Data Model25% of the exam

Standard objects and how they relate

How accounts, contacts, leads, opportunities, cases and activities fit together: what each record stores, what lead conversion creates, how contacts relate to more than one account, and the difference between lookup and master-detail relationships.

Official exam objective
Explain the relationship between the core standard objects (account, contact, lead, opportunity, case).

~8 min read · 13 practice questions ·

What the exam expects

  • Pick the right object for a company, a person, an unqualified prospect, a deal or a customer issue.
  • Explain what lead conversion creates, what happens to the lead afterwards, and how to avoid a duplicate account.
  • Relate contacts to accounts, cases to customers, contacts to deals (contact roles) and accounts to parent accounts.
  • Recognize when a contact needs Contacts to Multiple Accounts and when a customer is a person account.
  • Tell lookup from master-detail by how the records depend on each other.

Key terms:

  • Account: a company you do business with, or one individual (person account).
  • Contact: a person who works at an account.
  • Lead: a prospect who has shown interest but is not yet a customer.
  • Opportunity: a qualified, viable deal with a stage, close date and probability.
  • Case: a customer's question, feedback or issue.

Key facts

Account to Contact
Detail
Standard one-to-many lookup: one account, many contacts
Contact with no account
Detail
Private contact, visible only to its owner and system administrators
Person account
Detail
One individual; works like a business account but has no contacts of its own
Lead conversion output
Detail
Account and contact, plus an opportunity if the rep creates one
After conversion
Detail
Can't be reversed; the lead isn't searchable without View and Edit Converted Leads
Lead with no company, person accounts on
Detail
Converts into a person account and an opportunity
Contacts to Multiple Accounts
Detail
Primary account is direct; extra accounts are indirect
Account hierarchy
Detail
Built from each account's Parent Account field
Deleting a master record
Detail
Also deletes its detail records
Sources for this section (7)
  • Why should every business contact have an account?
  • When does lead conversion create a person account?
  • Why does Trailhead recommend one account per office over a single global account?
  • Which relationship type deletes child records when the parent is deleted?

The questions are free to read. Answers with their sources and self-grading are included with the pack.

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