-SharePoint Interview Questions

8/10/2019 -SharePoint Interview Questions

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SharePoint Interview questions

What is Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services? How is it related to Microsoft Office

SharePoint Server 2007?

Windows SharePoint Services is the solution that enables you to create Web sites for information sharingand document collaboration. Windows SharePoint Services -- a key piece of the information workerinfrastructure delivered in Microsoft Windows Server 2003 -- provides additional functionality to theMicrosoft Office system and other desktop applications, and it serves as a platform for application

development.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 builds on top of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to provide additionalcapabilities including collaboration, portal, search, enterprise content management, business process and

forms, and business intelligence.

What is Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server?

SharePoint Portal Server is a portal server that connects people, teams, and knowledge across businessprocesses. SharePoint Portal Server integrates information from various systems into one secure solutionthrough single sign-on and enterprise application integration capabilities. It provides flexible deploymentand management tools, and facilitates end-to-end collaboration through data aggregation, organization,and searching. SharePoint Portal Server also enables users to quickly find relevant information throughcustomization and personalization of portal content and layout as well as through audience targeting.

What is Microsoft Windows Services?

Microsoft Windows Services is the engine that allows administrators to create Web sites for informationsharing and document collaboration. Windows SharePoint Services provides additional functionality to theMicrosoft Office System and other desktop applications, as well as serving as a plat form for application

development. SharePoint sites provide communities for team collaboration, enabling users to worktogether on documents, tasks, and projects. The environment for easy and flexible deployment,administration, and application development.

What is the relationship between Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server and Microsoft Windows

Services?

Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies (including SharePoint Portal Server and WindowsSharePoint Services) deliver highly scalable collaboration solutions with flexible deployment and

management tools. Windows SharePoint Services provides sites for team collaboration, while Share PointPortal Server connects these sites, people, and business processesfacilitating 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 teamsto publish information to the entire organization.

Who is Office SharePoint Server 2007 designed for?

Office SharePoint Server 2007 can be used by information workers, IT administrators, and applicationdevelopers. is designed


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What are the main benefits of Office SharePoint Server 2007?

Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides a single integrated platform to manage intranet, extranet, andInternet applications across the enterprise.

Business users gain greater control over the storage, security, distribution, and management of

their electronic content, with tools that are easy to use and tightly integrated into familiar,everyday applications.

Organizations can accelerate shared business processes with customers and partners acrossorganizational boundaries using InfoPath Forms Servicesdriven solutions.

Information workers can find information and people efficiently and easily through the facilitatedinformation-sharing functionality and simplified content publishing. In addition, access to back-end data is achieved easily through a browser, and views into this data can be personalized.

Administrators have powerful tools at their fingertips that ease deployment, management, andsystem administration, so they can spend more time on strategic tasks.

Developers have a rich platform to build a new class of applications, called Office Business

Applications, that combine powerful developer functionality with the flexibility and ease ofdeployment of Office SharePoint Server 2007. Through the use of out-of-the-box application

services, developers can build richer applications with less code.

What is the difference between Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites

and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007?

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

have identical feature functionality. While the feature functionality is similar, the usage rights aredifferent.

If you are creating an Internet, or Extranet, facing website, it is recommended that you use MicrosoftOffice SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites which does not require the purchase client access

licenses. Websites hosted using an Internet sites edition can only be used for Internet facing websites

and all content, information, and applications must be accessible to non-employees. Websites hostedusing an Internet sites edition cannot be accessed by employees creating, sharing, or collaborating oncontent which is solely for internal use only, such as an Intranet Portal scenario. See the previous sectionon licensing for more information on the usage scenarios.

What suites of the 2007 Microsoft Office system work with Office SharePoint Server 2007?

Office Outlook 2007 provides bidirectional offline synchronization with SharePoint document libraries,discussion groups, contacts, calendars, and tasks.

Microsoft Office Groove 2007, included as part of Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007, will enablebidirectional offline synchronization with SharePoint document libraries.

Features such as the document panel and the ability to publish to Excel Services will only be enabledwhen using Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007or Office Enterprise 2007.

Excel Services will only work with documents saved in the new Office Excel 2007 file format (XLSX).


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How do I invite users to join a Windows SharePoint Services Site? Is the site secure?

SharePoint-based Web sites can be password-protected to restrict access to registered users, who areinvited to join via e-mail. In addition, the site administrator can restrict certain members' roles byassigning different permission levels to view post and edit.

Can I post any kind of document?

You can post documents in many formats, including .pdf, .htm and .doc. In addition, if you are using

Microsoft Office XP, you can save documents directly to your Windows SharePoint Services site.

Can I download information directly from a SharePoint site to a personal digital assistant

(PDA)?

No you cannot. However, you can exchange contact information lists with Microsoft Outlook.

How long does it take to set up the initial team Web site?

It only takes a few minutes to create a complete Web site. Preformatted forms let you and your teammembers contribute to the site by filling out lists. Standard forms include announcements, events,contacts, tasks, surveys, discussions and links.

Can I create custom templates?

Yes you can. You can have templates for business plans, doctor's office, lawyer's office etc.

How can I make my site public? By default, all sites are created private.

If you want your site to be a public Web site, enable anonymous access for the entire site. Then you can

give out your URL to anybody in your business card, e-mail or any other marketing material. The URL foryour Web site will be: http:// yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com

Hence, please take special care to name your site. These Web sites are ideal for information andknowledge intensive sites and/or sites where you need to have shared Web workspace. Remember:

Under each parent Web site, you can create up to 10 sub-sites each with unique permissions, settingsand security rights.

How do the sub sites work?

You can create a sub site for various categories. For example:

Departments - finance, marketing, IT

Products - electrical, mechanical, hydraulics

Projects - Trey Research, Department of Transportation, FDA Team - Retention team, BPR team

Clients - new clients, old clients

Suppliers - Supplier 1, Supplier 2, Supplier 3 Customers - Customer A, Customer B, Customer C

Real estate - property A, property B


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The URLs for each will be, for example:

http://yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com/finance

http://yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com/marketing

You can keep track of permissions for each team separately so that access is restricted while maintaining

global access to the parent site.

How do I make my site non-restricted?

If you want your site to have anonymous access enabled (i.e., you want to treat it like any site on theInternet that does not ask you to provide a user name and password to see the content of the site),follow these simple steps:

1. Login as an administrator2. Click on site settings3. Click on Go to Site Administration4. Click on Manage anonymous access

5.

