The Administrator Skills certification validates the ability of a developer or technical expert to design, industrialize, secure, and maintain high-volume PrestaShop projects in a demanding production environment.
This level certifies not only advanced technical skills but also mastery of an industrialized approach to delivery and operations.
Key information.
- Duration: 90 minutes
- Format: 65 to 70 multiple-choice questions (MCQ)
- Available languages: EN / FR / ES / IT / PL
- Passing threshold: 80%
Objective of the certification
The objective of this certification is to validate that the candidate is capable of:
- Designing robust and scalable PrestaShop architectures
- Industrializing development and deployment workflows
- Secure the environments, data, and access.
- Maintain an e-commerce site in real production conditions.
- Ensure performance, stability, and quality over time.
It attests to advanced operational expertise, focused on operations, performance, and reliability.
Positioning in the certification pathway
This level is considered to be a Master's level.
A certified candidate is capable of supervising projects of high technical complexity, guiding best delivery practices, and intervening in critical environments.
Evaluated themes
1. Advanced Git workflows & CI/CD deployment
Objective: to ensure that the candidate is proficient in advanced collaboration workflows and can set up and maintain a reliable CI/CD pipeline for PrestaShop.
Skills assessed:
- Proficiency in advanced Git models (Gitflow, trunk-based, branching strategies)
- Pull / Merge Request Conventions (reviews, pipelines, tests)
- Implementation of complete CI/CD pipelines (build, tests, artifacts, cache, deployment)
- Management of environments through branches (dev, staging, production)
- Management of the source of truth (Git > server)
- Automation of deployments and rollbacks
Environment management & configuration
Objective: to ensure that the candidate knows how to isolate environments, correctly configure a server, and secure access and secrets.
Skills assessed:
- Understanding of isolated environments (dev → preprod → prod)
- Secure management of files
.env, API keys and credentials - Appropriate server configuration (PHP, cache, database, sessions)
- Best practices for synchronization (databases, media, assets)
- Concepts of scaling and scalable architecture
- Management of SSH access, tunnels, private keys, and permissions
Maintenance, updates, and rollback strategy
Objective: to ensure that the candidate knows how to maintain a PrestaShop site up to date and secure without the risk of downtime.
Skills assessed:
- Maintenance strategies for a PrestaShop e-commerce site
- Differences between updates of the Core, third-party modules, and overrides.
- Dependency management via Composer
- Implementation of tests and validations prior to production deployment
- Comprehensive rollback processes (backups, versions, database reversion)
- Scheduling of maintenance windows and risk management
4. Security & system best practices
Objective: to verify the mastery of essential application and server security best practices.
Assessed skills:
- Management of system permissions (files, directories, processes)
- Securing sensitive files (
settings.inc.php,.envAPI keys) - Application of security patches (PHP, Core PrestaShop, modules)
- Protection against common vulnerabilities (XSS, SQL injection, CSRF, RCE)
- Management of backups (snapshots, incremental backups)
- Incident response process (diagnosis, containment, correction)
5. Performance, logs & advanced diagnostics
Objective: to ensure that the candidate is capable of analyzing performance, identifying bottlenecks, and utilizing advanced diagnostic tools.
Assessed skills:
- Reading and analyzing logs (web server, PHP-FPM, database, reverse proxy)
- Identification of bottlenecks (SQL queries, heavy hooks, cache)
- Cache management (APCu, PrestaShop cache, CDN, browser)
- Application performance analysis (TTFB, CLS, FID)
- Utilization of profiling tools (Blackfire, Tideways, Lighthouse…)
- Implementation of monitoring, alerting, and instrumentation.
Who is this certification aimed at?
The Administrator Skills certification is primarily aimed at:
- Experienced PrestaShop developers.
- To the tech leads and technical managers
- To the experts in charge of high-volume or high-stakes business projects
- To the agencies wishing to structure and industrialize their technical delivery
Recommended resources for preparing for certification
To successfully complete the Administrator Skills Certification, we recommend the resources below for your preparation:
1. PrestaShop Development Documentation (key resource)
The PrestaShop Dev Documentation is the official reference for understanding the inner workings of PrestaShop and best practices for administration.
👉 https://devdocs.prestashop-project.org
You will find there, among other things:
General architecture of PrestaShop: Understanding
the roles of the Core, modules, and themes.Back Office Management: Configuration
of stores, management ofthe catalog, orders, customers, taxes, and carriers.Multi-store Configuration: Best
practices and common use cases.User permissions and roles: Securing
and organizing administrator access.Maintenance and best practices: Cache
, performance, updates, production environment.
💡 Tip: prioritize the sections related to PrestaShop versions v8 and v9, which are the ones covered by the exam.
2. PrestaShop Academy (as a supplement)
The PrestaShop Academy offers structured training courses to consolidate the functional basics:
Management of the Back Office
Management of catalogs and orders
Configuration of a PrestaShop store
Best practices for administrators
These contents are particularly useful if you wish to review the fundamentals or if you are starting out on PrestaShop.
⭐ Bonus: As a Certified Expert, you enjoy exclusive benefits: 5 annual subscriptions offered to share, as well as discounts on live training (12% from 1 €200 and 20% from 2 €000 training).
Recommended testing environment
For effective preparation, we strongly advise you to install a test PrestaShop store (v8 or v9).
The exam assesses your actual understanding of administrative uses, not just the theory.
How to contact us?
If you have any questions or need further assistance, do not hesitate to write to us using the contact form in this Help Center > Contact Experts.
Our teams are available from Monday to Friday from 9 h to 20 h.