Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Interview Questions

        
Q. What is SharePoint 2010?
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. How would you re-deploy the old custom solutions in SharePoint 2010.What Changes are needed to the old Solution files.

Ans. SharePoint 2010 object model contains many changes and enhancements, but our custom code will still compile and, will run as expected. You should however, rewrite and recompile any code that refers to files and resources in "12 hive".
Q. What are the security improvements in SharePoint 2010 ?

Ans. In SharePoint 2010 a variety of security methods have been introduced.

Claims-Based Authentication - Claims based authentication is based on identity. and trust.

Code Access Security - in which you can specify your own code access
security (CAS) policy for your web parts.

Sandbox Solutions - Sandbox Solutions which when deployed to the server, SharePoint runs in a special process that has limited permissions.

Cross-Site Scripting - Introduced to prevent Cross - Site Scripting (XSS) attacks.
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.

Ans. 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
and many more....

Q. What are SharePoint Sandboxed soultions ?

Ans. 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. What are Requirenments for SharePoint 2010.

Ans. SharePoint Server 2010 will support only 64 - bit. It will require 64 bit Windows Server 2008 or 64 bit Windows Server 2008 R2. In addition to this, it will require 64 bit version of SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit version of SQL Server 2005.


Q. What is LINQ. How is it used in Sharepoint ?

Ans. LINQ is a feature of the programming languages C# 3.0 and Visual Basic .NET. LINQ allows you to query in an object-oriented way, supports compile-time check, gives you intellisense support in Visual Studio and defines a unified, SQL like syntax to query any data source. But unlike other languages and query syntaxes which vary from one type of data source to another, LINQ can be used to query, in principle, any data source whatsoever. It is commonly used to query objects collections, XML and SQL server data sources.

The LINQ to SharePoint Provider is defined in the Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq namespace. It translates LINQ queries into Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML) queries.
Q. What Changes are made in SharePoint 2010 to enforce Referential Integrity?

Ans. In SharePoint 2010, Referential Integrity is enforced using two options, available with Look-up columns.

While creating a Look-up column, you can either choose a) Restrict Delete or b) Cascade Delete to define a relationship between the Look-up list and the list containing the look-up Column.
Q. Whats Ribbon in SharePoint 2010?

Ans.The Ribbon Bar, is one of the finest improvements that Microsoft added to Office 2007 . SharePoint 2010 follows the same path. The ribbon basically, is a toolbar that appears across the top of each page in SharePoint.

The top-level elements in the Ribbon are tabs. Each tab organizes a set of groups (like Edit.Browse) and contains a set of controls. The controls inside the groups include buttons, drop-down menus, check boxes, combo boxes, split buttons, and galleries. In short, the users now can see the options like checkOut,Check In, Edit Page,Publish Page, delete page under edit tab, on the top of the Page itself.

Performance : Now lets talk about the Performance of the ribbon in SharePoint 2010.
Cashing : The Out-of-Box ribbon in heavily Cashed. So the controls are downloaded once and are used for the rest of the site.

Client OM - In terms of Architecture, ribbon Xml defines the UI but the behavior is all controlled by the javascript. You can definitely have Client or server controls in the ribbon according to your need.

CSS UI - Ribbon has all Css layout for UI and does not uses any tables.

Clustered Images - All the Images displayed in the ribbon like icons and stuff are Clustered images, thus they reduce the round-trip to the server.

Dynamic scalling and Pop-ups - All the pop-ups are displayed dynamically.

Lastly, the big question How does Ribbon works ? - A file called CMDUI.XML stays at the web front end which contains the Out-of-Box site wide Ribbon implementation i.e. all the Ribbon UI for the entire site. In addition to this you have a CustomAction for each ribbon component. These CustomActions have CommandUIExtentions block which has CommandUIDefinitions and CommandUIHandlers which make up the activity of the ribbon component. So, when the ribbon is loaded the CommandUIDefinition merges with Out-of-Box definition in the CMDUI.XML

Q . Whats New in SPALerts ?

Ans. In SharePoint 2007, alerts were send only through e-mails, but in SP2010 users can also send an alert to mobile devices as SMS Message. A New property DeliveryChannels is introduced to indicate, whether the alert is delivered as E-mail or as an SMS Message.
Q. What are the Hardware and Software requirements for SharePoint 2010.

