SharePoint 2010 Interview Questions and Answers Part 3

SharePoint 2010 Interview Questions:

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 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 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 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 bins
Dedicated usage Reports
Distributed administration (site collection administrators)
Dedicated search scopes, keywords, and best-bets
Custom feature deployments
Dedicated language translation maintenance
Dedicated galleries for web parts, master pages, content types, site columns, site templates, and list templates
Dedicated shared libraries, such as site collection images and site collection styles
Dedicated real estate (Self Containment)

For the IT Administrators:
Site quota templates
Distributed administration
Site locking
Database maintenance options
Backup / Restore abilities
Content Deployments
InfoPath forms services global template targeting

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.

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SharePoint 2010 Interview Questions and Answers (Part - 2)

How many types of master pages in SharePoint 2010?There are total three types of master pages in SharePoint 2010:

1. V4.master: This is default team site master page which provides ribbon bar and other editing features using UI.
2. Default.Master : Sites which are upgraded from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 uses this master page unless they are changed to use a v4 version.
3. Minimal.master : These masterpages normally referred to as Starter Master pages in SharePoint 2010.

What are the things deployed as a sandbox solution in SharePoint 2010?Developers can deploy below things as a sandbox solution

1.  WebParts.
2.  Event Receivers.
3. List Definitions.
4. Workflows.

How many types of client object model extension available in SharePoint 2010, what is the criteria to use one or the other?There are three types of client object model extension has been introduced in the Microsoft.SharePoint.Client namespace. These three extensions are targeted for three different types of clients.

1. .Net Managed Application : These are mostly used while developing console or windows application and also web applications which are not running into SharePoint context.
2. Silverlight Applications
3. ECMAScript : It is an extension using javascript or Jscript. These are mostly used for the applications which are hosted inside SharePoint.

How does user access ECMAScript object model API’s ?
The ECMAScript library is available in a number of JS file in the layouts folder. The main file among all the js files is SP.JS file. When a developer includes this file in the page all other JS files are loaded automatically. By linking SP.js to the page, the SP namespace is registered. SP is the SharePoint namespace that contains all objects. For debugging purposes, every js file also has a ‘debug’ equivalent in the same folder.

How many authentication methods are available for the client object model application ?
There are three authentication methods available while working with the client object model in SharePoint 2010:

1. Anonymous
2. Default
3. FormsAuthentication

Developer needs to specify what authentication method in the code, if the developer didn’t mention the application will by default start using windows credentials ( i.e Default Credentials)

What is the main difference between Load() and LoadQuery() methods ?Load method basically used to populates client object directly from what it gets from the server i.e. a collection object like ListItemCollection etc. But Loadquery method returns totally new collection in IEnumerable format. The other difference is that the collections which Load method uses are eligible for garbage collection only when the client context variable goes out of scope whereas , in LoadQuery() method collection it goes out of scope at the end of IEnumerable<List>list.

What exactly the purpose of calling clientContext.ExecuteQuery() method?ExecuteQuery() method is used in the client object model, it basically used to avoid number of round trips to the server and all the components loaded into the clientcontext are executed in one go.

What is REST in SharePoint 2010 and how it is used ?
REST (Representation State Transfer).  It is basically a protocol which is powered by ADO.Net services which is used to get data out of the SharePoint via URL like webservices. It is also used to access data from the SharePoint even when the user is not in SharePoint context providing proper credentials.

What data type does REST return?It returns an XML output.

What is GAC ?GAC is a Global assembly cache folder on the server hosting SharePoint where user places their assemblies which needs to be used globally.

What is CAML ?
CAML is a Collaborative Application Markup Language and it is based on XML which is used in Microsoft Windows SharePoint services to define sites and lists. For example , fields, views, or forms, but CAML is also used to define tables in the Windows SharePoint services during site provisioning.

What is the benefit developer gets when they use LINQ over CAML for data retrieval?Unlike CAML, using LINQ to SharePoint provider, developers are mostly working with strongly types list item object. Suppose an item in the Announcement list is an object of type Announcement and an item on a Task list is an object of type task. Developer can then enumerate these objects and get the properties for their use. In addition, developer can take benefit of LINQ syntax and LINQ keywords which are much easier and sophisticated built in C# and VB for LINQ queries.

