SharePoint defs

Common Definitions in SharePoint

What is Site?Site is a collection of web pages used to store information in an organized manner. It stores a list of documents, discussions, events, tasks, and many other types of information, so it is like a container storing all these things. Site provides controlled access to share information among users, i.e. authorize users are allowed to access the site & its elements. Every SharePoint site is a member of a site collection. As the name suggests, a site collection is a collection of sites. Every site collection has a single site under its root site, and other sites can be built under the root site. A site collection is having some attributes that are common to all the sites in that collection (like search settings, a Recycle Bin for deleted items).

What is Sub-Site?A sub-site is a single SharePoint site under site collection. A sub-site can inherit permissions and navigation structure from its parent site or have his separate configurations according to the requirement.

What is Personal Site?Personal site is a site which is totally user specific and used to store the information of that user. User can use this site to upload his personal documents in the document library, so only that user can see and manage those documents. User can also make use of this site for his personal favorite items and comments that they have tagged in the SharePoint. User can track the information using news-feed that tell you what your colleagues are up to, also user can run searches and stay update on those subjects. Also user can update their personal details in the corporate directory using personal site.

What is List?SharePoint list is a collection of records for differently entities like employee, department, student etc. We can also say that it is a container for information like simple database or spreadsheet. In the list, data is stored in rows and each row is known as a list item. A list can have multiple columns or fields that define properties or metadata. So list item is a row with data in those columns.

List can be used for links, tasks, discussions, announcements or events.Different list can have different security settings ( List permissions)Permissions can also be defined onto single list item level (List item permission level)User can also add attachment while adding items in the list.

What is External list?External list is totally different than SharePoint List. It is not a SharePoint list at all because it doesn't store information inside the SharePoint content database. An external list is a view on external datathat is, data that is not stored in SharePoint but in external databases and systems.

What is Document Library?Document library is an instance of list where every list item is a file having some metadata. Files can be word documents, PDF files, text files etc. Document library is very similar to list but as its item contain file, so while adding an item into document library you have to upload file first and then add the metadata about that file.

What is Picture Library?A picture library is a special type of a document library that is dedicated to images and allows users to easily store, upload, share, collaborate and track images or digital pictures. It includes special views that show the images as thumbnails and it can also store the properties related to images called metadata to make the images easily searchable.

What is Wiki Library?Wiki page library is an instance of a document library it used to store web pages and onto those web pages authorized user can add different types of contents like text, images, videos and web parts. It can be used as a central repository for large organizations to store and share information.

What is Form Library?Form library is used to host only Microsoft InfoPath forms. Forms created in InfoPath can be published into SharePoint form libraries and users then fill out these forms.

What is an Asset Library?Asset library is used to store digital assets such as images, audio files and videos. This library can be used as repository for media files that will be used throughout the SharePoint environment e.g. company logos, training videos, podcast etc.

What is Picture Library ?A picture library is used to store, upload, share and track images or digital pictures. It also contains the special views that show the images as thumbnails. Users can also store the properties related to images called metadata to make the images easily searchable.

What are Alerts ?An alert is used for notification by email whenever there will be any change in the list, libraries or even for specific list item or documents. It is a built in mechanism that enables users to register different kinds of alerts. E.g. suppose user needs an alert on specific document change, or needs an alert when new record is added in Employee master list etc.

What is a Site Column?A site column is a column for a list or a document library that can be used in all document libraries or lists in the site in which it is created, as well as in the sub sites for that site. Site columns are very useful if organization wants to establish some consistent settings across lists and libraries.

What is Tagging?Tagging feature is available in Microsoft SharePoint 2010 server (not in SharePoint Foundation) , it is a social web mechanism that enables user to tag a list item or document or even a page in the SharePoint site or outside to it (provided appropriate access ).User can tag something to help remember it and find it more easily later on . I Like tag is the out of the box (in built) tag comes with the SharePoint which enables user to like the document or page and then it intimates other users about this tagging. So we can say that tagging is the ability to tag documents that enables user to search document easily with keywords. Tag cloud webpart enable users to display tagging keywords.

What is Versioning?SharePoint is having an option to track the versions for items contained in Document libraries and lists. This option stores old version of files or items each time a change is made. If user uploads a document, and then another user edits the document and saves it, SharePoint saves the original document as a version of the file. Afterwards, users can look at the version history of the file and choose to open a specific version or restore it (that is, make that version the current one).

