With technology changing so quickly, it is highly important for a business to keep up and be able to adapt within short periods of time. That said, the Salesforce Lightning Platform and its innovative new generation solutions were designed to help cut development costs, to provide services that cater to the company’s necessities as they change, and to build apps faster and easier (on condition that these tools are in good hands, of course).
On this page, we’ve gathered the frequently asked interview questions in Salesforce Lightning with answers.
Table of Content
Basic Lightning Interview Questions in Salesforce
1. Q: What’s Salesforce Lightning?
A: Lightning is an enhanced and upgraded Salesforce platform version that was created for simplifying the process of building apps, quickly customizing the ecosystem to boost the efficiency and productivity of internal users and their work, as well as for connecting with customers and making their experience better.
2. Q: List the major advantages of Salesforce Lightning.
A: From the admin side, the Lightning version provides various customization leverages, including the framework with reusable low-code blocks that admins can use to build components and put them on multiple pages via easy drag and drop. Plus, the Appexchange offers many off-the-rack plugins, components, and applications that can be plugged in from the Appexchange.
3. Q: Which tools/features are part of Lightning?
A: Salesforce Lightning has the following tools:
- Lightning Experience (refers to the re-designed Salesforce UI platform and its enhanced features, including mobile-friendliness);
- Lightning Component Framework (framework for creating components that can be reused);
- Lightning App Builder (offers tools and ready-to-use components for creating your apps very quickly);
- Lightning Connect (used for integration purposes and managing the data that’s in external applications);
- Lightning Process Builder (this tool is used for automating various business processes);
- Lightning Schema Builder (the tool is handy for making it easier to design and modify data as it allows to view how the relationships and objects are connected);
- Lightning Exchange (offers numerous plugins and component solutions in the AppExchange);
- Lightning Design System (a collection of best practices and style guides for building apps without the necessity to code).
Lightning Component Interview Questions in Salesforce
4. Q: What is understood by “components” in Salesforce Lightning?
A: Web components in Lightning are elements that are created for building applications and blocks. Generally, they consist of Mark-ups, a Controller, a Helper, a Style, and a Renderer. Components are assembled when making the app and are usually reusable.
5. Q: What is the Lightning Component Framework?
A: It is a User Interface framework that provides a ready-to-use collection of code, eliminating the need for code writing. It is used for quickly creating components and one-page web applications for the Salesforce Lightning platform for both mobile devices and desktop. From the client’s side, it has Javascript and on the server’s side, there is Apex. Among the main advantages of using the framework include shorter development times and the vast variety of ready-made solutions that can help in app optimization. What is more, the AppExchange offers many components that could be reused and shared.
6. Q: Can the Lightning framework be considered MVC?
A: It isn’t right to call Salesforce Lightning a model-view-controller framework as it is component-based.
7. Q: Using what can you build Lightning components?
A: Lightning components can be created in two possible ways: either with the Lightning Web Components model (which uses JavaScript and custom HTML) or the Aura Components programming model (that are basic pre-built and reusable units). Importantly, both the component types can be applicable side-by-side on a single page or app.
8. Q: What are the benefits of the Lightning Web Component Method?
A: There are many ways to gain from using the Lightning Web Component method (short for LWC). For starters, it’s an innovative and lightweight stack that’s designed to align with newer standards. It makes working with components more rapid due to reusable HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, resulting in less code that’s simpler to write and maintain. Plus, LWC has proven better component performance.
9. Q: What is “Aura”? When is the method applicable?
A: Aura is an open-source framework which is one of the ways to create Lightning components that are reusable units. This original programming model is thought to be the “basics” for building components. The other more modern method, Lightning Web Component, is very different from it. The process of migrating Aura components to Lightning Web components isn’t linear, therefore it makes sense to apply Lightning Web for making new components and sticking with the Aura components for older ones that you already have in Aura.
10. Q: Can Aura Components be included in Lightning Web Components and vice versa?
A: Aura components can’t be included in a Lightning Web component because it isn’t possible to add generic elements to custom components (in other words, a parent Lightning Web component can only be made up of Lightning Web components). Nevertheless, by contrast, you may include Lightning Web components into Aura components (i.e. parent Aura components can contain both Aura Components and LWC). Moreover, they can handle each other’s events.