Ans.

Hardware requirements :

# Processor 64-bit, four-core, 2.5 GHz minimum per core.

# RAM 4 GB for developer or evaluation use, 8 GB for single server and multiple server farm installation for production use.

# Hard disk 80 GB for installation

For production use, you need additional free disk space for day-to-day operations. Add twice as much free space as you have RAM for production environments.


Software requirements :

# The 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 Standard with SP2. If you are running Windows Server 2008 without SP2, the Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies 2010 Preparation Tool installs Windows Server 2008 SP2 automatically.



Q. What Has Changed with SSP in SharePoint 2010.

Ans. In SharePoint 2010 Shared Service Providers (SSP's) are replaced by Service Applications. Services are no longer combined into a SSP. They are running independent as a service application. The service application architecture is now also built into Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010, in contrast to the Shared Services Provider (SSP) architecture that was only part of Office SharePoint Server 2007.

A key benefit here is that all services are installed by default and there is no SSP setup.

Additional improvements for the service application model include:
• The services architecture is extensible, allowing third-party companies to build and add services to the platform.

• Services are managed directly in Central Administration (rather than a separate administration site).

• Services can be monitored and managed remotely.

• Services can be managed and scripted by Windows PowerShell™.

• Shared services communications take place over HTTP(S). Shared services do not directly access databases across farms.

• Most new services are built on the Windows Communications Framework. They have optimization built into their protocol, using binary streams instead of XML for data transfer. Test results show improvements in network throughput with this change.

Q. What are the advantages of Service Applications over SSP ?

Ans. The key limitation of the SSP architecture was that it was configured by using a set of services, and all Web applications associated with the SSP bore the overhead of all the services even if they weren't being used. To change the service configuration for a particular Web application, a new SSP would have to be created.

The service application architecture on the other hand, allows a set of services to be associated with a given Web application and a different set of services to be associated with another Web application. Also, the same service application can be configured differently in different Web applications; therefore, Web sites can be configured to use only the services that are needed, rather than the entire bank of services.

Q. Can we create a Single set of Services that will be shared across the farm?

Ans. Similar to the SSP model in Office SharePoint Server 2007, a single set of services can be shared by all sites in a farm. By publishing a service application (from the sharing group, under Service application tab), you can share it across server farms. This capability does not apply to all service applications, and some services can be shared only within a single server farm.

Q. What are Managed Accounts?

Ans. To reduce the load of managing various service accounts in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, the concept of managed accounts has been introduced. Much like managed accounts in Windows Server 2008, they allow SharePoint Server to take control of all the service accounts you use. After SharePoint Server has control of these accounts, it can either manage their passwords — automatically changing them as necessary — or it can notify you when an accounts password is about to expire, allowing you to make the change yourself.

Q. What are the Methods of Backup and Recovery in SharePoint 2010?

Ans. Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 provides a broad range of levels for performing backups, including the entire farm, farm configuration information, site collections, subsites, or lists.

SharePoint Server 2010 uses two different tools to configure backup and recovery.

1. Central Administration : Central Administration provides a user interface where SharePoint Administrators will be prompted via menu structures to select the information that needs to be backed up. (see the Image below)


2. Windows PowerShell : Windows PowerShell is a command line tool that provides SharePoint administrators a way to perform backup and recovery with additional options such as file compression or working with SQL snapshots.

Listed below are a few of the benefits available when working with Windows PowerShell:

• Windows PowerShell scripts can be developed and scheduled (with Windows Task Scheduler), whereas Central Administration is used for single-use backups and restores.

• Windows PowerShell has the advantage of running against SQL snapshots instead of the production database. One of the parameters of the Windows PowerShell command will cause a SQL snapshot to be generated, and then Windows PowerShell will run the action against the snapshot instead of the production database. This will reduce the resource impact of the backup operation on the production environment.

• With Windows PowerShell, SharePoint administrators will have more granular control of options for the backup or restore.


Q. How to Move content Databases using PowerShell ?

Ans. To attach\detach an existing content database use

Mount-SPContentDatabase "<ContentDb>" –DatabaseServer "<DbServer>" –WebApplication http://WebapplicationName

<ContentDb> is the content database to be attached.

