Basic Intro SharePoint Architecture Questions
1) What are Web Applications in SharePoint?
An IIS Web site created and used by SharePoint 2010. Saying an IIS virtual server is also an acceptable answer.
2) What is an application pool?
A group of one or more URLs that are served by a particular worker process or set of worker processes.
3) Why are application pools important?
They provide a way for multiple sites to run on the same server but still have their own worker processes and identity.
4) What are zones?
Different logical paths (URLs meaning) of gaining access to the same SharePoint Web application.
5) What are Web Application Policies?
Enables security policy for users at the Web application level, rather than at the site collection or site level. Importantly, they override all other security settings.
6) What is a site collection?
A site collection contains a top-level website and can contain one or more sub-sites web sites that have the same owner and share administration settings.
7) What are content databases?
A content database can hold all the content for one or more site collections.
8) What is a site?
A site in SharePoint contains Web pages and related assets such as lists, all hosted within a site collection.
9) What are My Sites?
Specialized SharePoint sites personalized and targeted for each user.
10) What is the difference between Classic mode authentication and Claims-based authentication?
As the name implies, classic authentication supports NT authentication types like Kerberos, NTLM, Basic, Digest, and anonymous. Claims based authentication uses claims identities against a against a trusted identity provider.
11) When would you use claims, and when would you use classic?
Classic is more commonly seen in upgraded 2007 environments whereas claims are the recommended path for new deployments.
12) Describe the potential components for both a single server, and multiple servers, potentially several tiered farms:
A single-server SharePoint Server 2010 environment leverages a built-in SQL Server 2008 Express database. The problems with this environment is scalability, not being able to install the with built-in database on a domain controller, the database cannot be larger than 4 GB, and you cannot use User Profile Synchronization in a single server with built-in database installation.
An example of a multiple tier farm would be a three-tier topology, considered one of the more efficient physical and logical layouts to supports scaling out or scaling up and provides better distribution of services across the member servers of the farm. This is considered a good architecture since one can add Web servers to the Web tier, add app servers to the application tier, and add database servers to the database tier.
SharePoint Backup and Restore Questions
13) What are some of the tools that can be used when backing up a SharePoint 2010 environment?
SharePoint farm backup and recovery
SQL Server
System Center Data Protection Manager
14) What Microsoft tool can be used for incremental backups?
System Center Data Protection Manager
Managed Metadata Questions
15) What is Managed Metadata?
Managed metadata is a hierarchical collection of centrally managed terms that you can define, and then use as attributes for items.
16) What are Terms and Term Sets?
A term is a word or a phrase that can be associated with an item. A term set is a collection of related terms.
17) How do Terms And Term Sets relate to Managed Metadata?
Managed metadata is a way of referring to the fact that terms and term sets can be created and managed independently from the columns themselves.
18) Are there different types of Term Sets?
There are Local Term Sets and Global Term Sets, one created within the context of a site collection and the other created outside the context of a site collection, respectively.
19) How are terms created and used?
There are several ways; however the most common is to use the Term Store Management Tool.
20) How is Managed Metadata, and the related Term technology used?
Through the UI, the most common use is through the managed metadata list column which allows you to specify the term set to use. It also related to searching and enhancing the user search experience.
Sandbox Solutions Questions
21) What is a sandboxed solution?
Components that are deployed to run within the sandboxed process rather than running in the production Internet Information Services (IIS) worker process.
22) What are some examples of things that might run within the SharePoint sandbox?
Any of the following are acceptable answers:
Web Parts
Event receivers
Feature receivers
Custom Microsoft SharePoint Designer workflow activities
Microsoft InfoPath business logic
others….
23) Why are sandboxed solutions used?
Primarily because they promote high layers of isolation. By default they run within a rights-restricted, isolated process based around Code Access Security (CAS). Isolation is possible to increase with activities like running the sandboxing service on only specific SharePoint 2010 servers.
SharePoint Search Questions
24) What is a content source in relation to SharePoint search? What’s the minimum amount of content sources?
A content source is a set of options that you can use to specify what type of content is crawled, what URLs to crawl, and how deep and when to crawl. You must create at least one content source before a crawl can occur.
25) What is a search scope?
A search scope defines a subset of information in the search index. Users can select a search scope when performing a search.
26) What is a federated location with SharePoint search?
Federated locations provide information that exists outside of your internal network to your end-users.
27) How does managed metadata affect search?
Enhances the end-user search experience by mapping crawled properties to managed properties. Managed properties show up in search results and help users perform more successful queries.
28) What is query logging in SharePoint 2010?
Collects information about user search queries and search results that users select on their computers to improve the relevancy of search results and to improve query suggestions.
29) What authentication type does the SharePoint crawler use?
The crawl component requires access to content using NTLM authentication.
Services Architecture Questions
30) Please describe what a Service Application is in SharePoint 2010.
Service applications in SharePoint 2010 are a set of services that can possibly be shared across Web applications. Some of these services may or may not be shared across the SharePoint 2010 farm. The reason these applications are shared is the overall reduction of resources required to supply the functionality these services cultivate.
31) Please provide an example of one of these service applications.
Any of the below are acceptable answers:
Access Services
Business Data Connectivity service
Excel Services Application
Managed Metadata service
PerformancePoint Service Application
Search service
Secure Store Service
State service
Usage and Health Data Collection service
User Profile service
Visio Graphics Service
Web Analytics service
Word Automation Services
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Subscription Settings Service
32) What are Service Application Groups used for?
Just provides a logical grouping of services that are scoped to a particular Web Application.
33) How are Service Applications deployed in terms of IIS (Internet Information Services)?
They are provisioned as a single Internet Information Services (IIS) Web site.
34) Explain how connections are managed with Service Applications.
A virtual entity is used that is referred to as a proxy, due to label in PowerShell.
35) What are some common examples of SharePoint 2010 services architectures, and what are the advantages of each design?
The three most popular designs are single farms with either a single service application group or multiple service application groups, or Enterprise services farms.
Single farms with a single service application group are generally the most common, and have the advantages of easy deployment, simple service application allocation, effective resource utilization and cohesive management.