Choose one of the three conditions on what Anonymous users can access:

o Entire Web site

o Lists and librarieso Nothing

Default condition is nothing; your site has restricted access. The default conditions allow you to create asecure site for your Web site.

Can I get domain name for my Web site?

Unfortunately, no. At this point, we don't offer domain names for SharePoint sites. But very soon we willbe making this available for all our SharePoint site customers. Please keep checking this page for furtherupdate on this. Meanwhile, we suggest you go ahead and set up your site and create content for it.

What are picture libraries?

Picture libraries allow you to access a photo album and view it as a slide show or thumbnails or a filmstrip. You can have separate folder for each event, category, etc

What are the advantages of a hosted SharePoint vs. one that is on an in-house server?

No hardware investment, i.e. lower costs No software to download - ready to start from the word go

No IT resources - Anyone who has used a Web program like Hotmail can use it

Faster deployment
http://yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com/financehttp://yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com/marketinghttp://yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com/marketinghttp://yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com/finance


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Can I ask users outside of my organization to participate in my Windows SharePoint Services

site?

Yes. You can manage this process using the Administration Site Settings. Simply add users via their e-

mail alias and assign permissions such as Reader or Contributor.

Are there any IT requirements or downloads required to set up my SharePoint site?

No. You do not need to download any code or plan for any IT support. Simply complete the on-linesignup process and provide us your current and correct email address. Once you have successfully signedup and your site has been provisioned, we will send a confirmation to the email address you provided.

I am located outside of the United States. Are there any restrictions or requirements for

accessing the Windows SharePoint Services?

No. There are no system or bandwidth limitations for international trial users. Additionally language packshave been installed which allow users to set up sub-webs in languages other than English. These include:

Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese(Brazilian), Spanish and Swedish.

Are there any browser recommendations?

Yes. Microsoft recommends using the following browsers for viewing and editing Windows SharePoint

Services sites: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 with Service Pack 2, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 withService Pack 2, Internet Explorer 6, Netscape Navigator 6.2 or later.

What security levels are assigned to users?

Security levels are assigned by the administrator who is adding the user. There are four levels by default

and additional levels can be composed as necessary.

Reader - Has read-only access to the Web site.

Contributor - Can add content to existing document libraries and lists. Web Designer - Can create lists and document libraries and customize pages in the Web site.

Administrator - Has full control of the Web site.

How secure are Windows SharePoint Services sites hosted by Microsoft?

Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Technical security measures provide firewall protection, intrusiondetection, and web-publishing rules. The Microsoft operation center team tests and deploys softwareupdates in order to maintain the highest level of security and software reliability. Software hot-fixes and

service packs are tested and deployed based on their priority and level of risk. Security related hot-fixesare rapidly deployed into the environment to address current threats. A comprehensive softwarevalidation activity ensures software stability through regression testing prior to deployment.

What is the difference between an Internet and anintranet site?

An internet site is a normal site that anyone on the internet can access (e.g., www.msn.com,

www.microsoft.com, etc.). You can set up a site for your company that can be accessed by anyone
http://it.toolbox.com/wiki/index.php/Intranethttp://it.toolbox.com/wiki/index.php/Intranet


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What types of files can I upload / post to the site?

The only files restricted are those ending with the following extensions: .asa, .asp, .ida, .idc, .idq.Microsoft reserves the right to add additional file types to this listing at any time. Also, no content thatviolates the terms of service may be uploaded or posted to the site.

Can SharePoint be linked to an external data source?

SharePoint data can be opened with Access and Excel as an external data source. Thus, SharePoint can

be referenced as an external data source. SharePoint itself cannot reference an external data source.

But 3rd pary software can do this for you:http://www.layer2.de/en/products/pages/sharepoint-business-data-list-connector.aspx

Can SharePoint be linked to a SQL database?

SharePoint 2007 Portal Server (MOSS2K7) allows connections to SQL based datasources via the Business

Data Catalog (BDC). The BDC also allows connecting to data via Web Services. Or you can link listsdirectly qith sql queries in the list settings using the BDLC found here:http://bit.ly/p30tJ.

Can I customize my Windows SharePoint Services site?

YES! Windows SharePoint Services makes updating sites and their content from the browser easier thenever.

SharePoint includes tools that let you create custom lists, calendars, page views, etc. You can apply atheme; add List, Survey and Document Library Web Parts to a page; create personal views; changelogos; connect Web Parts and more.

To fully customize your site, you can use Microsoft FrontPage 2003. Specifically, you can use FrontPagethemes and shared borders, and also use FrontPage to create photo galleries and top ten lists, utilizestandard usage reports, and integrate automatic Web content.

Will Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 run on a 64-bit version of Microsoft Windows?

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Office SharePoint Server 2007, Office Forms Server 2007, and OfficeSharePoint Server 2007 for Search will support 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003.

How Office SharePoint Server 2007 can help you?

Office SharePoint Server 2007 can help us:

Manage content and streamline processes. Comprehensively manage and control unstructured contentlike Microsoft Office documents, Web pages, Portable Document Format file (PDF) files, and e-mail

messages. Streamline business processes that are a drain on organizational productivity.

Improve business insight. Monitor your business, enable better-informed decisions, and respondproactively to business events.
http://www.layer2.de/en/products/pages/sharepoint-business-data-list-connector.aspxhttp://www.layer2.de/en/products/pages/sharepoint-business-data-list-connector.aspxhttp://bit.ly/p30tJhttp://bit.ly/p30tJhttp://bit.ly/p30tJhttp://bit.ly/p30tJhttp://www.layer2.de/en/products/pages/sharepoint-business-data-list-connector.aspxhttp://www.layer2.de/en/products/pages/sharepoint-business-data-list-connector.aspx


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Find and share information more simply. Find information and expertise wherever they are located. Share

knowledge and simplify working with others within and across organizational boundaries.

Empower IT to make a strategic impact. Increase responsiveness of IT to business needs and reduce thenumber of platforms that have to be maintained by supporting all the intranet, extranet, and Webapplications across the enterprise with one integrated platform.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 capabilities can help improve organizational effectiveness by connecting

people, processes, and information.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides these capabilities in an integrated server offering, so yourorganization doesn't have to integrate fragmented technology solutions itself.

What are the features that the portal components of Office SharePoint Server 2007 include?

