs. display: Before changes the current record before save; after reacts immediately to committed data; async moves work to the background; display prepares form-load data.
- GlideAjax vs. client GlideRecord: In scoped apps, client logic should call a client-callable Script Include through GlideAjax rather than trying to query broadly from the browser.
- GlideRecord vs. GlideRecordSecure: GlideRecord is the server table API; GlideRecordSecure is safer when user-context access checks should be enforced automatically.
- Update set vs. source control vs. App Repository: Update sets promote captured config; Git tracks history and collaboration; App Repository distributes versioned scoped apps.
- ATF vs. Instance Scan: ATF proves behavior through repeatable tests. Instance Scan reports quality, security, upgrade, and maintainability findings.
Hands-On Practice Strategy
Build one small scoped app in a Personal Developer Instance or sub-production instance. Create a custom table with a reference field, a role, a module, table and field ACLs, a UI Policy, a Data Policy, a before Business Rule, a Flow Designer approval path, a reusable Script Include, and a GlideAjax client call. Add at least one ATF form test, one server-side test target, and one app or update-set scan.
Then rehearse the release path. Commit app files to source control, review the differences, publish or package the scoped app for installation, and move any separate configuration through an update set with preview and scan checks. Review System Logs, Application Logs, flow execution details, and ATF results so you know where evidence appears when something fails.
For practice questions, write down why the three wrong choices are wrong. If the wrong reason is tool boundary confusion, add that trap to a flashcard. If the wrong reason is timing, rebuild the same behavior in the instance until the trigger order is obvious.
You have one final evening before the CAD exam and practice results show misses in lifecycle and automation tool selection. Which plan is most defensible?
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