Single farms with multiple service application groups is less common, and have the advantage of potential individual management of service applications as well as allowing data isolation, and while being more complex to deploy and maintain allows targeting of sites to particular service applications.
Enterprise Service Farms is pretty uncommon as it is a complete farm dedicated to Service Applications but promotes autonomous management and high levels of data isolation.
36) Are there any other type of relevant service architectures?
Depending on the environment requirements, a specialized farm can also be used in order to deploy specific services tailored to the organizational requirements which can aid in scaling out and conservation of resources.
37) What is the User Profile service?
Allows configuring and managing User profile properties, Audiences, Profile synchronization settings, organization browsing and management settings, and My Site settings.
38) What are User Profiles?
Aggregates properties from diverse identity content sources together to create unified and consistent profiles across an organization, used throughout the SharePoint environment.
39) What is Excel Services?
Allows sharing, securing, managing, and using Excel 2010 workbooks in a SharePoint Server Web site or document library. Excel Services consists of the Excel Calculation Services (ECS), Microsoft Excel Web Access (EWA), and Excel Web Services (EWS) components.
40) What is PerformancePoint Services?
Allows users to monitor and analyze a business by building dashboards, scorecards, and key performance indicators (KPIs).
41) What is Visio Services?
Allows users to share and view Microsoft Visio Web drawings. The service also enables data-connected Microsoft Visio 2010 Web drawings to be refreshed and updated from various data sources.
42) What is Access Services?
Allows users to edit, update, and create linked Microsoft Access 2010 databases that can be viewed and manipulated by using an internet browser, the Access client, or a linked HTML page.
43) What is the Secure Store Service (SSS)?
A secure database for storing credentials that are associated with application IDs
44) What is Content Deployment?
Content deployment enables you to copy content from a source site collection to a destination site collection.
Backup / DR Questions
45) Describe how redundancy can be built into a SharePoint environment. Please be specific in regards to any auxiliary components.
Multiple front-end web servers (WFE’s) can be deployed and correlated through Windows NLB or anything approach. Application servers can be deployed into the farm for a variety of purposes, depending on organizational requirements. Databases can be clustered or mirrored, again depending on requirements and environment.
46) From a basic standpoint, what is the difference between SQL clustering and mirroring?
Clustering provides a failover scenario whereby one or more nodes can be swapped as active depending on whether a node goes down. In mirroring, transactions are sent directly from a principal database and server to a mirror database to establish essentially a replica of the database.
Governance Questions
47) What Is Governance in terms of SharePoint 2010?
Governance is the set of policies, roles, responsibilities, and processes that guide, direct, and control how an organization’s business divisions and IT teams cooperate to achieve business goals.
48) What are some useful, OOB features of SharePoint that aid with governance of an environment?
Any of the below are acceptable answers. There are some others but these are the major ones that I generally look for from a candidate:
Site templates – consistent branding, site structure, and layout can be enforce a set of customizations that are applied to a site definition.
Quotas – limits to the amount of storage a site collection can use.
Locks - prevent users from either adding content to a site collection or using the site collection.
Web application permissions and policies – comprehensive security settings that apply to all users and groups for all site collections within a Web application.
Self-service site creation - enables users to create their own site collections, thus must be incorporated into a governance scheme.
Monitoring Questions
49) Describe the monitoring features that are baked into SharePoint 2010.
Diagnostic logging captures data about the state of the system, whereas health and usage data collection uses specific timer jobs to perform monitoring tasks, collecting information about:
Performance Counter Fata
Event Log Data
Timer Service Data
Metrics For Site Collections and Sites
Search Usage Data
General Workflow Questions
50) What is a declarative workflow? Can non-authenticated users participate in workflows?
Workflows created by using Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010, the default setting enables deployment of declarative workflows. Yes, however you do not give non-authorized users access to the site. The e-mail message and attachments sent from notifications might contain sensitive information
Showing posts with label SharePoint Interview Questions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SharePoint Interview Questions. Show all posts
Monday, April 11, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Sharepoint interview Questions(Developer)
1. What are Application Pages in SharePoint?
Application Pages | SitePages |
1. Unlike site pages (for example, default.aspx), a custom application page is deployed once per Web server and cannot be customized on a site-by-site basis | 1.Site Pages Can be site specific WE Can manage different site pages for different Sites. |
2. Application pages are based in the virtual _layouts directory. In addition, they are compiled into a single assembly DLL. | 2. Site Pages stores in Content DB and can be retrieved by WSS File Provider Using Safe mode Parser. |
3. With application pages, you can also add inline code. | 3.You can’t add any inline code |
4. A good example of an Application Page is the default Site Settings page: every site has one, and it's not customizable on a per site basis (although the contents can be different for sites). | 4.Example is default.aspx and all webpages created in site . |
2. Which is Better a UserControl or WebPart?
Ans: Advantages of Using User Control are :
Advantages of User control
There are three primary advantages to user controls when dealing with SharePoint. They are: familiarity, reusability, and development speed.
*Familiarity:
One of the keys to development is managing the degree of change that the team is put through as it transitions from technology to technology. Part of managing that change is minimizing it where possible. This is one of the reasons that user controls are such a good solution for many organizations. User controls are a core ASP.NET construct, they are something that developers are likely already familiar with — or at least aware of. This familiarity increases the knowledge reuse coming into the project, which keeps morale high, improves productivity, and improves reuse of the experience after the SharePoint project.
*Reusability
Another way user controls are advantageous is that they can be used with other ASP.NET-based solutions. They aren't explicitly tied to SharePoint. If for some reason in the future you decide that SharePoint isn't the right platform for the solutions you're building — or you decide you need to reuse the technology in another non-SharePoint project — you have that capability.
*Development Speed:
Direct support by Visual Studio for a visual interface for user controls — as opposed to manually adding in controls through code — is a great advantage in development speed. Having a visual look and feel instantly available makes the process go faster.
*Debugging is faster too, as you can construct testing harnesses that fully exercise and instrument the user control. Web Parts are essentially only runable from within SharePoint. This means that you must deal with all of the SharePoint infrastructure while trying to debug.