The portal components of Office SharePoint Server 2007 include features that are especially useful fordesigning, deploying, and managing enterprise intranet portals, corporate Internet Web sites, anddivisional portal sites. The portal components make it easier to connect to people within the organization

who have the right skills, knowledge, and project experience.

What are the advanced features of MOSS 2007?

User Interface (UI) and navigation enhancements

Document management enhancements

The new Workflow engine Office 2007 Integration

New Web Parts

New Site-type templates

Enhancements to List technology

Web Content Management

Business Data Catalog Search enhancements

Report Center

Records Management Business Intelligence and Excel Server

Forms Server and InfoPath

The Features feature Alternate authentication providers and Forms-based authentication

What are the features of the new Content management in Office SharePoint 2007?

The new and enhanced content management features in Office SharePoint Server 2007 fall within three

areas:

Document management Records management

Web content management

Office SharePoint Server 2007 builds on the core document management functionality provided byWindows SharePoint Services 3.0, including check in and check out, versioning, metadata, and role-basedgranular access controls. Organizations can use this functionality to deliver enhanced authoring, business


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document processing, Web content management and publishing, records management, policy

management, and support for multilingual publishing.

Does a SharePoint Web site include search functionality?

Yes. SharePoint Team Services provides a powerful text-based search feature that helps you find

documents and information fast.

Write the features of the search component of Office SharePoint Server 2007?

The search component of Office SharePoint Server 2007 has been significantly enhanced by this releaseof SharePoint Products and Technologies. New features provide:

A consistent and familiar search experience. Increased relevance of search results.

New functions to search for people and expertise.

Ability to index and search data in line-of-business applications and Improved manageability and extensibility.

What are the benefits of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007?

Provide a simple, familiar, and consistent user experience. Boost employee productivity by simplifying everyday business activities.

Help meet regulatory requirements through comprehensive control over content. Effectively manage and repurpose content to gain increased business value.

Simplify organization-wide access to both structured and unstructured information acrossdisparate systems.

Connect people with information and expertise.

Accelerate shared business processes across organizational boundaries.

Share business data without divulging sensitive information.

Enable people to make better-informed decisions by presenting business-critical information inone central location.

Provide a single, integrated platform to manage intranet, extranet, and Internet applicationsacross the enterprise.

Will SharePoint Portal Server and Team Services ever merge?

The products will come together because they are both developed by the Office team.

What does partial trust mean the Web Part developer?

If an assembly is installed into the BIN directory, the code must be ensured that provides error handlingin the event that required permissions are not available. Otherwise, unhandled security exceptions may

cause the Web Part to fail and may affect page rendering on the page where the Web Part appears.

How can I raise the trust level for assemblies installed in the BIN directory?

Windows SharePoint Services can use any of the following three options from ASP.NET and the CLR toprovide assemblies installed in the BIN directory with sufficient permissions. The following table outlinesthe implications and requirements for each option.


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Option Pros Cons

Increase the trust level for the entire virtual server. For more information, see "Setting the trust level for

a virtual server" Easy to implement.

In a development environment, increasing the trust level allows you to test an assembly with increased

permissions while allowing you to recompile assemblies directly into the BIN directory without resettingIIS. This option is least secure.

This option affects all assemblies used by the virtual server. There is no guarantee the destination serverhas the required trust level. Therefore, Web Parts may not work once installed on the destination server.

Create a custom policy file for your assemblies. For more information, see "How do I create a custom

policy file?" Recommended approach.

This option is most secure.

An assembly can operate with a unique policy that meets the minimum permission requirements for the

assembly.

By creating a custom security policy, you can ensure the destination server can run your Web Parts.

Requires the most configuration of all three options. Install your assemblies in the GAC

Easy to implement. This grants Full trust to your assembly without affecting the trust level of assembliesinstalled in the BIN directory.

This option is less secure.

Assemblies installed in the GAC are available to all virtual servers and applications on a server running

Windows SharePoint Services. This could represent a potential security risk as it potentially grants ahigher level of permission to your assembly across a larger scope than necessary

In a development environment, you must reset IIS every time you recompile assemblies.

Licensing issues may arise due to the global availability of your assembly.

Does SharePoint work with NFS?

Yes and no. It can crawl documents on an NFS volume, but the sharepoint database or logs cannot be

stored there.

How is SharePoint Portal Server different from the Site Server?

Site Server has search capabilities but these are more advanced using SharePoint. SPS uses digitaldashboard technology which provides a nice interface for creating web parts and showing them on

dashboards (pages). SS doesn't have anything as advanced as that. The biggest difference would be SPSdocument management features which also integrate with web folders and MS Office.


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What would you like to see in the next version of SharePoint?

A few suggestions:

1. SPS and STS on same machine2. Tree view of Categories and Folders

3.

General Discussion Web Part4. Personalization of Dashboards5. Role Customization6. Email to say WHY a document has been rejected for Approval7. More ways to customize the interface8. Backup and restore an individual Workspaces9. Filter for Visio

10.Better way to track activity on SPS11.Ability to Save as from Adobe to space on My Network Places

Why Sharepoint is not a viable solution for enterprise wide deployments?

Planning an enterprise deployment using SharePoint features is a very difficult task unless you canestablish a Service Oriented Architecture, using AD for managing security with well defined roles basedinformation access(EISA). Sounds reasonable, although it seems difficult to deploy with the toolslimitations in document storage.

Document management does not scale beyond a single server, but scales great within a single server.

For example, a quad Xeon machine with 4GB of RAM works great for a document management serverthat has about 900,000 - 1,000,000 document, but if you need to store 50,000,000 document and wantto have them all in one single workspace then it does not scale at all. If you need a scenario like this, youneed to plan your deployment right and it should scale for you, it just does not right out of the box. Ifyou are using your server as a portal and search server most for the most part it scales great. You can

have many different servers crawl content sources and have separate servers searching and serving the

content.

If you have < 750,000 documents per server and fewer than 4 content sources and fewer than 50,000users, SPS should scale just fine for your needs with the proper planning.

What are the actual advantages of SharePoint Portal Services (SPS) over SharePoint Team

Services (STS)?

SharePoint Portal Services (SPS) has MUCH better document management. It has check-in, check-out,versioning, approval, publishing, subscriptions, categories, etc. STS does not have these features, or theyare very scaled back. SharePoint Portal Services (SPS) has a better search engine, and can crawl multiplecontent sources. STS cannot. STS is easier to manage and much better for a team environment where

there is not much Document Management going on. SPS is better for an organization, or whereDocument Management is crucial.

