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Magento 2 Certified Solutions Specialist Study Guide / Pass Guide

Magento 2 Certified Solutions Specialist Study Guide / Pass Guide

Currently, Magento 2 is working through a Magento 2 Certified Solutions Specialist exam that is in “Beta” mode. There are about 200 people that are currently in the mix to take this exam and it will shape the future exam for the General Public.

The test will be put on by Kryterion, and there are many different locations across the USA and the world for that. You can find the closest testing center here.

I will be going through the questions and answering them and providing insights so you can best be prepared for the Magento 2 Certified Solutions Specialist exam. It is against the terms of service to share ACTUAL exam questions, but I will best prepare you for the types of things you may see. Study hard, and you will pass!

A Magento Solution Specialist is a seasoned user of the Magento Commerce and the Magento Open Sources platforms. This person would have a deep background in business and commerce. The Magento Certified Solution Specialist can efficiently align business objectives with Magento 2 functionality, optimize the use of native Magento 2 features, and avoid unnecessary customization (where possible / sometimes you just have to use an extension). Whether as a merchant, a manager, a freelance consultant, or even a systems analyst, the Magento Solution Specialist knows how to make the best use of Magento 2 technology.

(*click links to open answers)

Content Area 1: eCommerce Information

  1. What is the difference between omnichannel and multichannel retailing?
  2. How can you set up a product catalog for best search results, taking into account issues of duplicate content, meta content, meta title, keyword search terms in product description, attribute weight, and so on?
  3. What is a “canonical link element”?
  4. What “social merchandising” techniques and tools are used in ecommerce?
  5. When is SSL required when transacting data online?
  6. What is PA-DSS?
  7. When should PA-DSS be applied?
  8. What are typical omnichannel challenges?
  9. What is the process for getting a site certified as PCI compliant?
  10. What are best practices for protecting ecommerce user data?
  11. What are the best usability practices when building an online catalog and checkout system?
  12. What are the main characteristics of Agile and Waterfall development methodologies?
  13. What are SMART requirements?
  14. What are the requirements of the EU “cookie law”?

Content Area 2: Magento 2 Architecture

  1. What are the unique advantages of Magento 2 architecture when building a site?
  2. What are the two methods available in the Magento 2 Admin (in the Content section) to change the design of a site?
  3. How can you change the layout of catalog pages using Magento 2 Admin functionality?
  4. How is product data constructed in Magento 2 (product attributes, inventory, price, images, etc.)?
  5. When does product inventory change (decrease) during the ordering process? How can an administrator control the inventory change?
  6. What is RMA in Magento 2 and what are the RMA types?
  7. What are the required attributes for creating a CMS page using Magento Admin functionality?
  8. What is the process for creating a product, and which catalog data is used in this process?
  9. How is the price defined for a product, and what methods are available for changing product price using Magento 2 Admin functionality?
  10. What are main differences in Magento indexing between Magento Community Edition 2.x and Enterprise Edition 2.x?
  11. What marketing and merchandising features are available only in Magento 2 Enterprise Edition?
  12. What payment methods and payment functionality are available only in Magento 2 Enterprise Edition?
  13. What are the features and functions of Magento Cloud?
  14. What are the differences between Elasticsearch and Solr?
  15. What is caching and why is it important?
  16. When would you recommend sharding a database?
  17. What is Bluefoot?
  18. What functions are included in B2B? In Magento Business Intelligence?
  19. How are cookies used in Magento 2?
  20. Which customer data is saved in cookies, and how is it used in the storefront using Magento native functionality?
  21. What is Swagger, and how is it used in Magento?

Content Area 3: Features and Functionality of a Magento Commerce Site

3.1 Magento Admin Concepts, Features, and Usage

  1. How is role scope used?
  2. How can you customize a grid display for your own purposes?
  3. In which section of the Admin are most initial configuration options located?

3.2 Content Staging and Previews

  1. How do you set a banner to appear on a specific date?
  2. How do you preview the result of setting content to appear at a future time?

3.3 Catalog

  1. What are the different product types in Magento 2 Enterprise Edition?
  2. What are the minimum attributes to create a simple product?
  3. What is the product attribute set used for in Magento 2? Can different product types use the same attribute set?
  4. What is the process of creating layered navigation including category creation and attributes product attribute types and product–category associations?
  5. What are the different ways in which an Admin user can update product inventory?
  6. How can you display associated products in the cart and on the product page?
  7. How can you create page redirects for specific search requests?
  8. Can a customer submit a JPG image with a product review?
  9. What are the options for displaying a product video?

3.4 Shopping Cart

  1. How can you create a product discount to have it automatically added in the shopping cart?
  2. Can guest customers place orders?
  3. Can customers ship products to multiple different addresses using native Magento 2 functionality?
  4. How can a customer register an account when placing an order?
  5. Can shopping cart products be shared among different websites?
  6. What are the different shopping cart promotion types, and how can shoppers apply them as discounts?
  7. How does the persistent shopping cart option work in Magento 2?
  8. Does Magento 2 Enterprise Edition functionality allow merchants to contact shoppers about their abandoned shopping carts?

3.5 Payment Methods

  1. What payment types are available in Magento 2 Enterprise Edition? Are all the same payment types available in Magento 2 Community Edition?
  2. Does Magento 2 save credit card numbers in the database when the Authorize.Net payment method is used?
  3. For which product types can the Magento 2 Recurring Profile be enabled?
  4. Where can the PayPal Express payment method be used on a Magento 2 site (on which pages)?
  5. What is the difference between the Authorize Only and Authorize and Capture payment actions?