Maintenance is also easier and faster with User Controls, primarily because they are easier to understand and debug. The net of this is that developing with user controls is substantially faster than developing a Web Part for everything but the most trivial implementations
3. When to use Diffrent Site Collections?
Ans. An Individual Site collection offers following :
For the Users:
Dedicated Recycle bins
Dedicated usage Reports
Distributed administration (site collection administrators)
Dedicated search scopes, keywords, and best-bets
Custom feature deployments
Dedicated language translation maintenance
Dedicated galleries for web parts, master pages, content types, site columns, site templates, and list templates
Dedicated shared libraries, such as site collection images and site collection styles
Dedicated real estate (Self Containment)
For the IT Administrators:
Site quota templates
Distributed administration
Site locking
Database maintenance options
Backup / Restore abilities
Content Deployments
InfoPath forms services global template targeting
4. Why to use diffrent site collections:
Ans. Following are the resons:
1. Site quotas is one of the reasons. The issue is the recycle bin is based on site collections and the quota for a site collection. If everyone shares a site collection, then they share the recycle bins storage size.
2. Delegated Security and distributed administration is the next big thing. For eg, you have a IT department that doesn't know who should be able to see what content, besides how it should be organized. This is the job of the content owners and users. SharePoint site collections offers IT the ability to create a site collection for a project, team, department, document, or whatever the needs are, then assign an owner and hand it off to them.
3. In addition to these two points is the need to separate the content between databases.
5. What is Authentication and Authorization.
Ans : An authentication system is how you identify yourself to the computer. The goal behind an authentication system is to verify that the user is actually who they say they are.
Once the system knows who the user is through authentication, authorization is how the system decides what the user can do.
6. What are Security methods(Authentication methods) available in sharepoint.
Ans : "Out of the box", SharePoint 2007 supports nine authentication methods. NTLM (short for NT Lan Manager, which is simply the Windows authentication that everyone is familiar with) and Kerberos (also a Windows "standard" authentication) are offered during installation, but I recommend to get started with NTLM, as Kerberos requires "special configuration by the domain administrator", while NTLM works without further hassle.
7. What is the relationship between Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server and Microsoft Windows Services?
Ans. Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies (including SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services) deliver highly scalable collaboration solutions with flexible deployment and management tools. Windows SharePoint Services provides sites for team collaboration, while Share Point Portal Server connects these sites, people, and business processes-facilitating knowledge sharing and smart organizations. SharePoint Portal Server also extends the capabilities of Windows SharePoint Services by providing organizational and management tools for SharePoint sites, and by enabling teams to publish information to the entire organization.
8. What is a SharePoint Feature? What files are used to define a feature?
Ans. A SharePoint Feature is a functional component that can be activated and deactivate at various scopes throughout a SharePoint instances, scope of which are defined as
1. Farm level 2. Web Application level 3. Site level 4. Web level
Features have their own receiver architecture, which allow you to trap events such as when a feature is
Installing, Uninstalling, Activated, or Deactivated.
The element types that can be defined by a feature include
menu commands, link commands, page templates, page instances, list definitions, list instances,
event handlers, and workflows.
The two files that are used to define a feature are the feature.xml and manifest file(elements.xml). The feature XML file defines the actual feature and will make SharePoint aware of the installed feature. The manifest file contains details about the feature such as functionality.
9. Workflow can be applied to what all elements of SharePoint ?
Ans. Workflow associations are often created directly on lists and libraries, a workflow association can also be created on a content type that exists within the Content Type Gallery for the current site or content types defined within a list. In short, it can be applied ...
At the level of a list/library
At the level of a content type defined at site scope
At the level of a content type defined at list scope
10. What are the types of input forms that can be created for a workflow ?
Ans. You can create four different types of input forms including
1. An association form
2. An initiation form
3. A modification form
4. A task edit form.
Note that these forms are optional when you create a workflow template.
11. What are ways to create input forms for workflow ?
Ans. 1. You can create your forms by using custom application pages, which are standard .aspx pages deployed to run out of the _layouts directory. ( disadv: lot of code required when compared to Infopath approach)
2. Using Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 (disadv: picks up a dependenct on MOSS, i.e. it cannot run in a standalone WSS environment)
12. What is the difference between method activity and event activity in WorkFlow ?
Ans. A method activity is one that performs an action, such as creating or updating a task. An event activity is one that runs in response to an action occurring.
13. What are content types?
Ans. A content type is a flexible and reusable WSS type definition (or we can a template) that defines the columns and behavior for an item in a list or a document in a document library. For example, you can create a content type for a leave approval document with a unique set of columns, an event handler, and its own document template and attach it with a document library/libraries.
14. Can a content type have receivers associated with it?
Ans. Yes, a content type can have an event receiver associated with it, either inheriting from the SPListEventReciever base class for list level events, or inheriting from the SPItemEventReciever base class. Whenever the content type is instantiated, it will be subject to the event receivers that are associated with it.
15. What two files are typically (this is kept generally) included when developing a content type, and what is the purpose of each?
Ans. There is generally the main content type file that holds things like the content type ID, name, group, description, and version. There is also the ContentType.Fields file which contains the fields to include in the content type that has the ID, Type, Name, DisplayName, StaticName, Hidden, Required, and Sealed elements. They are related by the FieldRefs element in the main content type file.
16. What is an ancestral type and what does it have to do with content types?
Ans. An ancestral type is the base type that the content type is deriving from, such as Document (0x0101). The ancestral type will define the metadata fields that are included with the custom content type.
17. Can a list definition be derived from a custom content type?
Ans. Yes, a list definition can derive from a content type which can be seen in the schema.XML of the list definition in the element.
18. When creating a list definition, how can you create an instance of the list?
Ans. You can create a new instance of a list by creating an instance.XML file
19. What is a Field Control?
Ans. Field controls are simple ASP.NET 2.0 server controls that provide the basic field functionality of SharePoint. They provide basic general functionality such as displaying or editing list data as it appears on SharePoint list pages.
20. What base class do custom Field Controls inherit from?
Ans. This varies. Generally, custom field controls inherit from the Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.BaseFieldControl namespace, but you can inherit from the default field controls.