How Does SharePoint work?

The browser sends a DAV packet to IIS asking to perform a document check in. PKMDASL.DLL, an ISAPIDLL, 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


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EXOLEDB to access the WSS, perform the operation and send the results back to the user in the form of

XML.

How do I open an older version of a document?

Normally, all previous versions are located in the shadow, so if you right click a published document from

within the web folders, go to properties and then the third tab, versions you can view older versions.

If you want to do this in code:

strURL = "url of the last published version"Set oVersion = New PKMCDO.KnowledgeVersionSet prmRs = oVersion.VersionHistory(strURL)Set oVersion = Nothing

prmRS will contain a recordset, which contains the url to the old versions in the shadow.

Why do the workspace virtual directories show the error stop sign symbol in the IIS snap-

in?

If World Wide Web Publishing Service (W3SVC) starts before Microsoft Exchange Information Store(MSExchangeIS), stop sign symbols appear under the Default Web Site folder of the InternetInformation Services console in Microsoft Management Console (MMC).

There is a dependency between the local paths of the SharePoint Portal Server virtual directories and the

MSExchangeIS. You must start MSExchangeIS first, followed by W3SVC.

Complete the following steps to prevent the stop signs from appearing each time you restart:

1.

Change the Startup type for W3SVC to Manual.2. Restart the server. The MSExchangeIS service starts automatically.3. Start W3SVC.

What newsgroups are available?

There are two,

microsoft.public.sharepoint.portalserver and

microsoft.public.sharepoint.portalserver.development.

What is SharePoint from a Technical Perspective?

Technically SharePoint illustrates neatly what Microsoft's .net strategy is all about: integrating Windowswith the Web. Microsoft has previously made accessing stuff on a PC easier, (Windows) then on anetwork (NT) and now on the web (.NET). SharePoint is an application written to let a user access a web

accessible directory tree called the Web Storage System.

SharePoint was written with a set of technologies that allow the programmer to pass data, functions,parameters over HTTP, the web's medium. These are XML, XSL and SOAP, to name a few I understandthe basics of!


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To the user it looks easy, like Hotmail, but every time they click a button or a link, a lot has to happen

behind the scenes to do what they want to do quickly and powerfully. Not as easy as you might think,but SharePoint does it for you. Accessing this Web storage system and the server itself is also done using

technologies like ADO, CDO, PKMCDO, LDAP, DDSC, ADSC. More on these later. SharePoint is a greatexample of how the Internet Platform can be extended and integrated into an existing well adoptedtechnology, Windows.

What is SharePoint from an Administration Perspective?

Administering SharePoint mainly consists of setting it up, which is much easier than you expect, addingthe content, which can be just dragging and dropping in whole directory structures and files, and thenorganizing the files better by giving them categories or other metadata. This is done either through theWeb interface or through the SharePoint Client: a program what means you can access SharePoint as a

Web folder and then right-click files to select options like "edit profile". Or add files by dragging them inindividually or in bulk.

Setting the security is also important, using NT accounts, either NT4 or Active Directory (or both in mixedmode) you can give users access to files/folders the same way as you do in standard Windows. Users can

be grouped and the groups given access privileges to help manage this better. Also SharePoint has 3Roles that a User or Group can be given on a particular item. Readers can see the item (i.e.

document/file or folder) but not change it, Authors can see and edit items and coordinators can setsecurity privileges for the part of the system they have control over. Thus, you could set 12 differentcoordinators for 12 different folder trees, and they could manage who can do what within that area only.

What is SharePoint from a Users Perspective?

From a Users perspective SharePoint is a way of making documents and folders on the Windows platformaccessible over the web. The user visits the SharePoint Portal web page, and from there they can adddocuments, change documents & delete documents. Through this Portal, these documents are now

available for discussion, collaboration, versioning and being managed through a workflow. Hence the

name "Share-Point". Details about the document can be saved too, such as: who wrote it, when, forwhom, its size, and version, category or target audience. These can then be used to find the documentthrough SharePoint's Search facility. Even documents not "in" SharePoint can be included in the searchengine's index so they become part of the portal. All in all, it's a great way to get stuff up on the web forusers with average technical skills, and for administrators to manage the content.

What are the various Sharepoint 2003 and Exchange integration points?

Link to Outlook

This is a button on contacts or events lists that lets Outlook 2003 add a pst file named Sharepoint Folders

and it links to the data on the site. Its read-only, but you could make the home page for that PST be theSharepoint site for easier viewing. The link to outlook feature seems more to be where some can public a

calendar, but not want too much collaboration. For example, a holiday schedule, company meetingschedule, etc, can be made available for people to be able to view from Outlook without having to go toa web browser. Another nice thing about OL2K3 is that you can compare these calendars with others side

by side.


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Searching Public Folders

With SPS you can index Exchanges public folders with the search engine so that all that precious publicfolder content is searchable. Youll want to look at content sources and indexing in Sharepointadministration.

Displaying Public Folders in a web part

Since exchange web-enables public folders, you can create a web part that displays that content. IE,

http://exchangeserver/Public/IT/Helpdesk will display the IT/Helpdesk public folder via OWA. So you addthe Page Viewer web part to a page and point it at that URL. The key here is to add ?cmd=contents tothe end of the url if you dont want the navigator pane on the left.

Smart web parts

Some of the web parts that come with SPS allow you to add a web part to a page that actually takes theusers outlook info (calendar, inbox, contacts, tasks) and put them into the page.

The SmartPart Web Part project template for Visual Studio allows developers to create quickly a projectwhich contains the base infrastructure to:

* write a web user control (ASCX)* wrap the user control in a SmartPart instance* generate a SharePoint Solution file (WSP) for easy deployment* generate a setup package for a wizard driven installation

Can SharePoint compare two document versions?

"In Word 2003, you can compare documents side by side. Open two documents. Then, from the Windowmenu of one of them, select the Compare Side By Side command. If you have only two documents open,the command will automatically choose to compare them. If you have three or more documents open,you'll have to select which document to compare with the current file.

A floating toolbar with two buttons will open. If the button on the left is selected, Word will scroll bothdocuments at the same time. Press the button on the right side of the toolbar to return to where thecursor was located when you started comparing."