<DbServer> is the name of the database server.

http://WebapplicationName is the name of the Web application to which the content database is being attached.

To detach a content database:

Dismount-SPContentDatabase "<ContentdBName>"
Q. How to Export a Site or List in SharePoint 2010?

Ans. SharePoint Server 2010 provides several new features that provide a granular level of backup for various components of site content. This includes content at the site, subsite, and list level.

Through Central Administration(Granular level Back-up) a SharePoint Administrator can configure a backup of a subsite or list. An Administrator can choose a site and a specific list to be exported.The administrators can also choose to export security and select the different versions that will be exported with the list.
Q. What is Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint ?

Ans.SharePoint 2010 provides a new set of technologies known as Business Connectivity Services for retrieving, editing, updating, and deleting data from external systems(for e.g. data from ERP or CRM database). BCS enhances the SharePoint platform's capabilities with out-of-box features, services and tools that streamline development of solutions with deep integration of external data and services.


Q. How is BCS Different from BDC in SharePoint 2007 ?

Ans. Even though the BDC made it relatively easy to create read-only solutions that display data in the Business Data List Web Part, it was not so simple to create a solution that enabled users to make changes and write that data back to the external store.

BCS, on the other hand, provides you with Read-Write capable connectivity from Client and Server to Database, WCF/Web Services and .Net Sources. A Developer can now use SharePoint Designer 2010 and VS 2010 rapid development tools to access external data. Q. How would you create an Information Site in SharePoint 2010?

Ans. In SharePoint 2010 You can create a Read-Only Farm/site or site-collection by setting the Content database as Read-only.
In SharePoint 2010 You can create a Read-Only Farm/site or site-collection by setting the Content database as Read-only.

In a read-only farm, only content databases are read-only. All other databases, including the configuration database, Central Administration content database, and search database, are read/write.
The site collection that is associated with a read-only content database is automatically set to be read-only.
The user experience of a read-only site is characterized by the following:
* Common tasks that do not require writing to the content database are fully available.
* Most of the common tasks that require writing to the content database are not available, either because they have been disabled in the user interface or because the user is no longer allowed to apply changes.
* Some common tasks that require writing to the content database appear to be available, but return errors.

Q. What Has Changed with SSP in SharePoint 2010.

Ans. In SharePoint 2010 Shared Service Providers (SSP's) are replaced by Service Applications. Services are no longer combined into a SSP. They are running independent as a service application. The service application architecture is now also built into Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010, in contrast to the Shared Services Provider (SSP) architecture that was only part of Office SharePoint Server 2007.

A key benefit here is that all services are installed by default and there is no SSP setup.
To know more about Service Applications refer this blog post . Service Applications in SharePoint 2010.

SharePoint Server 2007 Administration Training for Certification 70-630

Prerequisites: This course is designed for individuals with a basic understanding knowledge on Net work Administration.

Module 1 – Introduction on Microsoft office SharePoint Server 2007

• A Primer on Microsoft office SharePoint Server 2007
• Shared Service Provider (SSP)
• SharePoint Products and Technologies
• Difference between WSS 3.0 & MOSS 2007

Module 2 – Managing Content with Lists and Libraries

• Creating Custom Lists and Document Libraries
• Creating Views based on Creating
• Site Columns
• Creating/updating/Propagating
• Scopes
• Content types
• Creating/updating/Propagating
• Content type Settings
• Using Look ups and Calculated Columns
• Working With Libraries

Module 3 – Configuring User Groups and Permissions

• Creating Users in Active Directory
• Creating Mail for the User
• Configuring out look account settings
• Configuring out going E-mail settings in SharePoint

Module 4 – SharePoint Security

• Permission Levels in SharePoint
• Creating Custom Permission Levels
• Creating and Using Alerts.
• Security at site Level
• Security at List or Library Level
• Item Level Security.