21. Can multiple SharePoint installs point to the same DB?
Ans. Multiple SharePoint installs can use the same database server. Not literally the same database on that server. That server must be SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 2005. It cannot be Oracle or another vendor.
22. How to create links to the mapped network drives?
Ans. Creating links to mapped drives in WSS v3 or MOSS 2007 can be done via
the new content type for .lnk files.
23. While creating a Web part, which is the ideal location to Initialize my new controls?
Ans. Override the CreateChildControls method to include your new controls. You can control the exact rendering of your controls by calling the .Render method in the web parts Render method.
24. What are the two base classes a WebPart you are going to use within SharePoint 2007 can inherit from?
Ans. There are two base classes that a WebPart which is going to be consumed by SharePoint can inherit from, either the SharePoint WebPart Base class
or the ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart base class.
When inheriting from the SharePoint WebPart Base class your derived WebPart class will inherit from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart. When inheriting from the ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart base class your derived WebPart class will inherit from System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart. It is considered good practice to use the ASP.NET WebPart base class since the old base class is meant for backwards compatibility with previous version of SharePoint, however there are four exception when it is better to leverage functionality from the SharePoint WebPart base class:
Cross page connections
Connections between Web Parts that are outside of a Web Part zone
Client-side connections (Web Part Page Services Component)
Data caching infrastructure
25. What is the WebPartManager sealed class? What is its purpose?
Ans. The WebPartManager sealed class is responsible for managing everything occurring on a WebPart page, such as the WebParts (controls), events, and misc. functionality that will occur in WebPartZones. For example, the WebPartManager is responsible for the functionality that is provided when you are working with moving a WebPart from WebPartZone to WebPartZone. It is known as the “the central class of the Web Part Control Set.”
26. What does AllowUnsafeUpdates do ?
Ans. If your code modifies Windows SharePoint Services data in some way, you may need to allow unsafe updates on the Web site, without requiring a security validation. You can do by setting the AllowUnsafeUpdates property.
27. What does RunWithElevatedPrivileges do?
Ans. There are certain object model calls model that require site-administration privileges. To bypass access-denied error, we use RunWithElevatedPrivileges property when request is initiated by a nonprivileged user. We can successfully make calls into the object model by calling the RunWithElevatedPrivileges method provided by the SPSecurity class.
28. What does SPWeb.EnsureUser method do?
Ans. Checks whether the specified login name belongs to a valid user of the Web site, and if the login name does not already exist, adds it to the Web site.
e.g SPUser usr = myWeb.EnsureUser("user");
29. What is a SPSite and SPWeb object, and what is the difference between each of the objects?
Ans. The SPSite object represents a collection of sites (site collection [a top level site and all its subsites]). The SPWeb object represents an instance SharePoint Web, and SPWeb object contains things like the actual content. A SPSite object contains the various subsites and the information regarding them.
30. What does a SPWebApplication object represent?
Ans. The SPWebApplication objects represents a SharePoint Web Application, which essentially is an IIS virtual server. Using the class you can instigate high level operations, such as getting all the features of an entire Web Application instance, or doing high level creation operations like creating new Web Applications through code.
31. Would you use SPWebApplication to get information like the SMTP address of the SharePoint site?
Ans. Yes, since this is a Web Application level setting. You would iterate through each SPWebApplication in the SPWebApplication collection, and then use the appropriate property calls (OutboundMailServiceInstance) in order to return settings regarding the mail service such as the SMTP address.
32. How do you return SharePoint List items using SharePoint web services?
Ans. In order to retrieve list items from a SharePoint list through Web Services, you should use the lists.asmx web service by establishing a web reference in Visual Studio. The lists.asmx exposes the GetListItems method, which will allow the return of the full content of the list in an XML node. It will take parameters like the GUID of the name of the list you are querying against, the GUID of the view you are going to query, etc.
Side Question: I got asked how I built queries with the lists.asmx web service. In order to build queries with this service, one of the parameters that the GetListItems method exposes is the option to build a CAML query. There are other ways to do this as well, but that was how I answered it.
33. When retrieving List items using SharePoint Web Services, how do you specify explicit credentials to be passed to access the list items?
Ans. In order to specify explicit credentials with a Web Service, you generally instantiate the web service, and then using the credentials properties of the Web Service object you use the System.Net.NetworkCredential class to specify the username, password, and domain that you wish to pass when making the web service call and operations.
34. What is CAML, and why would you use it?
Ans. CAML stands for Collaborative Application Markup Language. CAML is an XML based language which provides data constructs that build up the SharePoint fields, view, and is used for table definition during site provisioning. CAML is responsible for rending data and the resulting HTML that is output to the user in SharePoint. CAML can be used for a variety of circumstances, overall is used to query, build and customize SharePoint based sites. A general use would be building a CAML query in a SharePoint WebPart in order to retrieve values from a SharePoint list.
35. What is impersonation, and when would you use impersonation?
Ans. Impersonation can basically provide the functionality of executing something in the context of a different identity, for example assigning an account to users with anonymous access. You would use impersonation in order to access resources on behalf of the user with a different account, that normally, that wouldn’t be able to access or execute something.
36. What are WebPart properties, and what are some of the attributes you see when declaring WebPart properties in code?
Ans. WebPart properties are just like ASP.NET control properties, they are used to interact with and specify attributes that should be applied to a WebPart by a user. Some of the attributes you see with ASP.NET 2.0 properties are WebDescription, WebDisplayName, Category, Personalizable, and WebBrowsable. Although most of these properties come from the System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts class, ones like Category come out of System.ComponentModel namespace.
37. Why are properties important in WebPart development, and how have you exploited them in past development projects? What must each custom property have?
Ans. Properties are important because WebParts allow levels of personalization for each user. WebPart properties make it possible for a user to interact, adjust, and increase overall experience value with the programmatic assets that you develop without having the need to use an external editor or right any code. A very simple example of exploiting a property would be something like allowing the user to change the text on the WebPart design interface so that they can display whatever string of text they desire.
Each custom property that you have must have the appropriate get and set accessor methods.