What are the main disadvantage of using LINQ in the code ?
Basically what LINQ does is it translates the LINQ queries in Collaborative Application Markup Language(CAML) queries which adds an extra step to retrieve the data

What exactly does RunWithElevatedPrivileges in Server Object model does ?Sometimes there are certain object model can call another model which requires site-administration privileges. To bypass the access-denied error we are using RunWithElevatedPrivileges. When a non-privileged  user initiates any request so at that time we can successfully make calls to the object model by using RunWithElevatedPrivileges method property provided by the SPSecurity class.

How to create a Content Type ?
Content type can be created in three ways,
1. SharePoint Foundation interface
2. SharePoint foundation object model
3. Deploying a feature that installs the content type based on an XML definition file.

How content type is deployed?
Content type can be associated with list or library and can be deployed using feature. Inside the Feature, it contains a feature.xml file which contains all the references to all the elements manifests within that Feature. Content type definitions are element manifests.

What exactly the scope of content type ?
Site

Is it possible to derived list definition from a custom content type ?Yes it is possible; It can be seen in the schema.XML of the list definition in the element.

While creating a list definition, how can a user create an instance of the list? 
User can create a new instance of a list by creating an instance.XML file

What is ghosted page in SharePoint 2010?
The page which is not stored in the content database instead it refers to a file which resides on the server’s file system.  These reference files are common for the site collections and Web applications within the SharePoint server.  If user modifies a reference file then that change will reflect in all the site collection within that SharePoint server automatically.

What is Un-ghosted page?All the pages which are stored in the content database are referred to as un-ghosted pages. All the un-ghosted pages are specific to that SharePoint web application only. i.e. changes done in an un-ghosted page will not reflect in other web applications within that SharePoint server.

How many types of pages available in SharePoint 2010?
Two types of pages are available in SharePoint 2010,
1.Application Page
2.Site Page

What are application pages in SharePoint 2010?
Application pages are stored on the file systems on the front end web servers in the layout directory. They allow in line code without restriction. Dynamic webparts or webpart zones cannot be created on application pages or they cannot modify on SharePoint Designer. Application pages are not stored in the content database. They never run in safe mode. As application pages reside on file system they cannot be used in sandbox solution.

In what scenarios we can use application pages?
1. Administrative pages
2. To capture data
3. Configuration pages
4. To restrict user to customize the page
5. with any site or site collection or web application on same server
6. When we want to add custom code or inline code to the page

What are the basic differences between site page and application page ?

S. No	Application Pages	Site Pages
1	Pages are stored in the file system.	Pages are stored in the content database
2	Application pages cannot be used with Sandbox solutions	Site pages are used with Sandbox solution
3	Application pages cannot be edited in SharePoint Designer	Site pages can be edited in SharePoint Designer
4	An application page cannot be modified by end user for that developer is a must.	Site pages can be edited by end user.
5	Inline code is used in Application pages	Inline code cannot be used in Site Pages.

Is it possible to add web parts and web zones into an application page ?No, application pages does not support edit mode but static web parts can be added by editing them in visual studio.

How to edit an Application page?An application page can be edited in two way i.e Visual studio and notepad. However in both ways we need to deply application page again for further usage.

If a page with some code has to be deployed, which type of page should be selected?Application page should be selected.

What are the ways to create custom Master page ?
There are multiple ways to create custom master page files,
1.By SharePoint Designer
2.By editing minimal.master using any editor
3.By copying and editing existing master page

More at our blog here -  SharePoint 2010 Interviews

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SharePoint 2010 Interview Questions and Answers (Part - 1)

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,

• SPFarm
• SPWebApplication
• SPSite
• SPWeb
• SPList
• SPListItem
• SPDocumentLibrary

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 site’s 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. It’s possible to extend this onet.xml.

How to get the data from multiple lists?Or
What 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: It’s 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 forms

Deploying files to disk is not possible in Sandbox solution. 

This means you can’t deploy thefollowing 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.

Sharepoint Interview Questions- Answers Part2

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SharePoint Interview Questions and Answers

SharePoint Interview Questions:

What is SharePoint?
What is SharePoint, SharePoint is a technology used for web site development. Its collaboration portal which is used to share the data at a one point and then can be accessed based on the user roles and permission levels.

With SharePoint, rather than having to seek out a developer, users can now just talk to the database and server administrators, and start creating and deploying sites themselves. SharePoint will take care of all the data and its connection to the content database.

SharePoint provides various templates and features for modifying and customizing almost everything, from simple layout to the data structure held in lists. For the user, SharePoint acts like an application. Several tools accompany it, including Central Administration, SharePoint Designer, Infopath and the site settings options.