What is Check-in/Check-out in SharePoint?Check-in and check-out are the common terms used in many document management systems. In SharePoint also the concept is same only. The purpose of Check-in/Check-out is to prevent conflicts in an environment where multiple people might want to edit the same piece of information (list items or files in document library).

Check out: Check-out make sure that only one person can edit a document at a time. To edit a document, a user should first check out a document. This prevents other users from editing the document until that user check the document back in. During the period that the document is checked out, other users can only view a read-only version of the document.

Check In: Check in a file means that user is uploading the modified file into the library and it is now available for edit by other users. Once the document is checked in, the document becomes available again to be checked out by someone else. In addition, all changes made by the person who checked in the document are now visible to others.

What is the difference between SpSite and SPWeb ?SPSite is a site collection which can be represented as SPSite class in the object model of SharePoint. The SpSite object is one of the primary entry points to the server object model and will be used frequently in SharePoint application development.

SpWeb is specific site under site collection which can be represented as SpWeb class in the server object model of SharePoint.

What are the classes in Server Object Model?There are many classes on Server object model, but in development perspective below are some of the classes which are important,SPFarmSPWebApplicationSPSiteSPWebSPListSPListItemSPDocumentLibrary

What is Site template?By using site templates for SharePoint sites, user can build complete SharePoint applications that can be instantiated over and over again. For example, if user needs a SharePoint site for managing projects including custom lists, Web Parts, and so forth, user can define a site template that user can reuse for every project by instantiating a site from it. A site template provides the basic component and layout of a new site created under SharePoint. A site template contains specific design information about a site, including the list that is part of the site, web part pages used in the site, the sites themes and borders, changes to the quick launch bar, as well as some site content (such as document libraries)

What is Site definition?Site definitions are the collection of XML or ASPX files and can contain all the necessary components. They are packaged in SharePoint solution files (.wsp) and are easy to transport since everything you need is packaged into a single file. Site definition contains information of web parts, lists, libraries, features, and navigation bars to be included in the site.

Site definition contains three files:

webTemp.xml: Created for every language version and contains the entries for the template selection box on the site creation page.

onet.xml: Contains one or more configurations for a site template, including specification of all components used, such as features, lists, and Web Parts

default.aspx: Empty page

What is ONET.xml?The core of a site definition is the onet.xml file that specifies all the components that the site contains, such as which Features to load, where the web parts go. ONET.xml file is present in %SharePoint Root% \TEMPLATE\SiteTemplates\XML\Onet.xml location

Note: If site definition is created using the Visual Studio 2010 site definition project template, a basic onet.xml file has been generated automatically. Its possible to extend this onet.xml.

How to get the data from multiple lists?OrWhat is SPSiteDataQuery class ?SPSiteDataQuery class is used to retrieve data from multiple lists. Use SPSiteDataQuery object to aggregate data from multiple lists, which obviates the need to enumerate sites and lists.The SPSiteDataQuery class is used to query data from multiple lists across different sites in a site collection. SPSiteDataQuery is commonly used in list aggregation scenarios, where list data from team sites or other subsites is collated and presented in a single interface. Unlike the SPQuery class, you cannot use join predicates or projected fields with the SPSiteDataQuery class. The SPSiteDataQuery will only aggregate data from SharePoint lists and will ignore data from external lists.

Note: Its not a best practice to use SPSiteDataQuery instead of that make a use of for or foreach loops to aggregate data.

What is WSP (Web solution package)?When developer does any customization or enhancement in SharePoint, then there are many items that need to be deployed like assemblies, resource files, features, images, application pages, site definitions etc. It will be a very tedious task to deploy these items separately on development, staging and production. So SharePoint introduced a solution package which is powerful deployment tool. Web solution package is a cabinet file that contains assemblies, resource files, features, images, application pages, site definitions etc. into single file.

Note: A solution package is stored as a cabinet (CAB) file, with the file extension .wsp. This file contains all the files to be deployed. If you rename the file extension to .cab, you can open the solution and explore its content .It can be deployed using the command-line tool stsadm or PowerShell cmdlets.

What is Sandbox solution?Before SharePoint 2010, the farm administrator had to trust custom code running on the server which developer had written. That meant having to perform lengthy tests and code reviews before custom code was allowed to run on the server, which cost a lot of time and money. Also there is a risk that if somehow unintentionally the wrong code went onto the server, then there will be chances of performance down issue, server down, crash etc. which is a big risk.