What are the integration differences between SPS 2003 and the various Office versions?

SPS webpage can detect you have installed the Office 2003 and run local dll to implement some SPSfunction, e.g. multi-file upload only works when you have office 2003 installed.

Integration with Office XP is gone.

You will get guys telling you that you can integrate with SPSv2 if you install a backwards compatibledocument library - but thats really just putting a bit of SPS 2001 on the server.
http://exchangeserver/Public/IT/Helpdeskhttp://exchangeserver/Public/IT/Helpdesk


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Believe me, check-in, check-out, which are themselves very basic, are not available from inside Office XP,

or even from the context menu in Windows Explorer.

The ONLY option you have is to use the web interface to check-in or check-out.


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Q What is Sharepoint?

Ans: Portal Collaboration Software.

Q What is the difference between SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint

Services?Ans: SharePoint Portal Server is the global portal offering features like global navigation and

searching.Windows SharePoint Services is more content management based with document librariesandlists. You apply information to certain areas within your portal from windows sharepoint Services or

directly to portal areas.

Q What is a document library?

Ans: A document library is where you upload your core documents. They consist of a row and

columnview with links to the documents. When the document is updated so is the link on your site.

Youcan also track metadata on your documents. Metadata would consist of document properties.

Q What is a meeting workspace?

Ans: A meeting workspace is a place to store information, attendees, and tasks related to aspecificmeeting.

Q What is a document workspace?

Ans: Document workspaces consist of information surrounding a single or multiple documents.

Q What is the difference between a document library and a form library?

Ans:Document libraries consist of your core documents. An example would be a word document,excel,

Powerpoint, visio, pdf, etc Form libraries consist of XML forms.

Q What is a web part zone?

Ans: Web part zones are what your web parts reside in and help categorize your web parts whendesigning a page.

Q How is security managed in SharePoint?

Ans: Security can be handled at the machine,domain, or sharepoint level.

Q How are web parts developed?

Ans: Web parts are developed in Visual Studio .Net. VS.Net offers many web part and page templates

and can also be downloaded from the Microsoft Site.

Q What is a site definition?

Ans: Its a methods for providing prepackaged site and list content.

Q What is a template?

A template is a pre-defined set of functions or settings that can be used over time. There are

manytemplates within SharePoint,Site Templates, Document Templates, Document Library and

ListTemplates.

Q How do you install web parts?


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Ans: Web Parts should be distributed as a .CAB (cabinet) file using the MSI Installer.

Q What is CAML?

Ans: CAML stands for Collaborative Application Markup Language and is an XML-based languagethat is

used in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services to define sites and lists, including, for Eg, fields, views, or

forms, but CAML is also used to define tables in the Windows SharePoint Servies database during siteprovisioning.

Q What is a DWP?

Ans: The file extension of a web part.

Q What is the GAC?

Ans: Global Assembly Cache folder on the server hosting SharePoint. You place your assemblies there for

web parts and services to share them.

Q What are the differences between web part page gallery, site gallery,Virtual server

galleryand online gallery?Ans: Web Part Page Gallery is the default gallery that comes installed with SharePoint. Site Gallery

isspecific to one site. Virtual Server gallery is specific to that virtual server and online gallery

aredownloadable web parts from Microsoft.

Q What is the difference between a site and a web?

Ans: The pages in a web site generally cover one or more topics and are interconnected through

hyperlinks. Most Web sites have a home page as their starting point. While a Web is simply a blank site

with SharePoint functionality built in; meaning you have to create the site from the ground up.

Q What is Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services? How is it related to MicrosoftOfficeSharePoint Server 2007?

Ans: Windows SharePoint Services is the solution that enables you to create Web site for information

sharing and document collaboration. Windows SharePoint Servicesa key piece of theinformation

worker infrastructure delivered in Microsoft Windows Server 2003providesadditional functionality to

the Microsoft Office system and other desktop applications, and itserves as a platform for application

development.Office SharePoint Server 2007 builds on top of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to

provideadditional capabilities including collaboration, portal, search,Enterprise content

management,business process and forms, and business intelligence.

Q. Who is Office SharePoint server 2007 designed for?

Ans: Office SharePoint Server 2007 can be used by information workers, IT administrators, andapplication developers.

Q. What are the main benefits of Office SharePoint Server 2007?

Ans: Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides a single integrated platform to manage intranet,

extranet,and Internet applications across the enterprise.

* Business users gain greater control over the storage, security, distribution, and management oftheir


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electronic content, with tools that are easy to use and tightly integrated into familiar,everyday

applications.

* Organizations can accelerate shared business processes with customers and partners

acrossorganizational boundaries using InfoPath Forms Servicesdriven solutions.

* Information workers can find information and people efficiently and easily through thefacilitated

information-sharing functionality and simplified content publishing. In addition, accessto back-end data is

achieved easily through a browser, and views into this data can bepersonalized.

* Administrators have powerful tools at their fingertips that ease deployment, management, and system

administration, so they can spend more time on strategic tasks.

* Developers have a rich platform to build a new class of applications, called Office BusinessApplications,

that combine powerful developer functionality with the flexibility and ease ofdeployment of Office

SharePoint Server 2007. Through the use of out-of-the-box applicationservices, developers can build

richer applications with less code.

Q. What is the difference between Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites

and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007?

Ans: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites and Microsoft Office SharePoint

Server2007 have identical feature functionality. While the feature functionality is similar, the usagerights

are different.If you are creating an Internet, or Extranet, facing website, it is recommended that you

useMicrosoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites which does not require the purchase client

access licenses. Websites hosted using an Internet sites edition can only be used forInternet facing

websites and all content, information, and applications must be accessible to nonemployees.Websites

hosted using an Internet sites edit ion cannot be accessed by employees creating, sharing, orcollaborating on content which is solely for internal use only, such as an Intranet Portal scenario.

Q.What suites of the 2007 Microsoft Office system work with Office SharePoint Server 2007?

Ans: Office Outlook 2007 provides bidirectional offline Synchronization with SharePoint documentlibraries,

discussion groups, contacts, calendars, and tasks.vabnix.page.tlMicrosoft Office Groove 2007, included as

part of Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007, will enablebidirectional offline synchronization with SharePoint

document libraries.Features such as the document panel and the ability to publish to Excel Services will

only beenabled when using Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007or Office Enterprise 2007.Excel

Services will only work with documents saved in the new Office Excel 2007 file format(XLSX).

