Course 2.8 · Curriculum 2026.1
Configuration over code: custom metadata as an architecture
Turn tribal knowledge into data rows with citations. Taught through a real tax engine rebuilt around one constraint: formula fields cannot query custom objects.
- Estimated effort
- 4 hr
- Lessons
- 31
- Modules
- 6
- Material
- 4 hr
Estimated effort is the sum of the lesson and lab times in the course outline, for this version of the course.
This course is planned and not on sale. The curriculum below is the plan, and it may change before the course opens.
See the courses on sale01What you will learn
7 capabilities, stated as things you can do
Each one is what you should be able to do at the end, not what the course covers. If an outcome is not testable, it is not an outcome.
- Choose between custom metadata, custom settings and a custom object, and defend the choice.
- Explain why a formula field can reference custom metadata but cannot query a custom object.
- Design a rules table that a business user can extend without a deployment.
- Separate a statutory rate from an applied rate, so an exception becomes a data row with a citation.
- Deploy configuration with the code that reads it, in one package.
- Query custom metadata in Apex without spending a SOQL query.
- Recognise the point where a growing if-statement should have been a table.
02Curriculum
6 modules, 31 lessons
Every lesson shows its length and its type, from the course outline.
6 modules · 31 lessons · 4 hr of material
Custom metadata, custom settings and custom objects look interchangeable until a formula field needs to read one of them.
- VideoFormula fields cannot query a custom objectThey can reference custom metadata. That single fact decided the architecture of a tax engine, and it will decide yours.Preview8 min
- VideoCustom metadata versus custom settings versus a custom object7 min
- VideoDeployability: configuration that travels with its code6 min
- VideoQuerying custom metadata without spending a SOQL query6 min
- LabLab: choose a store for three real configuration needs12 min
Thirty-one percent of quote lines carrying no tax code, found by querying rather than by asking, and the field that was actually driving the whole stack.
- VideoThe diagnosis: 31% of quote lines carried no tax code8 min
- VideoDisproving "it is by item, not by province" against every line item7 min
- VideoA formula field whose help text said it was not used in calculations7 min
- ReadingReading: eight hard-coded rates, and where each one lived5 min
- LabLab: trace a tax defect back to its entry-criterion field12 min
The schema idea that made the rebuild possible. Separating what the law says from what actually gets charged.
- VideoStatutory rate and applied rate, held separatelyA jurisdiction-specific exception stops being tribal knowledge and becomes a data row with a citation. Anyone can then audit it.8 min
- VideoDesigning the rules table a finance lead can extend7 min
- VideoA registered flag and effective dating, so an exception has a citation6 min
- Video28 records in a province-by-tax-class table, and why that shape6 min
- LabLab: build a two-jurisdiction rate table and a formula that reads it11 min
Five phases and a numeric regression protocol, because a rewired tax engine is not allowed to change anyone’s total by accident.
- VideoThe five-phase switchover, staged on purpose8 min
- VideoSnapshotting tax sums before touching a single formula7 min
- VideoAny delta is a bug in the mapping, not an improvement7 min
- ReadingReading: a regression protocol you can reuse on any numeric migration5 min
- LabLab: run a before-and-after numeric regression on a rate change12 min
A five-record custom metadata type driving order intake. Adding a fourth standard task is a row, not a deploy.
- VideoA five-record metadata type driving order auto-tasks8 min
- VideoAdding a fourth intake task as a row, not a code change7 min
- VideoPartial success, because a follow-up task must never block an order save6 min
- VideoSkipping auto-tasks on a data load of more than 50 orders6 min
- LabLab: add a new auto-task type without a code change12 min
Change control, testing and the point at which a table has become its own product.
- VideoTesting code that reads configuration7 min
- VideoChange control on a table business users edit6 min
- ReadingWhen the growing if-statement should have been a table6 min
- ReadingReading: 87 records across six types, and what each type is for5 min
- LabLab: write a test that fails when a rate record is missing12 min
- QuizCheck: custom metadata as an architecture10 min
04Before you start
What you need first
Assumed knowledge and setup
- Courses 2.1 and 1.3. The formula field constraint is the hinge of the whole course.
- A Developer Edition org.
- No tax knowledge assumed. The domain is explained as it goes.
Before this course
Courses often taken next
Each is a separate course, bought on its own.
05Who teaches it
Elliot Saha
Co-founder, Chief Technology Officer
Platform architecture, custom Apex and Lightning Web Components, AI systems, and the Academy platform itself.
06Reviews
No learner reviews yet
This course has not been taken by enough people to publish an honest rating, and we will not print invented quotes on a page that sells verification discipline. Here is what we can evidence instead.
- Assessment
- Lesson checks onlyThis course carries lesson checks and issues no certificate.
- Curriculum version
- 2026.1You enrol into a version. Content changes do not move you mid-course, and your required-lesson count is snapshotted at enrollment.
- Refunds
- 14 daysAn individual purchase can be refunded within 14 days if you have completed less than 20% of the lessons. Team seats are refundable before they are assigned. From the Academy terms.
Start 2.8
This course is in development and not yet open for enrolment. The courses open now are listed in the catalogue.
- 4 hr estimated effort, labs included
- A ShareCo certificate is not a Salesforce certification