38. What are ClassResources? How do you reference and deploy resources with an ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart?
Ans. ClassResources are used when inheriting from the SharePoint.WebPart.WebPartPages.WebPart base class, and are defined in the SharePoint solution file as things that should be stored in the wpresources directory on the server. It is a helpful directory to use in order to deploy custom images. In ASP.NET 2.0, typically things such as images are referenced by embedding them as resources within an assembly. The good part about ClassResources is they can help to eliminate recompiles to change small interface adjustments or alterations to external JavaScript files.
39. What is a SharePoint Solution File? How does it differ from WebPart .cab files in legacy development? What does it contain?
Ans. A SharePoint solution file is essentially a .cabinet file with all a developers ustom componets suffixed with a .wsp extension that aids in deployment. The big difference with SharePoint solution files is is that a solution:
allows deployment to all WFE’s in a farm
is highly manageable from the interface allowing deployment, retraction, and versioning
Can package all types of assets like site definitions, feature definitions (and associated components), Webparts, etc.
Can provide Code Access Security provisioning to avoid GAC deployments
And much more..
40. What is a .ddf file and what does it have to do with SharePoint Solution creation?
Ans. A .ddf file is a data directive file and is used when building the SharePoint solution bundle specifying the source files and their destination locations. The important thing for someone to understand is that the .ddf file will be passed as a parameter to the MAKECAB utility to orchestrate construction of the SharePoint solution file.
41. What file does a SharePoint solution package use to orchestrate (describe) its packaged contents?
Ans. The solution Manifest.XML file.
42. What deployment mechanism can you use to instigate Code Access Security attributes for your WebParts?
Ans. SharePoint solution files can add in order to handle code access security deployment issues. This is done in the element in the SharePoint solution manifest.XML, which makes it easier to get assemblies the appropriate permissions in order to operate in the bin directory of the web application.
43. What are event receivers?
Ans. Event receivers are classes that inherit from the SpItemEventReciever or SPListEventReciever base class (both of which derive out of the abstract base class SPEventRecieverBase), and provide the option of responding to events as they occur within SharePoint, such as adding an item or deleting an item.
44. When would you use an event receiver?
Ans. Since event receivers respond to events, you could use a receiver for something as simple as canceling an action, such as deleting a document library by using the Cancel property. This would essentially prevent users from deleting any documents if you wanted to maintain retention of stored data.
45. What base class do event receivers inherit from?
Ans. Event receivers either inherit from the SPListEventReciever base class or the SPItemEventReciever base class, both which derive from the abstract base class SPEventReceiverBase.
46. If I wanted to not allow people to delete documents from a document library, how would I go about it?
Ans. You would on the ItemDeleting event set: properties.Cancel= true.
47. What is the difference between an asynchronous and synchronous event receivers?
Ans. An asynchronous event occurs after an action has taken place, and a synchronous event occurs before an action has take place. For example, an asynchronous event is ItemAdded, and its sister synchronous event is ItemAdding
48. Workflow can be applied to what all elements of SharePoint ?
Ans. While workflow associations are often created directly on lists and document libraries, a workflow association can also be created on a content type that exists within the Content Type Gallery for the current site or content types defined within a list. In short, it can be applied ...
At the level of a list (or document library)
At the level of a content type defined at site scope
At the level of a content type defined at list scope
49. What are the ways to initiate the workflow ?
1. Automatic
2. Manual (standard WSS UI interface)
3. Manual (Custom UI Interface)
50. What are the types of input forms that can be created for a workflow ?
Ans. You can create four different types of input forms including an association form, an initiation form, a modification form, and a task edit form. Note that these forms are optional when you create a workflow template.
51. While creating a Webpart, which is the ideal location to Initialize my new controls ?
Ans. Override the CreateChildControls method to include your new controls. To make sure that the new controls are initialized.. call 'EnsureChildControls' in the webparts Render method. You can control the exact Rendering of your controls by calling the .Render method in the webparts Render method.
52. How to query from multiple lists ?
Ans. Use SPSiteDataQuery to fetch data from multiple lists.
53.How Does SharePoint work?
Ans. The browser sends a DAV packet to IIS asking to perform a document check in. PKMDASL.DLL, an ISAPI DLL, parses the packet and sees that it has the proprietary INVOKE command. Because of the existence of this command, the packet is passed off to msdmserv.exe, who in turn processes the packet and uses EXOLEDB to access the WSS, perform the operation and send the results back to the user in the form of XML.
54. What is the difference between Syncronous & Asyncronous events?
Syncronous calls ending with 'ing'
E.g. ItemDeleting
Event Handler code execute BEFORE action is committed
WSS waits for code to return
Option to cancel and return error code
Asyncronous calls ending with 'ed'
E.g. ItemDeleted
Event Handler code executes AFTER action is committed
WSS does not wait for code to return
Executed in its own Worker thread.
55. What is ServerUpdate() ?
Ans. Any changes in the list, i.e. new addition or modification of an item.. the operation is complete by calling the Update method.
But if a List is set to maintain versions .. and you are editing an item, but don't want to save it as a new version, then use the SystemUpdate method instead and pass in 'false' as the parameter.
56. What is query.ViewAttributes OR How can you force SPQuery to return results from all the folders of the list?
Ans. If you use SPQuery on any SPlist .. it will bring back results from the current folder only.
If you want to get results from all the folders in the list.. then you need to specify the scope of the query by the use of ViewAttributes..
e.g. query.ViewAttributes = "Scope=\"Recursive\"";
Ans: Advantages of Using User Control are :
Advantages of User control
There are three primary advantages to user controls when dealing with SharePoint. They are: familiarity, reusability, and development speed.
*Familiarity:
One of the keys to development is managing the degree of change that the team is put through as it transitions from technology to technology. Part of managing that change is minimizing it where possible. This is one of the reasons that user controls are such a good solution for many organizations. User controls are a core ASP.NET construct, they are something that developers are likely already familiar with — or at least aware of. This familiarity increases the knowledge reuse coming into the project, which keeps morale high, improves productivity, and improves reuse of the experience after the SharePoint project.