Q. How do I invite users to join a Windows SharePoint Services Site? Is the site secure?Ans: SharePoint-based Web sites can be password-protected to restrict access to registered users,

whoare invited to join via e-mail. In addition, the site administrator can restrict certain members' rolesby

assigning different permission levels to view post and edit.

Q Can I post any kind of document?

Ans: You can post documents in many formats, including .pdf, .htm and .doc. In addition, if you areusing

Microsoft Office XP, you can save documents directly to your Windows SharePointServices site.


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Q Can I create custom templates?

Ans: Yes you can. You can have templates for business plans, doctor's office, lawyer's office etc.

Q. How can I make My site public?

Ans: By default, all sites are created private.If you want your site to be a public Web site, enableanonymous access for the entire site. Then you can give out your URL to anybody in yourbusiness card,

e-mail or any other marketing material. The URL for your Web site will be:http://

yoursitename.wss.bcentral.comHence, please take special care to name your site.These Web sites are

ideal for information and knowledge intensive sites and/or sites where youneed to have shared Web

workspace.Remember: Under each parent Web site, you can create up to 10 sub-sites each with

uniquepermissions, settings and security rights.

Q. How do the sub sites work?

Ans: You can create a sub site for various categories.

For example:* Departments - finance, marketing, IT* Products - electrical, mechanical, hydraulics*

Projects - Trey Research, Department of Transportation, FDA* Team - Retention team, BPR team* Clients- new clients, old clients* Suppliers - Supplier 1, Supplier 2, Supplier 3* Customers - Customer A,

Customer B, Customer C* Real estate - property A, property BThe URLs for each will be, for example:*

http://yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com/finance* http://yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com/marketingYou can

keep track of permissions for each team separately so that access is restricted

whilevabnix.page.tlmaintaining global access to the parent site.

Q.How do I make my site non-restricted?

Ans: If you want your site to have anonymous access enabled (i.e., you want to treat it like any site

onthe Internet that does not ask you to provide a user name and password to see the content of thesite),

follow these simple steps:

# Login as an administrator

# Click on site settings

# Click on Go to Site Administration

# Click on Manage anonymous access

# Choose one of the three conditions on what Anonymous users can access:** Entire Web site** Lists

and libraries** NothingDefault condition is nothing; your site has restricted access.

The default conditions allow you to create a secure site for your Web site.

Q. Can I ask users outside of my organization to participate in my Windows

SharePointServices site?Ans: Yes. You can manage this process using the Administration Site Settings. Simply add users via their

e-mail alias and assign permissions such as Reader or Contributor.

Q. Are there any restrictions or requirements for accessing the Windows SharePoint

Services?Ans: No. There are no system or bandwidth limitations for international trial users.

Additionallylanguage packs have been installed which allow users to set up sub-webs in languages other

thanEnglish. These include: Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Italian,Japanese,


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Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish and Swedish.

Q. Are there any browser recommendations?

Ans: Yes. Microsoft recommends using the following browsers for viewing and editing WindowsSharePoint

Services sites: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 with Service Pack 2, MicrosoftInternet Explorer 5.5 with

Service Pack 2, Internet Explorer 6, Netscape Navigator6.2 or later.vabnix.page.

Q.What security levels are assigned to users?

Ans: Security levels are assigned by the administrator who is adding the user. There are four levels

bydefault and additional levels can be composed as necessary.

* Reader - Has read-only access to the Web site.

* Contributor - Can add content to existing document libraries and lists.

* Web Designer - Can create lists and document libraries and customize pages in the Web site.

* Administrator - Has full control of the Web site.

Q.What is the difference between an Internet and an intranet site?Ans: An internet site is a normal site that anyone on the internet can access (e.g., www.msn.com,

www.microsoft.com, etc.). You can set up a site for your company that can be accessed by

anyonewithout any user name and password.An intranet (or internal network), though hosted on the

Web, can only be accessed by people whoare members of the network. They need to have a login and

password that was assigned to them when they were added to the site by the site administrator.

Q. What is a workspace?

Ans: A site or workspace is when you want a new place for collaborating on Web pages, lists

anddocument libraries. For example, you might create a site to manage a new team or

project,collaborate on a document or prepare for a meeting.

Q.How customizable is the user-to-user access?

Ans: User permissions apply to an entire Web, not to documents themselves. However, you can

haveadditional sub webs that can optionally have their own permissions. Each user can be given any

offour default roles. Additional roles can be defined by the administrator.

Q.Can each user have access to their own calendar?

Ans: Yes there are two ways to do this,

* by creating a calendar for each user, or

* by creating a calendar with a view for each user.

Q. What types of files can I upload / post to the site?Ans: The only files restricted are those ending with the following extensions: .asa, .asp, .ida, .idc,

.idq.Microsoft reserves the right to add additional file types to this listing at any time. Also, no content

that violates the terms of service may be uploaded or posted to the site.

Q.Can SharePoint be linked to an external data source?

Ans: SharePoint data can be opened with Access and Excel as an external data source. Thus, SharePoint

can be referenced as an external data source. SharePoint itself cannot reference an external datasource.
http://www.microsoft.com/http://www.microsoft.com/http://www.microsoft.com/


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* Document management

* Records management.

* Web content managementOffice SharePoint Server 2007 builds on the core document management

functionality providedby Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, including check in and check out, versioning,

metadata, and role-based granular access controls. Organizations can use this functionality to deliver

enhancedauthoring, business document processing, Web content management and publishing,recordsmanagement, policy management, and support for multilingual publishing.

Q.Does a SharePoint Web site include search functionality?

Ans: Yes. SharePoint Team Services provides a powerful text-based search feature that helps you

finddocuments and information fast.

Q.What are the benefits of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007?

Ans: * Provide a simple, familiar, and consistent user experience.* Boost employee productivity by

simplifying everyday business activities.* Help meet regulatory requirements through comprehensive

control over content.* Effectively manage and repurpose content to gain increased business value.*

Simplify organization-wide access to both structured and unstructured information acrossdisparatesystems.* Connect people with information and expertise.* Accelerate shared business processes across

organizational boundaries.* Share business data without divulging sensitive information.* Enable people

to make better-informed decisions by presenting business-critical information inone central location.*

Provide a single, integrated platform to manage intranet, extranet, and Internet applicationsacross the

enterprise.