So by considering all these issues, In SharePoint 2010 there is a concept of sandboxing user code, which allows for isolation and resource limitations regarding memory, CPU, database query count, and time. This means that users can add and consume custom solutions safely without impacting overall farm performance and stability. Sandboxed solutions run with lower trust for hosted environments, for testing foreign solutions, and for secured production servers. A sandboxed solution cannot access the full SharePoint object model; it is limited to a subset of the Microsoft.SharePoint namespace. Sandboxed solutions run in a safe and monitored process with restricted access to resources.

Need more elaboration on Sandbox solution like what are the items deployed under sandbox solutions, restricted areas?Using a sandboxed solution you can deploy the following SharePoint items: Web Parts (code only; not visual Web Parts) Event receivers Content types List templates List instances Custom actions InfoPath formsDeploying files to disk is not possible in Sandbox solution. This means you cant deploy the

following SharePoint items:

Visual Web Parts (they contain web controls that have to be deployed to disk) Business data connectivity models Application pages User controls Files included in mapped folders, such as IMAGES or LAYOUTS

The Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Sandboxed code execution host service (SPUserCodeV4) executes the user code (code in your sandboxed solution) in the sandbox.This service consists of the following three processes:

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Sandboxed code execution host service (SPUCHostService.exe) Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Sandboxed Code Execution Worker Process (SPUCWorkerProcess.exe) Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Sandboxed Code Execution Worker Process Proxy (SPUCWorkerProcessProxy.exe)What does AllowUnsafeUpdates do?

For developer, when updates needs to be done in the content database without requiring a security validation then AllowUnsafeUpdates property needs to be set to true. After operation is performed then this property again needs to set to false again.

What is CAML?SharePoint has a custom XML language called CAML (Collaborative Application Markup Language), which is used to define key objects such as lists, columns, and content types.

What is Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server?

MS SharePoint Portal Server is an integrated suite from server side, to help improve organizational effectiveness with the help of providing

- comprehensive content management- enterprise search- accelerating shared business processes- facilitating information sharing across boundaries- Provides platform which includes server administration, application extensibility and interoperability for IT professionals.

What are zones?

Different logical paths (URLs meaning) of gaining access to the same SharePoint Web application.

Five Zones :

Internet ZoneIntranetDefaultExtranetCustom

What are Web Application Policies?

Enables security policy for users at the Web application level, rather than at the site collection or site level. Importantly, they override all other security settings.

What is a site collection?

A site collection contains a top-level website and can contain one or more sub-sites web sites that have the same owner and share administration settings.

What are content databases?

A content database can hold all the content for one or more site collections.

What is a site?

A site in SharePoint contains Web pages and related assets such as lists, all hosted within a site collection.

How is SharePoint Portal Server different from the Site Server?

SharePoint Portal Server:

- Web site creation for information sharing and document collaboration is treated as services by SharePoint Portal Server.- SharePoint server services are key information worker infrastructure that provides additional functionality to the MS Office system applications. Site Server:- Manages websites with multiple technologies- Content management, product management, order processing , advertisement serving are some of the functionalities

How is security managed in SharePoint?

Share point uses digital dashboard technology that provides an interface for the purpose of creating web parts and making them appear them on dash boards. The security is applicable throughout the organization.

What is Windows SharePoint Services?

Creation of websites for information sharing and document collaboration will be enabled by Windows SharePoint Services. It provides additional functionality for MS Office system and other desktop applications. It also supports like a platform for the development of applications.

What are the Hardware and Software requirements for SharePoint 2010 ?

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 installationFor production use, you need additional free disk space for day-to-day operations. Add twice as much free space as you haveRAM 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, theMicrosoft SharePoint Products and Technologies 2010 Preparation Tool installs Windows Server 2008 SP2 automatically.

What Has Changed with SSP in SharePoint 2010.?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.

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

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.

What are Managed Accounts?

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.

What is LINQ. How is it used in Sharepoint ?

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. Hence, developers may find that it is the only query syntax that they ever need to know. It is commonly used to query objects collections, XML and SQL server data sources.LINQ to SharePoint is officially being supported with the 2010 release.It works similar to LINQ to SQL or LINQ to Entity.The LINQ to SharePoint Provider is defined in the Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq namespace. It translates LINQ queries into Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML) queries.The gateway class for the LINQ to SharePoint provider is Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq.DataContext which represents the data of a SharePoint Foundation Web site.

How to Move content Databases using PowerShell ?

To attach\detach an existing content databaseuse Mount-SPContentDatabase "" DatabaseServer "" WebApplicationhttp://webapplicationname/

is the content database to be attached.

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 ""

How to Export a Site or List in SharePoint 2010?

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.

