How to prepare for ACP-520: Atlassian Cloud Organization Admin Certification

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Introduction:

This guide is designed to give you some pointers on how to prepare for the ACP-520 certification exam, and should be in conjunction with the certification prep course, documentation and practice with a test site.

As of writing this article the cost of the certification exam and it’s prep course are drastically discounted and worth taking advantage of.

Throughout the rest of this guide I will cover a number of the main topics that will be tested as a part of the exam and will highlight resources you should take advantage of to help you prepare.

Where to Start:

• First, you’ll want to check out both the Atlassian Cloud Organization Admin Learning Path as well as the certification overview page.

  • Learning Path: https://university.atlassian.com/student/path/1370008-cloud-organization-administrator

  • Certification Page: https://university.atlassian.com/student/activity/1364454

• First, the learning path page will offer two paid courses you can use as additional study material. This page will also inform you that these course are ideal for someone in their first 6-12 month of being a Cloud Org Admin.

• Next, the certification page will provide you with all of the details you need to know about the exam. One of the most important items to review, the exam topics. Additionally, some of the past certification prep courses have not always been very through as far as helping you prepare for the exam. I would encourage you to check out this course which I believe is included as a part of purchasing your exam, as it is much more detailed.

• The rest of this guide will highlight a number of the additional resources Atlassian recommends reviewing from their documentation. I would recommend following along with the documentation in you test instance as much as possible.

Atlassian Organizations (35-45% of the exam):

• Create an manage an organization

  • What is an Atlassian organization?

  • Get started with an Atlassian organization

  • Explore the Atlassian administration

  • Delete an Atlassian organization

• Manage multiple sites and products

  • Add a new product to your organization

  • How many instances of a product does my organization need?

  • Update a product URL to a new URL

  • Transfer products to another organization

  • Set your site’s landing product

• Manage product access

  • Specify how users get site access

  • Approved domains

  • User invites

  • Invitation links

• Manage Access requests

  • Approve or deny product access requests

  • Learn how to modify access request permissions

  • Specify how users get site access

• Manage product subscriptions & billing

  • Manage your bill for Standard and Premium plans

  • Manage your bill for Enterprise plans

  • Manage your bill for Atlassian Access

  • Manage users and user tiers

Users & Groups (25-35% of the exam):

• Manage Users

  • Remove or suspend a user

  • Specify how users get site access

  • How does product access work?

  • Update product access settings

  • Remove product access for users

  • Delete your Atlassian account

  • Log in as another user

• Create and administer managed accounts

  • What is an Atlassian account?

  • Verify a domain to manage accounts

  • What are managed accounts?

  • Resend a verification email to a managed account

  • Make changes to a managed user account

  • Deactivate a managed account

  • Delete a managed account

• Manage Groups

  • Create and update groups

  • Give users access to products

• Analyze and troubleshoot changes to users and groups

Admin Roles (10-15% of the exam):

• Distinguish admin roles

  • Organization admin abilities for cloud products

  • Administering Jira Cloud products

  • Administering Confluence Cloud sites

• Grant appropriate admin privileges

  • Give users admin permissions

Advanced Features (15-20% of the exam):

• Configure custom email addresses

  • What are the benefits of DMARC?

  • What are the steps for setting up custom email addresses?

  • What are the DNS records required for configuring DMARC?

  • Add your email domain

  • Copy and add DNS records to your domain provider

  • Add email addresses for your domain

  • Remove an email domain

  • Remove an email address for your domain

  • Make an email address unavailable in a product

  • Configure Jira Cloud to send emails on behalf of your domain

• Configure Premium features

  • Manage product release tracks

  • Manage product sandboxes

  • Specify IP addresses for product access

• Configure advanced features

  • Manage an organization with the admin APIs

  • About cloud admin REST APIs

  • What are application tunnels?

  • Configure application tunnels

  • Install application tunnels from Atlassian Marketplace

  • Configure required connections and upstream ports

  • Create an application tunnel to your self-managed instance

  • Create a tunneled application link

  • Troubleshoot application tunnels

  • Understand data residency

• Understand Atlassian Access

  • Understand Atlassian Access

  • Manage your bill for Atlassian Access

  • Discover products your users administer

Final Thoughts:

In my opinion, if you have the option of taking the exam at a testing center, take advantage of it. I know that not everyone does so here are a few final tips as you get ready for to write the exam.

For both (Testing Center and Online):

• You will have three hours to finish the exam. Take you time and read every question and every answer very carefully.

• You will have the opportunity to flag as many questions as you want to review at the end. Feel free to make good use of this feature. I’m convinced, by going back and thinking again on a few I wasn’t sure of based on other questions I answered later, I was able to get a couple of extra points that would have been incorrect answers.

For Online Only:

• Be sure you have a clear room and desk to take the exam.

• Login and run the pre-check on your system well in advance of having to write the exam to make sure all of your equipment is compatible.

• Login to the exam as soon as you are able to make sure you get past any “day of“ technical difficulties.

[Hana Kučerová]

Thank you for sharing this!

[Tom Whittle]

I must say I agree with Jimmy on the if you can attend a test centre do take the exam do it.

For PSI (the company that manages and provides the exams both in person and remote) they stipulate that test centre candidates get access to a pen and paper which for me was invaluable. Of course this depends on where you best perform under pressure, however, after passing ACP-520 yesterday morning I heavily used the pen and paper.