Q.Will SharePoint Portal Server and Team Services ever merge?

Ans: The products will come together because they are both developed by the Office team.

Q.What does partial trust mean the Web Part developer?

Ans: If an assembly is installed into the BIN directory, the code must be ensured that provideserrorhandling in the event that required permissions are not available. Otherwise, unhandled

securityexceptions may cause the Web Part to fail and may affect page rendering on the page where

theWeb Part appears.

Q.How can I raise the trust level for assemblies installed in the BIN directory?

Ans: Windows SharePoint Services can use any of the following three options from ASP.NET and the CLR

to provide assemblies installed in the BIN directory with sufficient permissions. The following table

outlines the implications and requirements for each option.

1.Option Pros Cons Increase the trust level for the entire virtual server.

In a development environment,increasing the trust level allows you to test an assembly with increasedpermissions while allowing you to recompile assemblies directly into the BIN directory without resetting

IIS. This option is least secure. This option affects all assemblies used by the virtual server.There is no

guarantee the destination server has the required trust level. Therefore, Web Parts may not work once

installed on the destination server.

2.Create a custom policy file for your assemblies. For more information, see "How do I create acustom

policy file?" Recommended approach.This option is most secure.An assembly can operate with a unique


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Q. What is SharePoint 2010?

Def : SharePoint 2010 is the business collaboration platform for the Enterprise & the Web that enables

you to connect & empower people through an integrated set of rich features. Whether deployed on-

premises or as hosted services, SharePoint 2010 helps you cut costs with a unified infrastructure while

allowing you to rapidly respond to your business needs.

Q. Whats New with SharePoint WebParts?

A developer can create two types of webparts using Visual Studio 2010.

1. Visual Webparts -Allows you to Drag and Drop the controls from the Toolbox to WebPart Design

surface. You can of course write your custom code in the code file. You can also package and deploy

your webparts directly to Sharepoint from VS by pressing Clt+F5. Visual studio 2010 also provides you

with three different views for developing webparts. The views are split view, design view and Source

view(as we have in designer 2007).

Note : The Visual Webpart project Item basically loads a User Control as a WebPart.

2. ASP.Net WebParts -Where a developer can build up User Interface and logic in a class file. You do not

have designer for drag and drop of controls. This webpart inherits from standard ASP.Net webpart. For

Deployment we can again use ctrl+f5 to deploy this webpart.

Q. What are the Visual Studio 2010 Tools for SharePoint.

Visual Studio 2010 includes SharePoint-specific project types and project item types, and includes

powerful packaging, deployment, and debugging features that help increase your efficiency as a

SharePoint 2010 developer.

Some of the Templates avaiable are :

1.Visual Web Part project template.

2. List defination template.

3. Content Type template.

4. Empty Project template.

5. Event Receiver template.

6. some workflow template.

7. the Site Definition template


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and many more....

Q. What is SharePoint 2010 Technology and Development stack?

Technology stack:

Development Stack:

Q. What SharePoint Controls are avaiable for a developer?

A developer can simply drap and drop various SharePoint Controls like SharePoint Datetime box,

RichTextbox, people picker and many more in there webpart. These controls are avaiable in Visual

studio 2010 under SharePoint Controls Tab in the Toolbox. Developers can also drag and drop Data

controls such as SPGridview and can set its properties in code behind.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_yLe3krAINXI/Szbncdm419I/AAAAAAAAAEQ/9R6hAGUr6z8/s1600-h/sp2010.bmphttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/_yLe3krAINXI/SzbkssyXXVI/AAAAAAAAAEI/aMCPRZYCmLw/s1600-h/sharepoint2010.bmp


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Q. What are SharePoint Sandboxed soultions ?

SharePoint 2010 provides a new sandboxed environment that enables you to run user solutions without

affecting the rest of the SharePoint farm. This environment means that users can upload their own

custom solutions without requiring intervention from administrators, and without putting the rest of the

farm at risk. This means that the existing sites\pages or components will not be effected by the newly

added soultion.

Users can deploy the below four things as sandboxed soultions :

1. WebParts.

2. Event Receivers.

3. List Definations.

4. Workflows.

Q . Whats New in SPALerts ?In SharePoint 2007, alerts were send only through e-mails, but in SP2010 we are able to send an alert to

mobile devices as SMS Message. A New propertyDeliveryChannelsis introduced to indicate, whether

the alert is delivered as E-mail or as an SMS Message.

Code eg :

oAlert.DeliveryChannels = SPAlertDeliveryChannels.Sms;

SPAlertDeliveryChannelsis the enumerated member, which specifies the method of delivering alerts.

. Email - Delivery as E-mail

. Sms - Delivery as SMS Message
http://msdn.microsoft.com/hi-in/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spalert.deliverychannels%28en-us,office.14%29.aspxhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/hi-in/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spalert.deliverychannels%28en-us,office.14%29.aspxhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/hi-in/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spalert.deliverychannels%28en-us,office.14%29.aspxhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/hi-in/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spalertdeliverychannels%28en-us,office.14%29.aspxhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/hi-in/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spalertdeliverychannels%28en-us,office.14%29.aspxhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/hi-in/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spalertdeliverychannels%28en-us,office.14%29.aspxhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/hi-in/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spalert.deliverychannels%28en-us,office.14%29.aspx


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Q. What are Application Pages in SharePoint?

Ans : 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. Application pages are based in the virtual

_layouts directory. In addition, they are compiled into a single assembly DLL.

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).

With application pages, you can also add inline code. With site pages, you cannot add inline code.

Typically, you link custom application pages to application.master, the master page file that is used by

the default application pages in Windows SharePoint Services. You should also write application pages

to inherit from a base class defined inside the Microsoft.SharePoint assembly named LayoutsPageBase.

Q. UserControl or WebPart?

Ans: Advantages of Using User Control are :

Advantages

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:


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Content Deployments

InfoPath forms services global template targeting

Q.why to use diffrent site collections:

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.

Q. 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.

Q. What are some of the accounts you create while installing/managing the sharepont.

Ans : Some of the accounts are specified here

Q. 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.

Q. What is the relationship between Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server and Microsoft Windows

Services?


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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.

Q. What is a SharePoint Feature? What files are used to define a feature?

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.

Q. Workflow can be applied to what all elements of SharePoint ?

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

Q. What are the types of input forms that can be created for a workflow ?

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.


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Note that these forms are optional when you create a workflow template.