*Reusability
Another way user controls are advantageous is that they can be used with other ASP.NET-based solutions. They aren't explicitly tied to SharePoint. If for some reason in the future you decide that SharePoint isn't the right platform for the solutions you're building — or you decide you need to reuse the technology in another non-SharePoint project — you have that capability.
*Development Speed:
Direct support by Visual Studio for a visual interface for user controls — as opposed to manually adding in controls through code — is a great advantage in development speed. Having a visual look and feel instantly available makes the process go faster.
*Debugging is faster too, as you can construct testing harnesses that fully exercise and instrument the user control. Web Parts are essentially only runable from within SharePoint. This means that you must deal with all of the SharePoint infrastructure while trying to debug.
Maintenance is also easier and faster with User Controls, primarily because they are easier to understand and debug. The net of this is that developing with user controls is substantially faster than developing a Web Part for everything but the most trivial implementations
3. When to use Diffrent Site Collections?
Ans. An Individual Site collection offers following :
For the Users:
Dedicated Recycle bins
Dedicated usage Reports
Distributed administration (site collection administrators)
Dedicated search scopes, keywords, and best-bets
Custom feature deployments
Dedicated language translation maintenance
Dedicated galleries for web parts, master pages, content types, site columns, site templates, and list templates
Dedicated shared libraries, such as site collection images and site collection styles
Dedicated real estate (Self Containment)
For the IT Administrators:
Site quota templates
Distributed administration
Site locking
Database maintenance options
Backup / Restore abilities
Content Deployments
InfoPath forms services global template targeting
4. Why to use diffrent site collections:
Ans. Following are the resons:
1. Site quotas is one of the reasons. The issue is the recycle bin is based on site collections and the quota for a site collection. If everyone shares a site collection, then they share the recycle bins storage size.
2. Delegated Security and distributed administration is the next big thing. For eg, you have a IT department that doesn't know who should be able to see what content, besides how it should be organized. This is the job of the content owners and users. SharePoint site collections offers IT the ability to create a site collection for a project, team, department, document, or whatever the needs are, then assign an owner and hand it off to them.
3. In addition to these two points is the need to separate the content between databases.
5. What is Authentication and Authorization.
Ans : An authentication system is how you identify yourself to the computer. The goal behind an authentication system is to verify that the user is actually who they say they are.
Once the system knows who the user is through authentication, authorization is how the system decides what the user can do.
6. What are Security methods(Authentication methods) available in sharepoint.
Ans : "Out of the box", SharePoint 2007 supports nine authentication methods. NTLM (short for NT Lan Manager, which is simply the Windows authentication that everyone is familiar with) and Kerberos (also a Windows "standard" authentication) are offered during installation, but I recommend to get started with NTLM, as Kerberos requires "special configuration by the domain administrator", while NTLM works without further hassle.
7. What is the relationship between Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server and Microsoft Windows Services?
Ans. Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies (including SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services) deliver highly scalable collaboration solutions with flexible deployment and management tools. Windows SharePoint Services provides sites for team collaboration, while Share Point Portal Server connects these sites, people, and business processes-facilitating knowledge sharing and smart organizations. SharePoint Portal Server also extends the capabilities of Windows SharePoint Services by providing organizational and management tools for SharePoint sites, and by enabling teams to publish information to the entire organization.
8. What is a SharePoint Feature? What files are used to define a feature?
Ans. A SharePoint Feature is a functional component that can be activated and deactivate at various scopes throughout a SharePoint instances, scope of which are defined as
1. Farm level 2. Web Application level 3. Site level 4. Web level
Features have their own receiver architecture, which allow you to trap events such as when a feature is
Installing, Uninstalling, Activated, or Deactivated.
The element types that can be defined by a feature include
menu commands, link commands, page templates, page instances, list definitions, list instances,
event handlers, and workflows.
The two files that are used to define a feature are the feature.xml and manifest file(elements.xml). The feature XML file defines the actual feature and will make SharePoint aware of the installed feature. The manifest file contains details about the feature such as functionality.
9. Workflow can be applied to what all elements of SharePoint ?
Ans. Workflow associations are often created directly on lists and libraries, a workflow association can also be created on a content type that exists within the Content Type Gallery for the current site or content types defined within a list. In short, it can be applied ...
At the level of a list/library
At the level of a content type defined at site scope
At the level of a content type defined at list scope
10. What are the types of input forms that can be created for a workflow ?
Ans. You can create four different types of input forms including
1. An association form
2. An initiation form
3. A modification form
4. A task edit form.
Note that these forms are optional when you create a workflow template.
11. What are ways to create input forms for workflow ?
Ans. 1. You can create your forms by using custom application pages, which are standard .aspx pages deployed to run out of the _layouts directory. ( disadv: lot of code required when compared to Infopath approach)
2. Using Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 (disadv: picks up a dependenct on MOSS, i.e. it cannot run in a standalone WSS environment)
12. What is the difference between method activity and event activity in WorkFlow ?
Ans. A method activity is one that performs an action, such as creating or updating a task. An event activity is one that runs in response to an action occurring.
13. What are content types?
Ans. A content type is a flexible and reusable WSS type definition (or we can a template) that defines the columns and behavior for an item in a list or a document in a document library. For example, you can create a content type for a leave approval document with a unique set of columns, an event handler, and its own document template and attach it with a document library/libraries.
14. Can a content type have receivers associated with it?
Ans. Yes, a content type can have an event receiver associated with it, either inheriting from the SPListEventReciever base class for list level events, or inheriting from the SPItemEventReciever base class. Whenever the content type is instantiated, it will be subject to the event receivers that are associated with it.
15. What two files are typically (this is kept generally) included when developing a content type, and what is the purpose of each?
Ans. There is generally the main content type file that holds things like the content type ID, name, group, description, and version. There is also the ContentType.Fields file which contains the fields to include in the content type that has the ID, Type, Name, DisplayName, StaticName, Hidden, Required, and Sealed elements. They are related by the FieldRefs element in the main content type file.
16. What is an ancestral type and what does it have to do with content types?
Ans. An ancestral type is the base type that the content type is deriving from, such as Document (0x0101). The ancestral type will define the metadata fields that are included with the custom content type.