Module 5 – Securing Sites through SSL

• Requirements for SSL
• Extending Web Applications for https
• Implementing SSL on IIS

Module 6 – Monitoring SharePoint

• Usage Analysis
• Diagnostic Logging
• Performance Monitor

Module 7 – Configuring the Server

• Configuring MOSS
• Configuring WSS 3.0
• Setting Up Shared Services
• Enabling Search

Module 8 – SharePoint Portal operations and Administration

• Working with managed paths
• Quota Templates
• Blocked file types
• Zones in Web Application
• Installing/uninstalling Features
• Activating/Deactivating Features
• Adding the Solution Package

Module 9 – Backup and Restore

• Performing Backup and Restore from Central Administration
• Back up and Restore from SharePoint Designer
• Back up and Restore using STSADM
• Creating Site as Template
• Creating List as Template

Module 10 – InfoPath

• Designing InfoPath forms
• Publishing InfoPath forms to SharePoint Sites
• Publishing as Content types.
• Manage Form Templates(Administrator Approved InfoPath Forms)
• Upload or Upgrade a Form Template
• Activate Form Template
• Deactivate Form Template

Module 11- Installing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

• Hardware requirements
• Software requirements
• Step by step Installation Process

Module 12 – Workflows and the Recycle bin

• Introduction On workflows
• Creating out-of-box workflows
• Creating workflows using SharePoint Designer
• Managing the Recycle bin
  

Module 13 – Setting Up an Extranet

• Topology and Requirements
• Alternate Access Mapping
• Configuring Forms based Authentication
• Extending Web Applications

Module 14 – Authentication

• Windows Authentication
• Single sign on
• Forms based Authentication

Chapter 15- Business Intelligence

• Excel Services
• Key Performance Indicators(KPIS’S)
• Dash Boards
• Reports

Chapter 16- Enterprise Search

• Configuring Search Settings in SSP
• Search Scopes
• People Search
• All Sites Search
• Full Crawling
• Incremental Crawling

Module 17 – Personalization and My Site

• Configuring My Site Settings
• Creating Personal Sites
• Applying Personal Views to Pages and Lists

Module 18 – Working with SharePoint Designer

• Performing Backup and Restore
• Check in and Check out
• Adding Web part zones and Web parts

Module 19 - Web parts

• Web parts overview
• Static and Web part pages
• Adding the web part to the pages
• Deploying the Web parts
  
  Note : - We can also provide Training as per the Custom Contents based on the requirements.

For any Training Queries, feel free to contact : venkat@ 91-9916229967

After Complettion of the Course :

• Interview Guidance Provided
• Mock Tests Conducted
• Mock Interviews
• Resume Preparation as per the standards
• Guidance for Microsoft Certification Exam

Fees Structure :

Rupees : 18,000/-

Duration : 45 hourse

SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 Interview Questions

Questions on: Moss 2007 Application Development


1. What is SharePoint Server ?

SharePoint Server is a Site provisioning engine which enables organizations to set up web based infrastructure for storing, Collaborating and managing the Content and documents in secured manner.

2. What is Shared Service Provider? what it can do?Shared service provider is a new concept in MOSS 2007. the basic idea behind this is there are certian certain that really makes sense to centrally manage and share. If we have different sites running under different web applications they should need share the information such as profiles, these type of scenarios SSP helps providing data through its services.
The major services provided by SSP are
1.UserProfiles and Audiences
2.Search
3.Excel Services
4.Business data catalog(BDC)


3) 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 exceptions 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