Changes in Themes in SharePoint 2010. Can we re-deploy and use the Old Cutsom themes in SharePoint 2010?SharePoint Server 2010 has changed the way themes work, making them easier to customize. You can now, change colors, fonts, links etc from themes interface itself. Also, you can import PowerPoint themes directly into SharePoint Server.

What is Enterprise Metadata Management?

Enterprise metadata management (EMM) is a set of features introduced in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 that enable taxonomists, librarians, and administrators to create and manage terms and sets of terms across the enterprise.The managed metadata service: is a service application that enables the use of managed metadata andallows you to share content types across site collections and across Web applications. The service publishes a term store and content types, and the metadata is consumed via the managed metadata connection. A managed metadata service and connection are created when the metadata service application is created.

What are Web Applications in SharePoint?

An IIS Web site created and used by SharePoint 2010. Saying an IIS virtual server is also an acceptable answer.

What is an application pool?

A group of one or more URLs that are served by a particular worker process or set of worker processes.

Why are application pools important?

They provide a way for multiple sites to run on the same server but still have their own worker processes and identity.

What are My Sites?Specialized SharePoint sites personalized and targeted for each user.

What is the difference between Classic mode authentication and Claims-based authentication?

As the name implies, classic authentication supports NT authentication types like Kerberos, NTLM, Basic, Digest, and anonymous. Claims based authentication uses claims identities against a against a trusted identity provider.

When would you use claims, and when would you use classic?

Classic is more commonly seen in upgraded 2007 environments whereas claims are the recommended path for new deployments.

What is Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint ?

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 platforms capabilities with out-of-box features, services and tools that streamline development of solutions with deep integration of external data and services.

How is BCS Different from BDC in SharePoint ?

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 accessexternal data.

How would you create an Information Site in SharePoint 2010?

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 beendisabled 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.

What would you clean up before upgrading to SharePoint 2010?

Before you begin upgrading from Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, you should make sure that your environment is functioning in a healthy state and that you clean up any content that you do not have to upgrade.Before you begin upgrading from Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, you should make sure that your environment is functioning in a healthy state and that you clean up any content that you do not have to upgrade.

Clean Up - Before Upgrading to SharePoint 2010

Look for some things before you start upgrading stuff

* Delete unused or underused site collections and sites.You do not want to upgrade content that you do not have to keep. If it has been unused for a long time and will not be needed in the future, back it up, and then delete it to free storage and administrative resources, improve upgrade performance, and reduce upgrade risk.

* Remove extraneous document versions

Large numbers of document versions can slow down an upgrade significantly. If you do not have to keep multiple versions, you can have users delete them manually or use the object model to find and remove them.

* Remove unused templates, features, and Web Parts

Firstly,verify that no sites are using any template, feature, or Web Part. You can use the pre-upgrade checker (Stsadm -o preupgradecheck) and the Stsadm -o EnumAllWebs operation to identify these customizations in your environment. If you are not using any customization, then you should delete it.

* Address large lists

By default, large list query throttling is appliedafter an upgrade to SharePoint Server 2010. If a list is very large, and users use a view or perform a query that exceeds the limit or throttling threshold, the view or query will not be permitted.Check any large lists in your environment and have the site owner or list owner address the issue before upgrade. For example, they can create indexed columns by using filtered views, organize items into folders, set an item limit on the page for a large view, or use an external list.

Describe the potential components for both a single server, and multiple servers, potentially several tiered farms :

A single-server SharePoint Server 2010 environment leverages a built-in SQL Server 2008 Express database. The problems with this environment is scalability, not being able to install the with built-in database on a domain controller, the database cannot be larger than 4 GB, and you cannot use User Profile Synchronization in a single server with built-in database installation.An example of a multiple tier farm would be a three-tier topology, considered one of the more efficient physical and logical layouts to supports scaling out or scaling up and provides better distribution of services across the member servers of the farm. This is considered a good architecture since one can add Web servers to the Web tier, add app servers to the application tier, and add database servers to the database tier.

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.

What Has Changed with 12 hive in SharePoint?

Three New Folders have been added in 12 hive structure. UserCode files used to support sandboxed solutions . WebClients used for the client Object Model. WebServices .svc files .

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

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".

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.

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 templateand many more....

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.

What are Requirenments for SharePoint 2010.?

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.

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

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 promptedvia 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. What are WebParts?Ans. Web Parts are self-contained packages of user interface that can be dropped onto a SharePoint Web Part page to provide discrete set of functionality to the users. They can simply be described as re-usable Code units.