I must say the certification bundle is well worth it as well. Getting the certification voucher and online revision content for $100 USD (at the time of writing) is great and a big motivation to take the exam.

A word of caution as good as the revision courses are they are not a replacement for hands on experience with the products mentioned. Obviously take this with a pinch of salt you don't need to have tweaked every little setting but at least knowing that it exists and having a good understanding of what it does will set you up for success.

[Sabine Mayer]

Thank you so much for taking the time to share all this information!! 

[Kalin U]

I passed the exam today and I can confirm everything said in the post by @Jimmy Seddon . What a timely publication!

Some additional insights from me below:

• If you can book a slot at a testing centre, this option is better. Here (another comment of mine) you can read why.
• Also, make sure you get your hands on the advanced features (clearly noted in the accompanying prep course part of the bundle as of Aug 2023) that are often overlooked, namely IP allowlisting, organization insights, application tunnelling, custom email addresses for Jira notification schemes, etc. A mind map will help you a lot.
• Atlassian Access questions are part of the exam, so test takers need to know what features are unlocked by this product - without the actual configuration though. Testing products in 2 organizations will help you: 1 org with Access (trial) and 1 org without it.
• It's also useful to know what features Premium plans of Jira and Confluence unlock for the organization as well.
• Pay special attention to the concepts of managed and non-managed accounts and everything related to granting and revoking access, and managing users: removing, deleting, deactivating, suspending, restoring, disabling. They're very different and a big part of the exam itself! :)

The bundle (prep course and exam voucher) were the best investment so far in terms of practical value and cost saving. Good luck, everyone!

[marcowells]

This is an awesome guide thank you for putting this together! 

[Sanjen Bariki]

Wowww

Thanks for sharing this!

[Kristján Geir Mathiesen]

Thanks @Jimmy Seddon Always thorough and great info from you!

[Tuncay Senturk]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

[Txus]

Thank you so much for sharing @Jimmy Seddon . Amazing article!!!

I hope get this certification soon. It's my next step.

[Sridhar Gandla]

This is great collection.. I am sure that, this every topic leaning  will give great confidence and ready for exam.

[Sarah Rojo]

Thank you for putting this very helpful guide together.

[Wouter van den Berg]

Thanks for this @Jimmy Seddon

Manage Groups

• Create and update groups
  
  

The URL for creating and updating groups within your (awesome) list is referencing Jira Cloud, shouldn't this be https://support.atlassian.com/user-management/docs/manage-groups/ where the emphasis is placed on the Admin panel. 

Appreciate all the time and effort for creating this. 

[Jimmy Seddon]

Thank you all for the kind words!

@Wouter van den Berg thank you as well for pointing that out.  I have corrected the link.

[Benjamin]

Thanks for putting this together @Jimmy Seddon . This is one of the items of my to-do list. 

[Chris Rainey]

I just finished taking the exam and everything Jimmy said was spot on. This article, along with the referenced Youtube video, was super helpful in preparing for this exam. This was my first Atlassian certification exam and the nerves were going crazy as the time of the exam started approaching but this article was my biggest source of inspiration and confidence that I'd seen in the community. So big thank you to Jimmy for putting this information together for us.

Also, the exam success course was EXTREMELY helpful in preparing for this exam. I was very impressed with the level of detail it went into.

Good luck everyone else preparing to take this exam - you got this!

[Berk Atlasian]

I paid 100 dollars plus tax but not received exam voucher. Only training I am seeing.

[Jimmy Seddon]

@Berk Atlasian I would reach out to: https://support.atlassian.com/contact/#/

There is a specific category for Training and Certification.  They should be able to assist you with locating your exam voucher.

[Huw Evans]

I'm not sure if it's like this for all other users, but the supporting PDF ACP-520 Expanded topics looks like it contains hyperlinks in the right column, but on downloading it none of them work for me. 

I just happened to search and find this page which seem to match the resources listed in the PDF. 

[Bharad]

Thanks for the content and the helpful tips in this post. Using this as a reference, I was able to successfully pass the ACP-520 exam and obtain my certification earlier last week. A few things that I thought were helpful to me:

• I enrolled in both the learning path courses ($39 each).
• I took a free test ACP-520 Atlassian Cloud Organization Admin Certification Study Set from quizlet (www.quizlet.com). Helped a little.
• Users and groups were tricky and I scored my lowest there.
• The exam hints in the learning path give a good idea of the real exam questions.
• Taking the exam at a center helped avoid distractions.

Good luck to everyone else who is taking them.

[Kay Kalunga Kabwe]

This is great content! I just passed the ACP-520 today! The Content in the Learning Path is spot on!

Also took the the ACP-520 Atlassian Cloud Organization Admin Certification Study Set from quizlet (www.quizlet.com). Really helped re-inforcing the concepts.

[Georg Mayer]

Thank you for sharing the links mentioned for the relevant topics! The links in the PDF ( acp-520-exam-topics-and-resources.pdf ) are colored blue like a link, but not working as a link :-) 

[Carlos Sánchez]

- Passed the exam yesterday. Very helpful tips from Jimmy. To those planning to take the exam: pay especial attention the topic of Default Groups for products. I got a lot of questions about that and it gets confusing at some point.

[Ree Kent]

Congratulations @Carlos Sánchez !

[Bharat Kalia]

Thank you @Jimmy Seddon  for sharing this. 

[Ravina]

Thank you for sharing this information. it is highly beneficial.