4) 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.
5) What is the GAC?The GAC stands for the global assembly cache. It is the machine wide code cache which will give custom binaries place into the full trust code group for SharePoint. Certain SharePoint assets, such as Feature Receivers need full trust to run correctly, and therefore are put into the GAC. You should always try to avoid deployment to the GAC as much as possible since it will possibly allow development code to do more than it was intended to do.
6)What is strong naming (signing) a WebPart assembly files?
Signing an assembly with a strong name (a.k.a strong naming) uses a cryptographic key pair that gives a unique identity to a component that is being built. This identity can then be referred throughout the rest of the environment. In order to install assemblies into the GAC, they must be strongly named. After signing, the binary will have a public key token identifier which can be use to register the component in various other places on the server. Article prepared by Srinath Sadda © meraTechExplorer Resources for Technical Professionals
7) What are safe controls, and what type of information, is placed in that element in a SharePoint web.config file?
When you deploy a WebPart to SharePoint, you must first make it as a safe control to use within SharePoint in the web.config file. Entries made in the safe controls element of SharePoint are encountered by the SharePointHandler object and will be loaded in the SharePoint environment properly, those not will not be loaded and will throw an error.
In the generic safe control entry (this is general, there could be more), there is generally the Assembly name, the namespace, the public key token numeric, the typename, and the safe declaration (whether it is safe or not). There are other optional elements.
8) What is the CreateChildControls() method? How can you use it to do something simple like displaying a Label control?The CreateChildControls method in WebParts is used to notify the WebPart that there are children controls that should be output for rendering. Basically, it will add any child ASP.NET controls that are called instantiating each control with its relevant properties set, wire any relevant event handlers to the control, etc. Then the add method of the control class will add the control to the controls collection. In the relevant WebPart render method, the EnsureChildControls method can be called (or set to false if no child controls should be called) to ensure that the CreateChildControls method is run. When using CreateChildControls it implies that your WebPart contains a composition of child controls.
In order to create something like a label control in Create, you would create a new label control using the new keyword, set the various properties of the control like Visible=True and ForeColor = Color.Red, and then use Controls.Add(myLabelControl) to add the control to the controls collection. Then you can declare EnsureChildControls in the Render method of the WebPart.
9) What does the RenderContents method do in an ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart?
The render contents method will render the WebPart content to the writer, usually an HtmlTextWriter since WebParts will output to an HTML stream. RenderContents is used to tell how the controls that are going to be displayed in the WebPart should be rendered on the page.
Side Question: I got asked what the difference between CreateChildControls and the RenderContents method. The CreateChildControls method is used to add controls to the WebPart, and the RenderContents method is used to tell the page framework how to render the control into HTML to display on a page.
10) 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.”
Side Question: I got asked how many WebPartManager controls should be on a page. In order to have WebParts on a page there has to be just one WebPartManager control to manage all the WebParts on the page.
11) 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.
12) How would you go about getting a reference to a site?
C#:
oSPSite = new SPSite("http:/server");
oSPWeb = oSPSite.OpenWeb(); Article prepared by Srinath Sadda © meraTechExplorer Resources for Technical Professionals
13) 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.
14) 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.
Side Question: I got asked if there are other ways to send emails from SharePoint. The answer is yes, there is. You can use the SendMail method from the SPutility class to send simple emails, however it is not as robust as using the System.Net.Mail functionality since it doesn’t allow things like setting priorities on the email.
15) How do you connect (reference) to a SharePoint list, and how do you insert a new List Item?
C#:
using(SPSite mySite = new SPSite("yourserver"))
{
using(SPWeb myWeb = mySite.OpenWeb())
{
SPList interviewList = myWeb.Lists["listtoinsert"];
SPListItem newItem = interviewList.Items.Add();
newItem["interview"] = "interview";
newItem.Update();
}
}
16) How would you loop using SPList through all SharePont List items, assuming you know the name (in a string value) of the list you want to iterate through, and already have all the site code written?C#:
SPList interviewList = myWeb.Lists["listtoiterate"];
foreach (SPListItem interview in interviewList)
{
// Do Something
}
17) 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.
18) 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. Article prepared by Srinath Sadda © meraTechExplorer Resources for Technical Professionals
Side Question: I got asked when you should state the credentials in code. You must state the credentials you are going to pass to the web service before you call any of the methods of the web service, otherwise the call will fail.
19) 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.
20) 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 wouldn’t be able to access or execute something.
21) What is the IDesignTimeHtmlProvider interface, and when can you use it in WebParts?The IDesignTimeHtmlProvider interface uses the function GetDesignTimeHtml() which can contain your relevant render methods. It was helpful to use in 2003 since it allowed your WebPart to have a preview while a page was edited in FrontPage with the Webpart on it, because the GetDesignTimeHtml() method contains the HTML for the designer to render.
22) 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.
23) 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.
24) 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.
25) 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:


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
Just to name a few things.
26) 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 fiel.
27) What file does a SharePoint solution package use to orchestrate (describe) its packaged contents?
The solution Manifest.XML file.
28) 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.
29) 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, such as at the farm, site collection, web, etc. Features have their own receiver architecture, which allow you to trap events such as when a feature is installing, uninstalling, activated, or deactivated. They are helpful because they allow ease of upgrades and versioning.
The two files that are used to define a feature are the feature.xml and manifest file. 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.
Side Question: I got asked how the introduction of features has changed the concept of site definitions. SharePoint features are important when understanding the architecture of site definitions, since the ONET.XML file has been vastly truncated since it has several feature stapled on it.
30) What types of SharePoint assets can be deployed with a SharePoint feature?Features can do a lot. For example, you could deploy


Simple site customizations
Custom site navigation
WebParts
Pages
List types
List instances
Event handlers
Workflows
Custom actions
Just to name a few things.


31) 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.
32) 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.
33) 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.
34) What is the difference between 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.
35) How could you append a string to the title of a site when it is provisioned?
In the OnActivated event:
C#:
SPWeb site = siteCollection.RootWeb;
site.Title += "interview";
site.Update();
36) Can an event receiver be deployed through a SharePoint feature?Yes.
37) What is a content type?A content type is an information blueprint basically that can be re-used throughout a SharePoint environment for defining things like metadata and associated behaviors. It is basically an extension of a SharePoint list, however makes it portable for use throughout an instance regardless of where the instantiation occurs, ergo has location independence. Multiple content types can exist in one document library assuming that the appropriate document library settings are enabled. The content type will contain things like the metadata, listform pages, workflows, templates (if a document content type), and associated custom written functionality.
38) 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.
39) 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.
40) 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. Article prepared by Srinath Sadda © meraTechExplorer Resources for Technical Professionals
41) 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.
42) 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.
43) 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.
44) 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.
45) What is a SharePoint site definition? What is ghosted (uncustomized) and unghosted (customized)?
SharePoint site definitions are the core set of functionality from which SharePoint site are built from, building from the SiteTemplates directory in the SharePoint 12 hive. Site definitions allow several sites to inherit from a core set of files on the file system, although appear to have unique pages, thereby increasing performance and allowing changes that happen to a site propagate to all sites that inherit from a site definition. Ghosted means that when SharePoint creates a new site it will reference the files in the related site definition upon site provisioning. Unghosted means that the site has been edited with an external editor, and therefore the customizations are instead stored in the database, breaking the inheritance of those files from the file system.
46) How does one deploy new SharePoint site definitions so that they are made aware to the SharePoint system?
The best way to deploy site definitions in the SharePoint 2007 framework is to use a SharePoint solution file, so that the new site definition is automatically populated to all WFE’s in the SharePoint farm.
47. What are the features?Answer:
Feature is the feature in SharePoint server 2007 which contains busic logic.when we install the feature it can be activated/Deactivated in different scopes.
SharePoint Provides four different Scopes.


1:-Farm – The elements will be deployed at the farm level. To activate or deactivate a farm-scoped Feature, go to Central Administration, Operations section, and click on Manage Farm Features in the Global Configuration group.
2:- Web Application – The elements will be deployed at the web application level. To activate or deactivate a web application-scoped Feature, go to Central Administration, Application Management section, and click on Manage Web Application Features in the SharePoint Web Application Management group.
3.Site Collection :– The elements will be deployed at the site collection level. To activate or deactivate a site collection-scoped Feature, go to the root web site settings, and click on Site Collection Features in the Site Collection Administration group. You must be a site collection administrator to see this setting.
4.Web Site – The elements will be deployed at the web site level. To activate or deactivate a web site-scoped Feature, go to the web site settings, and click on Site Features in the Site Administration group. You must have ManageWeb permissions (for instance, being a site administrator) to see this setting.


48. What are the Event Receivers?
Answer : Event Receivers adds behaviours to Lists or list items. They are Commonly used to perform data validation beyond SharePoint capabilities to ensure data integrity or to perfom the business process.


Questions On Administration:
What is a SharePoint site definition? What is ghosted (uncustomized) and unghosted (customized)?
SharePoint site definitions are the core set of functionality from which SharePoint site are built from, building from the Site Templates directory in the SharePoint 12 hive. Site definitions allow several sites to inherit from a core set of files on the file system, although appear to have unique pages, thereby increasing performance and allowing changes that happen to a site propagate to all sites that inherit from a site definition. Ghosted means that when SharePoint creates a new site it will reference the files in the related site definition upon site provisioning. Unghosted means that the site has been edited with an external editor, and therefore the customizations are instead stored in the database, breaking the inheritance of those files from the file system.