Q. What is Custom action?Ans. Represents a link, toolbar button, menu item, or any control that can be added to a toolbar or menu that appears in the UI. For e.g. "New Folder" button in your document library is a custom action or "View All Site Content" in your Site Settings is a custom action.

Q. What are Features?Ans. Features represent a set of functionality (code) that can be activated and de-activated at various levels in SharePoint. Using Features, you can do everything from adding a link to the Site Settings page to creating a complete fully functioning Project suite that can be added to any SharePoint site. Developers can scope feature to the following level -. Web. Site. WebApplication . Farm

Q. What are Solutions?Ans. Solutions are the container packages for Features. Solution basically, is a cabinet (.cab) file with extension .wsp which contains various components needed to be deployed(features, webparts, custom forms etc) along with files that describe some important metadata about those Components. Once a Solution is installed on a server in the farm, you can deploy it to any webapplication from your Solution Management.

Q. What is a .ddf file and what does it have to do with SharePoint Solution creation?Ans. A .ddf file is a data directive file which describes the files need to be deployed and their destination (in SharePoint). .ddf is used when building the SharePoint solution. This file is a parameter to makecab.exe which outputs the wsp file.

Q. What is the difference between a site and a web in SharePoint?Ans. A site in sharePoint is a site collection. It is an object of SPsite class in sharepoint. A Web however, is simply a blank site within that site collection. Web is a Part of SPweb class, thus represents a site within a site collection.

Q. What is CAML?Ans. CAML stands for Collaborative Application Markup Language and is an XML-based language that is used in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services to define sites and lists for E.g. fields, views, or forms etc. Developers mostly use CAML to write Queries to retrieve data from Lists\libraries.

Q. What are Master pages in SharePoint?Ans. These are the pages that provide a consistent layout and appearance (look and feel) for SharePoint sites. A master Page consist of a Site logo, Top navigation, left navigation(some cases) and a footer. In SharePoint Master Pages are stored in _catalogs folder or Master Page Gallery from UI.

Q. What are Layout Pages in SharePoint?Ans. A Layout page defines the Layouts(structure including Webpart zones) of a content page in SharePoint. Layout pages are not same as Master Page. A Layout Page is contained inside the content area surrounded by mater Page.

Q. What is a SharePoint Theme?Ans. A Theme is a group of files (CSS, images) that allow you to define the appearance (look and feel) of content pages in SharePoint. A Theme defines the design of various components for e.g. Content Page background-color,button color,webpart title color etc to give a different look and feel to your site.

Q. What is a web part zone?Ans. Web part zones are what your web parts reside in. Each webpart zone can contain number of webparts and can be positioned in a specific way to create a webpart Layout Page.

Q. What is Business Data Catalog or BDC ?Ans. It is a shared service that enables Office SharePoint Server 2007 to display business data from various back-end servers into a SharePoint page. Business Data Catalog or BDC provides built-in support for displaying data with various webparts and list\list columns that can help in easy creation of dashboards with data from your SQL, web services, SAP, Siebel, or any other line-of-business (LOB) applications.

Q What is a Site definition?Ans. A Site definition is a collection of Files such as ONET.XML which defines the Site template for e.g. Team Sites used to create a Site in SharePoit. All the out-of-box site Templates like Blog,Wiki,Team Site etc can be found in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\

Q What is a Site Template?Ans. Any Site along with the content can be saved as a template. If a site is saved as a Template it is stored in Site templates folder as a .stp file. This template is then re-used to create a new site which will have the pre-saved settings.

Q. What are content types?Ans. A content type is a flexible and reusable template of type list item or document 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 Requirement document with a columns such LOE,Version,Approver,Date Created,Date Revised etc and this can be re-used in various document libraries.

Q. what is Central administration?Ans. This is a site used by admins to mange and configure settings for SharePoint web applications or the whole farm.Q. What are event receivers or event Handlers in SharePoint?Ans. Event Receivers or Event handlers are created to handle the basic actions or events against an item,list\library, a web or a site. There are two kinds of events in sharepoint.

Synchronous Events: Like Itemadding (not added yet), Uploading (document not uploaded yet) etc.

Asynchronous Events: ItemAdded (after item is added), Uploaded(after a document is uploaded)

Events receivers can be written to override an event for e.g. ItemAdded event to change the name of an Item once it is added.

Q. What is stsadm?Ans. It is a Command-line tool used for administration of Office SharePoint 2007 (or MOSS 2007) servers and sites. Basic operations like adding a solution or installing activating and feature is usually done by stsadm.