What is WSS and MOSS?
WSS is nothing but the Windows SharePoint Services, and Content Management System in 2003, generally useful for small team/ organization portal development. MOSS is Microsoft Office SharePoint Services is developed in 2007. This was very stable SharePoint version, before 2010.
In SharePoint 2010, there is integration of WSS (2003) and MOSS (2007).

What is top 10 Features in SharePoint?

1. SharePoint Designer Enhancement
2. Fast Search
3. Business Connectivity Services
4. New Hardware Requirement
5. Workflow improvement
6. Visio Services
7. Social Networking Capabilities
8. Developer Productivity Enhancement
9. Business Intelligence Requirement
10. Reporting and Logging

What is Central Administration in SharePoint?
Central Administration in SharePoint is a website which is useful for administration functionality or configuration setting for sites. Central Admin can perform many task at farm level, including site collections and other sites settings.
You can find its server running in windows services as - SharePoint Central Administration started, and IIS application pool.

What is WebPart?
Web Part is the unit of functionality in SharePoint. Web Parts are placed within the Web Part Zone. There are two types of Web Parts :
1. Visual Web Part
2. Non-Visual Web Part

It can act like a window to a component that may be displayed on another SharePoint page on your site. A Web Part may display your calendar or task list or a shared documents library. There are other types of Web Parts that show components like an Excel spreadsheet or a list of site members. We can combine and configure several Web Parts on a single page to show various components on your site.

A Web Part can be edited, and also an item can be added to Web Part. Some Web Parts can be much more complicated and can involve much more configuration which is why you might want to close one you've worked on rather than deleting it. Closed Web Parts can be found in the Closed Web Parts Category.

What is Site Collection?
Site Collection is a logical group of sub sites which helps us to identify the sites group wise like HR site collection will have HR sub sites, ACCOUNT site collection will have accounts sub sites. Site collection helps us to have separate permissions for each site collection. so that hr users will not have access for accounts users and vice a versa.

What is Site Template in SharePoint 2010?
What is Site Column in SharePoint 2010?
What is Site Definition in SharePoint 2010?
What is difference between List and Library?
What are the main features in SharePoint?
What is difference between Farm Solution and Sandbox Solution in SharePoint?
What is the difference between Site Pages and Application Pages?
What are the Content Types?

What are the Event Receivers?
It is nothing but an events that can be used to handle the action in SharePoint 2010.
Event receivers are classes that inherit from the SpItemEventReciever or SPListEventReciever base class (both of which derive out of the abstract base class SPEventRecieverBase), and provide the option of responding to events as they occur within SharePoint, such as adding an item or deleting an item.

What is CAML?
CAML

What is difference between SPSite and SPWeb object?
SPSite object represents the site collection (the top level site and its subsites) and contains the information about the site collections and different objects under it whereas SPWeb reprensets the subsite under the particular site collection. The actual contents are accessible using SPWeb object.
You can access all other object within that site collection or site with SPSite and SPWeb objects.

What does AllowUnsafeUpdates do?

References:
Basic SharePoint Interview Questions and Answers
Advance SharePoint Interview Questions and Answers

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Sharepoint 2010 Interview Questions and Answers

Sharepoint Interview Questions

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Q. What is a web part?

Ans1: Web parts consist of xml queries to full SharePoint lists or document libraries. You can also develop your own web parts and web part pages.

Ans2: 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 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 aSolution is installed on a server in the farm, you can deploy it to any webapplication from your SolutionManagement.

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 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 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 serverextensions\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 sharepointserver. 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 serverextensions\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 bins
• Dedicated usage Reports
• Distributed administration (site collection administrators)
• Dedicated search scopes, keywords, and best-bets
• Custom feature deployments
• Dedicated language translation maintenance
• Dedicated galleries for web parts, master pages, content types, site columns, site templates, and list templates
• Dedicated shared libraries, such as site collection images and site collection styles
• Dedicated real estate (Self Containment)

For the IT Administrators:

• Site quota templates
• Distributed administration
• Site locking
• Database maintenance options
• Backup / Restore abilities
• Content Deployments
• InfoPath forms services global template targeting

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 are the advantages of SharePoint Portal Services (SPS) over SharePoint Team Services (STS)?

SharePoint Portal Services (SPS) has MUCH better document management. It has check-in, check-out, versioning, approval, publishing, subscriptions, categories, etc. STS does not have these features, or they are very scaled back. SharePoint Portal Services (SPS) has a better search engine, and can crawl multiple content sources. STS cannot. STS is easier to manage and much better for a team environment where there is not much Document Management going on. SPS is better for an organization, or where Document Management is crucial.

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