How does one deploy new SharePoint site definitions so that they are made aware to the SharePoint system?
The best way to deploy site definitions in the SharePoint 2007 framework is to use a SharePoint solution file, so that the new site definition is automatically populated to all WFE’s in the SharePoint farm.


What does partial trust mean the Web Part developer?If you install assemblies into the BIN directory, you must ensure your code provides error handling in the event that required permissions are not available. Otherwise, unhandled security exceptions may cause your Web Part to fail and may affect page rendering on the page where the Web Part appears.
Request for the permission of type
Microsoft.SharePoint.Security.SharePointPermission,
Microsoft.SharePoint.Security, Version=11.0.0.0, Culture=neutral,
PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c failed.


The WSS_Minimal trust level does not grant permission to the SharePointPermission.ObjectModel to assemblies in the BIN directory for an application.


Therefore, if your code attempts to use the Microsoft SharePoint object model, the common language runtime (CLR) throws an exception.


Since the minimal permission set provides the smallest set of permissions required for code to execute, the likelihood of additional security exceptions is increased.


Recommendation Try-catch critical areas to address situations where you may not have the necessary permissions to accomplish a specified objective.


What if my assemblies are installed in the GAC?


By default, assemblies installed in the global assembly cache (GAC) run with Full trust. Although, installing your Web Part assembly in the GAC is a viable option, it is recommended that you install Web Part assemblies in the BIN directory for a more secure deployment.


What if my assembly is not strongly named? How does my code group change?
You can specify membership conditions for a code group in several ways. You can use the UrlMembershipCondition to specify conditions as follows:



What is a Shared Service Provider? In what circumstances might you create more than one?
The Shared Service Provider in MOSS is where the administrator manages the Search crawling and indexing in the portal. It is also where the information from Active Directory is compiled. The reasons for having more than one would be to ensure information in a secure or sensitive part of your portal is not included in search results for the rest of the portal.


What are Features and Solutions and what is the difference between the two?
Features are a method for developers to package customisations and deploy them to the SharePoint portal. They can then be activated and deactivated at the Site Collection level. Solutions are a way to bundle features together for deployment.


What is the difference between a Site Definition and a Site Template?


Site Definitions are stored on the hard drive of the SharePoint front end servers. They are used by the SharePoint application to generate the sites users can create. Site Templates are created by users as a copy of a site they have configured and modified so that they do not have to recreate lists, libraries, views and columns every time they need a new instance of a site.

What is Ghosting and UnGhosting in SharePoint?

Ghosted Page in SharePoint



A ghosted page is a page in SharePoint website which is not stored in the database instead it reference to a file which exists in the server’s file system. These reference files are common for all the website/site collection within that SharePoint server, i.e., if you modify a reference file then that change will reflect in all the websites/site collections within that SharePoint server automatically. So we can say these reference files are used as template.


The default master page of SharePoint “default.master” is a well known example of ghosted page. “default.master” page is located in the directory "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\Global". If you do some changes in the “default.master” then this change will automatically reflect in all the websites within that SharePoint server.


To create a new site in SharePoint, a site template is used. Site template contains description of all the pages, webparts within the pages, master page used, custom lists, etc. for the web site to be created. You can define a page ghostable in the “onet.xml” file of the site template.


Unghosted Page in SharePoint


All the pages in a SharePoint website which are stored in the content database are referred as unghosted pages. All the unghosted pages are specific to that SharePoint website only, i.e., changes done in an unghosted pages will not reflect in other websites within that SharePoint server.


If a new website is created with a site template which contains a page defined as “unghostable” in the “onet.xml”, then that page will be stored in the content database of new website created and will not reference to the page available in the site template folder.


If a ghosted page is modified in the SharePoint designer, it will become unghosted. For example if a master page is customized in SharePoint Designer, SharePoint stores a modified version of the master page in the content database and also it breaks the reference to the “default.master” file on the “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\Global“.