Q. What permissions are required to perform stsadm operations?Ans. You need to be a member of WSS_ADMIN_WPG group to perform deployments for sharepoint server. Also, you need to be added into administrators group on a computer on which SharePoint Server or WSS 3.0 is installed. In addition to this you definitely need access to the required sharepoint databases so that you should not get errors while deploying sharepoint solutions.

Q. Where is it located?Ans. You will normally, find it under C:\Program Files\Common Files\ shared\web server extensions\12\bin.

Q What is a DWP?Ans. Its a webpart file extension.

Q What is the GAC?Ans. Global Assembly Cache folder (or assembly) stores the strongly typed signed assemblies for webparts or other sharepoint components(which require full trust) for services to share them.

Q. What are Application Pages, Site Pages and Content Pages?

Ans.

Application Pages - An application page is deployed once per Web server and cannot be customized on a site-by-site basis. They stay in 12 hive folder structure, mostly under layouts folder.

Site Pages - These are pages that make up the site interface and are specific to one site or site collection.They mostly get stored in the content database of the site collection.

Content Pages - Site Page which contains webpart or other custom components. This Page is stored in database. They mostly get stored in the content database of the site collection.

Q.What are the Permission levels in SharePoint?Ans. Permission levels in SharePoint are -

* Limited Access - They can view Application Pages, Browse User Information, Use Remote Interfaces, Use Client Integration Features etc.

* Reader - Limited Access permissions plus: View Items, Open Items, View Versions, Create Alerts, Use Self-Service Site Creation, View Pages.

* Contributor - Read permissions plus: Add Items, Edit Items, Delete Items, Delete Versions, Browse Directories, Edit Personal User Information, Manage Personal Views, Add/Remove Personal Web Parts, Update Personal Web Parts.

* Design - Contribute permissions plus: Manage Lists, Override Check Out, Approve Items, Add and Customize Pages, Apply Themes and Borders, Apply Style Sheets.

* Administrator - Has full control of the Web site.

* Full Control - All permissions.

Q. What are Site Columns?Ans. Site columns are pre-defined data columns(along with default values) which are re-used in various content types. A Content type is usually a collection of site columns. For e.g. you can create a site column "Category" with a choice datatype along with the pre-defined values "It","Hr". This column then can be added to any content type in your list or library.

Q. What does each individual Site collection offers?Ans. An Individual Site collection offers following :For the Users:Dedicated Recycle binsDedicated usage ReportsDistributed administration (site collection administrators)Dedicated search scopes, keywords, and best-betsCustom feature deploymentsDedicated language translation maintenanceDedicated galleries for web parts, master pages, content types, site columns, site templates, and list templatesDedicated shared libraries, such as site collection images and site collection stylesDedicated real estate (Self Containment)

For the IT Administrators:Site quota templatesDistributed administrationSite lockingDatabase maintenance optionsBackup / Restore abilitiesContent DeploymentsInfoPath forms services global template targeting

Q. When would you use a Different Site Collection for you new site?. Ans. We would prefer to make our new site in a seprate site collection for the following are the reasons: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 if you need to separate the content between databases because of space issue.

Q. What is a Field Control?Ans. Field controls are server controls that provide the basic field functionality of SharePoint. For example a Inputbox (single line text) to enter the title of the item. You can create your own FieldControl by inheriting classes from BaseFieldControl namespace.

Q. How do you develop webparts in SharePoint?Ans. You can either develop a simple asp.net webpart with C# class library project or can use various tools available in the market. VSeWSS is an extension provided by Microsoft that consist of a webpart template for easy webpart creation and deployment. Other tools are wspbuilder, stsdev etc.

Q. Explain webpart life cycle.Ans. protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e)protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)protected override void CreateChildControls()protected override void LoadViewState(object savedState) //Only at Postbackprotected override void OnPreRender(EventArgs e)protected override void Render(System.Web.UI.HtmlTextWriter writer)protected override void OnUnload(EventArgs e)public override void Dispose()

Q. While creating a Web part, which is the ideal location to Initialize my new controls?Ans. CreateChildControls is the method where we initialize all the child controls.

Q. Do we always need to override Is Render() method.Ans. We override render only in case if we need to define the rendering of our controls in the webpart.

Q. What is the WebPartManager sealed class?Ans. The WebPartManager sealed class is responsible for managing everything occurring on a WebPart page, such as the WebParts (controls), events, and misc. functionality that will occur in WebPartZones. Each Page will have only one WebPartManager reference on the page.