11. Q: Where can Lightning Components be applied?
A: Lightning components can be used in numerous places, including the Lightning App Builder and Community Builder, in separate standalone applications, as well as in Lightning Experience Record Pages, Lightning Pages, and Visualforce pages. Plus, they could also be displayed in the navigation bar, in the App Launcher, and as a Quick Action.
12. Q: Which types of events are there in the Lightning Component in Salesforce?
A: Events are needed for communicating data between components, and, as a rule, events are fired due to an action of a user. There are three types of events:
- Application
- Component
- System
13. Q: What are the propagation phases of Component Events?
A: Two phases are available for component event propagation after the event fires: capture phase and bubble phase.
14. Q: What are the propagation phases of Application Events?
A: Three phases are available for application event propagation when the event fires: capture phase, bubble phase, and default phase.
15. Q: What is the key difference between Application and Component Events?
A: The major differences are with what the events communicate. That said:
- Component Events are applicable in parent-to-child communication in a hierarchy, f.e. if an update is made in the child component, it’ll be signaled to the parent.
- Application Events allow for communication regarding changes between various component types in different parts of a single app and aren’t tied to hierarchical or direct connections.
16. Q: In which cases should you use Application Events and when are Component Events preferable?
A: In general, it is considered good practice to give preference to Component Events over Application Events. Application Events are used for signaling a message to a broader audience, whereas Component Events are tied to a hierarchy and can limit receiving the message to only those components that should be notified about it.
17. Q: Which types of component bundles are there?
A: Here are a couple of component bundle types:
- Component (has the markup);
- Controller (takes care of events on the side of the clients);
- Helper (contains Javascript functions which may be called);
- Style (keeps the component’s style data);
- Documentation (logs the usage of the component);
- Design (necessary for controlling which attributes could be used in Lightning App Builder and other tools);
- SVG (used for icons);
- Renderer (keeps a component’s default rendering behavior).
18. Q: Is there a difference between Visualforce and Lightning components?
A: The major differentiation lies in the fact that Lightning components are built based on the component framework, they are well-adapted to mobile, and are centered around the client. On the other hand, Visualforce components revolve around the page itself with the server being the place where the majority of work takes place.
19. Q: What Salesforce limitations are there for the allowed maximum number of components per app?
A: Actually, no, there is no limit regarding how many components are allowed in an application.
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Additional Salesforce Interview Questions on Lightning
20. Q: What are the types of record pages in Salesforce Lightning?
A: Created using the Lightning App Builder, there are three following record page types in Lightning:
- Home Page (needed for crafting home pages that’ll display only necessary features to indicated user types in the Lightning Experience);
- Record Page (used for making a unique record page of an object based on the necessities of users; available in mobile apps and in Lightning Experience);
- App Page (applicable in Lightning Experience and in mobile apps, it’s handy when making an app homepage in 3rd-party apps and menus for navigation, such pages can only have global actions).
21. Q: When would Lightning Out be used?
A: The Lightning Out feature is applicable in cases when a component that you’ve made needs to be used on an external site outside Salesforce containers as well as on any webpage.
22. Q: What is the Salesforce Lightning Design System?
A: Also shortened to SLDS, the Salesforce Lightning Design System is a CSS framework that gathers the top design practices and style guides to assist in creating appealing Lightning applications without the need to write CSS code. As such, SLDS provides numerous default solutions on fonts, colors, palettes, etc.
23. Q: What are Lightning Data Services?
A: Lightning Data Services (or LDS) are needed for caching purposes. This framework allows you to upload, add, modify or delete a component’s records without the need of Apex code from the server-side. It is also applicable for Sharing Rules and Field-level Security, not to mention its benefits for enhanced performance and the opportunity it gives the users to work with data offline.
24. Q: Can Lightning be integrated with a third-party framework?
A: Yes, it is possible to integrate Lightning with other frameworks, for instance with Angular. You can also apply a third-party framework to Aura components. Nevertheless, you can’t use a third-party framework right within Lightning Web Components.
25. Q: What is the Locker Service used for in Salesforce Lightning?
A: It is applied for enhanced security purposes. This security architecture safeguards Lightning components by isolating them in their specific namespace. The Locker Service is useful when building components, it also permits access to only supported APIs. Summing up, we hope that you’ve found this list of interview questions on Salesforce Lightning helpful! Provided that you’ll need more information or have questions of your own on the subject, we’ll be more than happy to assist you and provide you with and our professional expertise!