3.6 Shipping

  1. Can a storefront customer select a delivery date when placing an order with the Table Rates shipping option?
  2. What shipping methods are available natively in Magento 2 Enterprise Edition?
  3. What options are available for offering a customer free shipping when placing an order?
  4. How is the shipping cost calculated for the DHL and Table Rates methods?

3.7 Checkout

  1. What product types do not require any shipping cost?
  2. Can a customer apply a coupon on the order review page?
  3. Is it possible to change product quantity during checkout, on the order review page?
  4. What is a gift certificate, and how can it be used?

3.8 Order Processing (Order Management, Fulfilment, Order Statuses)

  1. When an order is saved in the Magento 2 database, what triggers a confirmation email to a customer who pays using PayPal Express? (Logging in to the PayPal account? Clicking the Checkout button? Clicking the Purchase button?)
  2. When editing a pending order, which order data can be changed?
  3. What are the different order statuses available in Magento 2 and how can they be managed by a store owner?
  4. What are the different methods of creating an order in Magento 2 (such as one-page checkout,multiple addresses checkout, backend create order, Web Services API, etc.)?
  5. Does Magento 2 native logic allow for partial shipment or partial payment of an order, and if so, what are the conditions for using this functionality?
  6. When processing an order, at what point does the order become complete?

3.9 Security

  1. What are three major security features in native Magento 2 Enterprise Edition, and are the same features available in Magento 2 Community Edition?
  2. What is the data encryption / hashing key management method used in Magento 2 Enterprise Edition? Is the same method used in Magento 2 Community Edition?

3.10 Extensions and Customizations

  1. Where can a merchant find Magento 2 extensions?
  2. What are the two ways of installing an extension in Magento 2?
  3. How can a Magento 2 Admin user disable an extension using Admin functionality?
  4. When is a customization required?

3.11 Customers (Segments, Groups)

  1. How can customer groups be used in assigning discounts?
  2. What are the differences between customer segments and customer groups?
  3. Using Magento 2 Enterprise Edition native functionality, how could you display a personalized banner targeted to customers who match specific conditions?

3.12 Using CMS

  1. How can you display a telephone number in a page footer using Admin functionality?
  2. Does a layout change of a category page from one column to three columns require a customization?
  3. What does the Activate Bluefoot Button do?
  4. Which of the following changes requires a code customization: Displaying a banner in the page content area, changing a footer link, changing a product page layout from one column to two columns?
  5. Does creating a product price attribute require a customization, or can this be achieved using native Magento 2 functionality?
  6. Could you create a “How did you hear about us?” customer attribute to collect customer data during purchase and export it to a CSV file using native functionality?
  7. Which Magento 2 feature can be used to display different content depending on customer type/group?

3.13 Promotions and Pricing Rules (Catalog Rules, Shopping Cart Rules)

  1. How can product attributes be used when creating shopping cart discounts?
  2. How is the use of shopping cart coupon codes tracked with Magento 2 native logic?
  3. What are the three common methods of creating product price discounts?
  4. How could you create a product price discount and display a related “on sale” banner on listing pages using Magento 2 Enterprise Edition functionality?

3.14 Import and Export (of Customers, Orders, Products)

  1. Which customer and product data can be imported and exported using Magento 2 native logic?
  2. What is the process of creating a product in Magento using product import functionality?
  3. What product types can be created in Magento 2 Enterprise Edition using product import functionality?
  4. Can you add an image to a product using Magento product import functionality?

3.15 Reporting

  1. If several reports are not up-to-date, how can you remedy this?
  2. What formats can the Abandoned Carts report data be exported in?

3.16 Transactional Emails

  1. Transactional email templates are comprised of a mixture of what three languages?
  2. How do you configure an email action to use a particular template?

Content Area 4: Application of Knowledge to Business Goals

  1. What are some of the methods used to gather requirements?
  2. In a multi-site infrastructure, what is the reach of “Global” scope?
  3. What is required to display prices in several currencies?
  4. Why would a merchant enable cross-border taxes?
  5. What is meant by “Master Data Record”?
  6. How might customer segmentation be used with product discounts?
  7. What is Personally Identifiable Information?
  8. How do the European Union (EU) requirements for data protection differ from US requirements?
  9. What are VAT and digital VAT?
  10. Does a software company based in the US need to charge EU customers VAT on its downloadable products?
  11. In UX terms, what is meant by a “persona”?
  12. In UX, what is meant by a triple A (“AAA”) rating?
  13. A customer wants to display a CMS block on category pages. What would be the most efficient way to implement that?
  14. What payment method(s) would you recommend as the easiest technical solution to satisfy PCI requirements?
  15. A customer wants the ability to preview product information pages in the production environment before making them live. Which Magento 2 Enterprise Edition module would you recommend to satisfy this need?
  16. A merchant uses a Magento 2 system, along with other online interfaces, as part of a multichannel business, and the merchant uses a business intelligence application to aggregate data from all these systems. Which native features would allow the merchant to integrate Magento with this application?
  17. In what two ways can a returns process be invoked?
  18. A merchant wants to integrate Magento 2 with an order management system. What native features would they need to use to achieve this?
  19. A merchant has left all the image alt tags blank throughout their site. Why is this a bad idea, and what would you recommend?