Q. What are WebPart Properties?Ans. WebPart Properties are properties defined from the right toolpane of the webpart. These are settings or values set by the end user and are used within your webpart. For e.g. WebPart title, Description etc. Some of the attributes which you can define for your custom property are WebDescription, WebDisplayName, Category, Personalizable, and WebBrowsable.

Q. How does Windows SharePoint Services help render the Webapplictaion in ShrePoint?Ans. When a new web applictaion is created via Central Admin, Windows SharePoint Services creates a new Web application in IIS. Then the WSS, loads the custom HTTP application and replaces all installed HTTP handlers and modules with Windows SharePoint Servicesspecific ones. These handlers and modules essentially tell IIS to route all file requests through the ASP.NET 2.0 pipeline. This is because most files in a SharePoint site are stored in a Microsoft SQL Server database.

Q. What files gets created on a file system, when a Site collection is created ?Ans. Windows SharePoint Services does not create any files or folders on the file system when the site collection or sites are created; everything is created in the content database. The Pages for the site collection are created as instances in the content database. These instances refer to the actual file on the file system.

Q.How Does SharePoint work?Ans. The browser sends a DAV packet to IIS asking to perform a document check in. PKMDASL.DLL, an ISAPI DLL, parses the packet and sees that it has the proprietary INVOKE command. Because of the existence of this command, the packet is passed off to msdmserv.exe, who in turn processes the packet and uses EXOLEDB to access the WSS, perform the operation and send the results back to the user in the form of XML.

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 Security methods(Authentication methods) available in sharepointAns. "Out of the box", SharePoint 2007 supports nine authentication methods. But NTLM (Windows authentication) and Kerberos (Windows "standard" authentication) are offered during installation.

Q. Workflow can be applied to what all elements of SharePoint ?Ans. Workflow associations can be created directly on lists\libraries and content types.

Q. What are the types of input forms that can be created for a workflow ?Ans. You can create four different types of input forms including1. An association form2. An initiation form3. A modification form4. A task edit form

Q. What is the difference between method activity and event activity in WorkFlow ?Ans. A method activity is one that performs an action, such as creating or updating a task. An event activity is one that runs in response to an action occurring.

Q. What does SPWeb.EnsureUser() do?Ans. This method Checks whether the specified login name is a valid user of the SharePoint web.

Q. What does AllowUnsafeUpdates do ?Ans. If you need to modify some data in you SharePoint site for e.g. update a list item or list properties you may need to allow unsafe updates on the Web site. you can set it to we.AllowUnsafeUpdates = false once your done.

Q. What is the webservice used to retrieve or add list items in sharepoint?Ans. List.asmx is a Out-of-box webservice provided to add\update\delete and retrieve list items. It can be accessed from "http://SPSite/_vti_bin/lists.asmx" path.