Q. What are ways to create input forms for workflow ?

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)

Q. What is the difference between method activity and event activity in WorkFlow ?

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.

Q. What are content types?

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.

Q. Can a content type have receivers associated with it?

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.

Q. What two files are typically (this is kept generally) included when developing a content type, and

what is the purpose of each?

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.

Q. What is an ancestral type and what does it have to do with content types?

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.

Q. Can a list definition be derived from a custom content type?

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.


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Q. When creating a list definition, how can you create an instance of the list?

You can create a new instance of a list by creating an instance.XML file

Q. What is a Field Control?

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.

Q. What base class do custom Field Controls inherit from?

This varies. Generally, custom field controls inherit from the

Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.BaseFieldControl namespace, but you can inherit from the default

field controls.

Q. Can multiple SharePoint installs point to the same DB?

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.

Q. How to create links to the mapped network drives?

Creating links to mapped drives in WSS v3 or MOSS 2007 can be done via

the new content type for .lnk files.

Q. While creating a Web part, which is the ideal location to Initialize my new controls?

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.

Q. What are the two base classes a WebPart you are going to use within SharePoint 2007 can inherit

from?

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)


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Data caching infrastructure

Q. What are the differences between the two base classes and what are the inherit benefits of using one

over another?

The difference is the Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart base class is meant for backward

compatibility with previous versions of SharePoint. The benefit of using the SharePoint WebPart base

class is it supported:

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

ASP.NET 2.0 WebParts are generally considered better to use because SharePoint is built upon the

ASP.NET 2.0 web architecture. Inheriting from the ASP.NET 2.0 base class offers you features that inherit

to ASP.NET 2.0, such as embedding resources as opposed to use ClassResources for deployment of said

types.

Q. What is the WebPartManager sealed class? What is its purpose?

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.

Q. What does AllowUnsafeUpdates do ?

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.

Q. What does RunWithElevatedPrivileges do?

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.

Q. What does SPWeb.EnsureUser method do?

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");


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Q. What is a SPSite and SPWeb object, and what is the difference between each of the objects?

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.

Q. What does a SPWebApplication object represent?

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.

Q. Would you use SPWebApplication to get information like the SMTP address of the SharePoint site?

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.

Q. How do you return SharePoint List items using SharePoint web services?

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.

Q. When retrieving List items using SharePoint Web Services, how do you specify explicit credentials to

be passed to access the list items?

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.

Q. What is CAML, and why would you use it?

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.


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Q. What is impersonation, and when would you use impersonation?

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 wouldnt be able to access or execute something.

Q. What are WebPart properties, and what are some of the attributes you see when declaring WebPart

properties in code?

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.

Q. Why are properties important in WebPart development, and how have you exploited them in past

development projects? What must each custom property have?

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.

Q. What are ClassResources? How do you reference and deploy resources with an ASP.NET 2.0

WebPart?

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.

Q. What is a SharePoint Solution File? How does it differ from WebPart .cab files in legacy development?

What does it contain?

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:


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allows deployment to all WFEs 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..

Q. What is a .ddf file and what does it have to do with SharePoint Solution creation?

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.

Q. What file does a SharePoint solution package use to orchestrate (describe) its packaged contents?

The solution Manifest.XML file.

Q. What deployment mechanism can you use to instigate Code Access Security attributes for your

WebParts?

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.

Q. What are event receivers?

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.

Q. When would you use an event receiver?

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.

Q. What base class do event receivers inherit from?

Event receivers either inherit from the SPListEventReciever base class or the SPItemEventReciever base

class, both which derive from the abstract base class SPEventReceiverBase.


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Q. If I wanted to not allow people to delete documents from a document library, how would I go about

it?

You would on the ItemDeleting event set: properties.Cancel= true.

Q. What is the difference between an asynchronous and synchronous event receivers?

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

Q. Workflow can be applied to what all elements of SharePoint ?

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

6. What are the ways to initiate the workflow ?

1. Automatic

2. Manual (standard WSS UI interface)

3. Manual (Custom UI Interface)

Q. What are the types of input forms that can be created for a workflow ?

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.

Q. While creating a Webpart, which is the ideal location to Initialize my new controls ?

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.

Q. How to query from multiple lists ?

Use SPSiteDataQuery to fetch data from multiple lists. more details..

Q.How Does SharePoint work?

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


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Application page. Allows the use of inline custom code. Application pages or "_layout" pages are stored

on the SharePoint Web server and made available via a Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS)

virtual directory. Though application pages behave much like other ASPX pages and allow the use of

inline custom code, they differ from content pages in that they cannot be used to host SharePoint

features such as dynamic Web Parts and Web Part zones. For more information, see Creating an

Application Page in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

WebParts.

http://blogs.tamtam.nl/mart/CreateASharePoint2007WebpartStepByStep.aspx

Server Controls. User Controls on creation and how to install / deploy them.

Content type. A reusable collection of settings to apply to a certain category of content such as

documents and folders. Content types are designed to help users organize their SharePoint content in a

more meaningful way. For more information, see Introduction to Content Types.

Custom action. Represents a link, toolbar button, menu item, or any control that can be added to a

toolbar or menu that appears in the UI. You define custom actions by using a custom action element

within a feature definition file. You can bind custom actions to a list type, content type, file type, or

programmatic identifier (ProgID). For more information, see Custom Action Definitions.

Event receiver. Evaluator of an event and definer of the behavior of an application. Windows SharePoint

Services 3.0 allows you to define event handlers within libraries, lists, and sites. Event receivers can be

defined by using a receiver element within a feature definition file. For more information, see Event

Registrations.

Feature. A package of Windows SharePoint Services elements that can be activated for a specific scope

and that helps users accomplish a particular goal or task. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 introduces

this inherently portable and modular functionality, which simplifies modification of sites through site

definitions. For more information, see Working with Features. -- Inside Microsoft Windows Sharepoint

Services 3.0

Master page. Pages that provide a consistent layout and appearance (look and feel) for SharePoint sites.

They allow you to factor out layout, structure, and interface elements such as headers, footers,

navigation bars, and content placeholders. Master pages in ASP.NET 2.0 and master pages in Windows

SharePoint Services work in the same way. For more information, see Building Simple Master Pages for

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

Module. A file or collection of file instances that define the location where the files are installed during

site creation. Modules are frequently used to implement a Web Part Page in the site. You can

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