17. Can a list definition be derived from a custom content type?
Ans. Yes, a list definition can derive from a content type which can be seen in the schema.XML of the list definition in the element.
18. When creating a list definition, how can you create an instance of the list?
Ans. You can create a new instance of a list by creating an instance.XML file
19. What is a Field Control?
Ans. Field controls are simple ASP.NET 2.0 server controls that provide the basic field functionality of SharePoint. They provide basic general functionality such as displaying or editing list data as it appears on SharePoint list pages.
20. What base class do custom Field Controls inherit from?
Ans. This varies. Generally, custom field controls inherit from the Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.BaseFieldControl namespace, but you can inherit from the default field controls.
21. Can multiple SharePoint installs point to the same DB?
Ans. Multiple SharePoint installs can use the same database server. Not literally the same database on that server. That server must be SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 2005. It cannot be Oracle or another vendor.
22. How to create links to the mapped network drives?
Ans. Creating links to mapped drives in WSS v3 or MOSS 2007 can be done via
the new content type for .lnk files.
23. While creating a Web part, which is the ideal location to Initialize my new controls?
Ans. Override the CreateChildControls method to include your new controls. You can control the exact rendering of your controls by calling the .Render method in the web parts Render method.
24. What are the two base classes a WebPart you are going to use within SharePoint 2007 can inherit from?
Ans. There are two base classes that a WebPart which is going to be consumed by SharePoint can inherit from, either the SharePoint WebPart Base class
or the ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart base class.
When inheriting from the SharePoint WebPart Base class your derived WebPart class will inherit from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart. When inheriting from the ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart base class your derived WebPart class will inherit from System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart. It is considered good practice to use the ASP.NET WebPart base class since the old base class is meant for backwards compatibility with previous version of SharePoint, however there are four exception when it is better to leverage functionality from the SharePoint WebPart base class:
Cross page connections
Connections between Web Parts that are outside of a Web Part zone
Client-side connections (Web Part Page Services Component)
Data caching infrastructure
25. What is the WebPartManager sealed class? What is its purpose?
Ans. The WebPartManager sealed class is responsible for managing everything occurring on a WebPart page, such as the WebParts (controls), events, and misc. functionality that will occur in WebPartZones. For example, the WebPartManager is responsible for the functionality that is provided when you are working with moving a WebPart from WebPartZone to WebPartZone. It is known as the “the central class of the Web Part Control Set.”
26. What does AllowUnsafeUpdates do ?
Ans. If your code modifies Windows SharePoint Services data in some way, you may need to allow unsafe updates on the Web site, without requiring a security validation. You can do by setting the AllowUnsafeUpdates property.
27. What does RunWithElevatedPrivileges do?
Ans. There are certain object model calls model that require site-administration privileges. To bypass access-denied error, we use RunWithElevatedPrivileges property when request is initiated by a nonprivileged user. We can successfully make calls into the object model by calling the RunWithElevatedPrivileges method provided by the SPSecurity class.
28. What does SPWeb.EnsureUser method do?
Ans. Checks whether the specified login name belongs to a valid user of the Web site, and if the login name does not already exist, adds it to the Web site.
e.g SPUser usr = myWeb.EnsureUser("user");
29. What is a SPSite and SPWeb object, and what is the difference between each of the objects?
Ans. The SPSite object represents a collection of sites (site collection [a top level site and all its subsites]). The SPWeb object represents an instance SharePoint Web, and SPWeb object contains things like the actual content. A SPSite object contains the various subsites and the information regarding them.
30. What does a SPWebApplication object represent?
Ans. The SPWebApplication objects represents a SharePoint Web Application, which essentially is an IIS virtual server. Using the class you can instigate high level operations, such as getting all the features of an entire Web Application instance, or doing high level creation operations like creating new Web Applications through code.
31. Would you use SPWebApplication to get information like the SMTP address of the SharePoint site?
Ans. Yes, since this is a Web Application level setting. You would iterate through each SPWebApplication in the SPWebApplication collection, and then use the appropriate property calls (OutboundMailServiceInstance) in order to return settings regarding the mail service such as the SMTP address.
32. How do you return SharePoint List items using SharePoint web services?
Ans. In order to retrieve list items from a SharePoint list through Web Services, you should use the lists.asmx web service by establishing a web reference in Visual Studio. The lists.asmx exposes the GetListItems method, which will allow the return of the full content of the list in an XML node. It will take parameters like the GUID of the name of the list you are querying against, the GUID of the view you are going to query, etc.
Side Question: I got asked how I built queries with the lists.asmx web service. In order to build queries with this service, one of the parameters that the GetListItems method exposes is the option to build a CAML query. There are other ways to do this as well, but that was how I answered it.
33. When retrieving List items using SharePoint Web Services, how do you specify explicit credentials to be passed to access the list items?
Ans. In order to specify explicit credentials with a Web Service, you generally instantiate the web service, and then using the credentials properties of the Web Service object you use the System.Net.NetworkCredential class to specify the username, password, and domain that you wish to pass when making the web service call and operations.
34. What is CAML, and why would you use it?
Ans. CAML stands for Collaborative Application Markup Language. CAML is an XML based language which provides data constructs that build up the SharePoint fields, view, and is used for table definition during site provisioning. CAML is responsible for rending data and the resulting HTML that is output to the user in SharePoint. CAML can be used for a variety of circumstances, overall is used to query, build and customize SharePoint based sites. A general use would be building a CAML query in a SharePoint WebPart in order to retrieve values from a SharePoint list.
35. What is impersonation, and when would you use impersonation?
Ans. Impersonation can basically provide the functionality of executing something in the context of a different identity, for example assigning an account to users with anonymous access. You would use impersonation in order to access resources on behalf of the user with a different account, that normally, that wouldn’t be able to access or execute something.
36. What are WebPart properties, and what are some of the attributes you see when declaring WebPart properties in code?
Ans. WebPart properties are just like ASP.NET control properties, they are used to interact with and specify attributes that should be applied to a WebPart by a user. Some of the attributes you see with ASP.NET 2.0 properties are WebDescription, WebDisplayName, Category, Personalizable, and WebBrowsable. Although most of these properties come from the System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts class, ones like Category come out of System.ComponentModel namespace.