1) What are the three user authentication methods that SharePoint 2013 supports?Windows claimsSecurity Assertion Markup Language (SAML)-based claimsForms-based authentication claims2) Out of the available authentication methods, which one would is considered the recommend according to Microsoft?Claims-based authentication methods are recommended.3) What protocol does server-to-server authentication extend?SharePoint 2013 extends OAuth.4) SharePoint Store and App Catalog Access SharePoint resources on behalf of a user using?OAuth 2.0.5) What Business Data Connectivity (BDC) connections types are supported in SharePoint 2013?WCFSQL ServerNET assembliesOpen Data Protocol6) What are some examples of technology that OData leverages?HTTPAtom Publishing Protocol (AtomPub) JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)7) What types of authentication does Business Connectivity Services support?AnonymousBasicWindowsCustom authentication to OData services when it is used with the Secure Store Service8) What does a BDC model do?Describes which tables to read, which items from those tables are of interest, and which operations to perform on them.9) How is the BDC model in SharePoint 2013 more streamlined than in SharePoint 2010?Visual Studio 2010 is able to connect to the OData endpoint through Business Connectivity Services and read the OData source. Visual Studio 2010 will then automatically generate the BDC model.10) How is the BDC model used after being built?Imported into the Business Data Catalog as a farm-scoped external content type, or be included in an app for SharePoint.11) What Is An Event Listener in SharePoint 2013?The event listener includes an event subscriber. The subscriber receives notifications from the event publisher (on the external system side) on changes to the data and then initiates predefined actions when changes occur.12) How is an event listener useful?Enables SharePoint users and custom code to receive notifications of events that occur in an external system.13) With an event listener, what are the supported connections for an external system?ODataSQLWCF14) What are apps for SharePoint?Apps for SharePoint allow addition of functionality to a SharePoint site by using the self-contained app for SharePoint.15) What is the primary benefit of using apps for SharePoint?Each app for SharePoint is isolated from the rest of the system.16) How are BDC models and apps for SharePoint related?BDC models can be scoped to apps for SharePoint and connection information is defined and stored separately from the app-scoped BDC model in BDC connections.17) What is eDiscovery in the context of SharePoint 2013?Introduces a new site for managing discovery cases and holds. The site allows one to access discovery cases to conduct searches, place content on hold, and export content.18) What are some examples of some things you can related to an eDiscovery case?SourceseDiscovery setsQueriesExports19) What is an in-place hold?Content that is put on hold is preserved, but users can still change it.20) What the content can be included with SharePoint eDiscovery export?DocumentListsPagesExchange objects21) In terms of enterprise-wide eDiscovery, what actions can be taken by an authorized user? Create a case, define a query, and then search SharePoint Server 2013, Exchange Server 2013, and file sharesExport all of the content that was identified.Preserve items in place in SharePoint Server 2013 or Exchange Server 2013.Track statistics related to the case.22) What are the different types of mobile views offered in SharePoint 2013?Contemporary viewClassic viewFull screen UI23) What is the Microsoft Push Notification Service?Supports applications on mobile devices that should receive notifications from a SharePoint site.24) What field type would be used when working location specific SharePoint applications?Geolocation field type25) What is Site-based retention?You can create and manage retention policies in that will apply to SharePoint sites and any Exchange Server 2013 team mailboxes that are associated with the sites.26) What does a retention policy contain?Generally what causes a project to be closed and when a project should expire.27) What are some improvements in Excel Services in SharePoint 2013?Field list and field well supportCalculated measures and membersEnhanced timeline controlsApplication BI ServersBusiness Intelligence Center update28) What is the In-Memory BI Engine (IMBI)?The In Memory multidimensional data analysis engine (IMBI), also known as the Vertipaq engine, allows for almost instant analysis.29) What does the Power View Add-in for Excel do?Power View (Crescent) enables users to visualize and interact with modeled data by using highly interactive visualizations, animations and smart querying.30) Can PerformancePoint be displayed on iPads?Yes.31) What is the Analysis Services Effective User?Eliminates the need for Kerberos delegation when per-user authentication is used for Analysis Services data sources. By supporting Analysis Services Effective User feature, authorization checks will be based on the user specified by the EffectiveUserName property instead of using the currently authenticated user.32) What are Community Sites in SharePoint 2013?Community Sites offer a forum experience to categorize and cultivate discussions with a broad group of people across organizations in a company.33) What is the primary change with MySite document libraries in 2013?Users can specify permissions for a specific document without having to understand the inheritance model.34) What are Image renditions?Image renditions let you display different sized versions of an image on different pages.35) How are multilingual sites implemented?Variations, integrated translation service, cross-site publishing36) What is Cross-site publishing?Cross-site publishing lets you store and maintain content in one or more authoring site collections, and display this content in one or more publishing site collections.37) What is Managed navigation?Managed navigation lets you define and maintain the navigation on a site by using term sets.38) What are Category pages?Category pages are page layouts that are used for displaying structured content such as catalog data.39) What is the Content Search Web Part?Displays content that was crawled and added to the search index.40) What are Refiners and faceted navigation?Refiners are based on managed properties from the search index. With faceted navigation you can configure different refiners for different terms in a term set.41) What is the Analytics Processing Component?Runs different analytics jobs to analyze content in the search index and user actions that were performed on a site to identify items that users perceive as more relevant than others.42) What does the Workflow Manager do?High Density and Multi-Tenancy, Elastic Scale, Activity / Workflow Artifact Management, Tracking and Monitoring, Instance Management, Fully Declarative Authoring, REST and Service Bus Messaging, Managed Service Reliability.43) What is a ranking model in SharePoint 2013 search?A ranking model determines recall (which items are displayed in the search results) and rank (the order in which search results are displayed).44) What actions can a query rule specify?Add one or more result blocksChange ranked resultsAdd Promoted Results (formerly called Best Bets) that appear above ranked results45) What are Result sources?Result source allow you to restrict queries to a subset of content by using a query transform.46) What is a Continuous crawl?Eliminates the need to schedule incremental crawls and automatically starts crawls as necessary to keep the search index fresh.47) How can you remove items from the search index?Using the crawl logs.48) How can you specify which entities to look for in the content in relation to SharePoint search?Create and deploy your own dictionaries49) What does document parsing functionality do?Document parsers extract useful metadata and remove redundant information.50) Is Visual Upgrade available in SharePoint 2013?No.

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