37. Why are properties important in WebPart development, and how have you exploited them in past development projects? What must each custom property have?
Ans. Properties are important because WebParts allow levels of personalization for each user. WebPart properties make it possible for a user to interact, adjust, and increase overall experience value with the programmatic assets that you develop without having the need to use an external editor or right any code. A very simple example of exploiting a property would be something like allowing the user to change the text on the WebPart design interface so that they can display whatever string of text they desire.
Each custom property that you have must have the appropriate get and set accessor methods.
38. What are ClassResources? How do you reference and deploy resources with an ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart?
Ans. ClassResources are used when inheriting from the SharePoint.WebPart.WebPartPages.WebPart base class, and are defined in the SharePoint solution file as things that should be stored in the wpresources directory on the server. It is a helpful directory to use in order to deploy custom images. In ASP.NET 2.0, typically things such as images are referenced by embedding them as resources within an assembly. The good part about ClassResources is they can help to eliminate recompiles to change small interface adjustments or alterations to external JavaScript files.
39. What is a SharePoint Solution File? How does it differ from WebPart .cab files in legacy development? What does it contain?
Ans. A SharePoint solution file is essentially a .cabinet file with all a developers ustom componets suffixed with a .wsp extension that aids in deployment. The big difference with SharePoint solution files is is that a solution:
allows deployment to all WFE’s in a farm
is highly manageable from the interface allowing deployment, retraction, and versioning
Can package all types of assets like site definitions, feature definitions (and associated components), Webparts, etc.
Can provide Code Access Security provisioning to avoid GAC deployments
And much more..
40. What is a .ddf file and what does it have to do with SharePoint Solution creation?
Ans. A .ddf file is a data directive file and is used when building the SharePoint solution bundle specifying the source files and their destination locations. The important thing for someone to understand is that the .ddf file will be passed as a parameter to the MAKECAB utility to orchestrate construction of the SharePoint solution file.
41. What file does a SharePoint solution package use to orchestrate (describe) its packaged contents?
Ans. The solution Manifest.XML file.
42. What deployment mechanism can you use to instigate Code Access Security attributes for your WebParts?
Ans. SharePoint solution files can add in order to handle code access security deployment issues. This is done in the element in the SharePoint solution manifest.XML, which makes it easier to get assemblies the appropriate permissions in order to operate in the bin directory of the web application.
43. What are event receivers?
Ans. Event receivers are classes that inherit from the SpItemEventReciever or SPListEventReciever base class (both of which derive out of the abstract base class SPEventRecieverBase), and provide the option of responding to events as they occur within SharePoint, such as adding an item or deleting an item.
44. When would you use an event receiver?
Ans. Since event receivers respond to events, you could use a receiver for something as simple as canceling an action, such as deleting a document library by using the Cancel property. This would essentially prevent users from deleting any documents if you wanted to maintain retention of stored data.
45. What base class do event receivers inherit from?
Ans. Event receivers either inherit from the SPListEventReciever base class or the SPItemEventReciever base class, both which derive from the abstract base class SPEventReceiverBase.
46. If I wanted to not allow people to delete documents from a document library, how would I go about it?
Ans. You would on the ItemDeleting event set: properties.Cancel= true.
47. What is the difference between an asynchronous and synchronous event receivers?
Ans. An asynchronous event occurs after an action has taken place, and a synchronous event occurs before an action has take place. For example, an asynchronous event is ItemAdded, and its sister synchronous event is ItemAdding
48. Workflow can be applied to what all elements of SharePoint ?
Ans. While workflow associations are often created directly on lists and document libraries, a workflow association can also be created on a content type that exists within the Content Type Gallery for the current site or content types defined within a list. In short, it can be applied ...
At the level of a list (or document library)
At the level of a content type defined at site scope
At the level of a content type defined at list scope
49. What are the ways to initiate the workflow ?
1. Automatic
2. Manual (standard WSS UI interface)
3. Manual (Custom UI Interface)
50. What are the types of input forms that can be created for a workflow ?
Ans. You can create four different types of input forms including an association form, an initiation form, a modification form, and a task edit form. Note that these forms are optional when you create a workflow template.
51. While creating a Webpart, which is the ideal location to Initialize my new controls ?
Ans. Override the CreateChildControls method to include your new controls. To make sure that the new controls are initialized.. call 'EnsureChildControls' in the webparts Render method. You can control the exact Rendering of your controls by calling the .Render method in the webparts Render method.
52. How to query from multiple lists ?
Ans. Use SPSiteDataQuery to fetch data from multiple lists.
53.How Does SharePoint work?
Ans. The browser sends a DAV packet to IIS asking to perform a document check in. PKMDASL.DLL, an ISAPI DLL, parses the packet and sees that it has the proprietary INVOKE command. Because of the existence of this command, the packet is passed off to msdmserv.exe, who in turn processes the packet and uses EXOLEDB to access the WSS, perform the operation and send the results back to the user in the form of XML.
54. What is the difference between Syncronous & Asyncronous events?
Syncronous calls ending with 'ing'
E.g. ItemDeleting
Event Handler code execute BEFORE action is committed
WSS waits for code to return
Option to cancel and return error code
Asyncronous calls ending with 'ed'
E.g. ItemDeleted
Event Handler code executes AFTER action is committed
WSS does not wait for code to return
Executed in its own Worker thread.
55. What is ServerUpdate() ?
Ans. Any changes in the list, i.e. new addition or modification of an item.. the operation is complete by calling the Update method.
But if a List is set to maintain versions .. and you are editing an item, but don't want to save it as a new version, then use the SystemUpdate method instead and pass in 'false' as the parameter.
56. What is query.ViewAttributes OR How can you force SPQuery to return results from all the folders of the list?
Ans. If you use SPQuery on any SPlist .. it will bring back results from the current folder only.
If you want to get results from all the folders in the list.. then you need to specify the scope of the query by the use of ViewAttributes..
e.g. query.ViewAttributes = "Scope=\"Recursive\"";
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