Monday, August 31, 2009

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

The only files restricted are those ending with the following extensions: .asa, .asp, .ida, .idc, .idq. Microsoft reserves the right to add additional file types to this listing at any time. Also, no content that violates the terms of service may be uploaded or posted to the site.
Can SharePoint be linked to an external data source?
SharePoint data can be opened with Access and Excel as an external data source. Thus, SharePoint can be referenced as an external data source. SharePoint itself cannot reference an external data source.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Can SharePoint be linked to a SQL database?

This is possible via a custom application, but it not natively supported by SharePoint or SQL Server.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Can I customize my Windows SharePoint Services site?

YES! Windows SharePoint Services makes updating sites and their content from the browser easier then ever.
SharePoint includes tools that let you create custom lists, calendars, page views, etc. You can apply a theme; add List, Survey and Document Library Web Parts to a page; create personal views; change logos; connect Web Parts and more.
To fully customize your site, you can use Microsoft FrontPage 2003. Specifically, you can use FrontPage themes and shared borders, and also use FrontPage to create photo galleries and top ten lists, utilize standard usage reports, and integrate automatic Web content.
Will Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 run on a 64-bit version of Microsoft Windows?
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Office SharePoint Server 2007, Office Forms Server 2007, and Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Search will support 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003.

Friday, August 28, 2009

How Office SharePoint Server 2007 can help you?

Office SharePoint Server 2007 can help us:
Manage content and streamline processes. Comprehensively manage and control unstructured content like Microsoft Office documents, Web pages, Portable Document Format file (PDF) files, and e-mail messages. Streamline business processes that are a drain on organizational productivity.
Improve business insight. Monitor your business, enable better-informed decisions, and respond proactively to business events.
Find and share information more simply. Find information and expertise wherever they are located. Share knowledge and simplify working with others within and across organizational boundaries.
Empower IT to make a strategic impact. Increase responsiveness of IT to business needs and reduce the number of platforms that have to be maintained by supporting all the intranet, extranet, and Web applications across the enterprise with one integrated platform.
Office SharePoint Server 2007 capabilities can help improve organizational effectiveness by connecting people, processes, and information.
Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides these capabilities in an integrated server offering, so your organization doesn't have to integrate fragmented technology solutions itself.
What are the features that the portal components of Office SharePoint Server 2007 include?
The portal components of Office SharePoint Server 2007 include features that are especially useful for designing, deploying, and managing enterprise intranet portals, corporate Internet Web sites, and divisional portal sites. The portal components make it easier to connect to people within the organization who have the right skills, knowledge, and project experience.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

What are the advanced features of MOSS 2007?

* User Interface (UI) and navigation enhancements
* Document management enhancements
* The new Workflow engine
* Office 2007 Integration
* New Web Parts
* New Site-type templates
* Enhancements to List technology
* Web Content Management
* Business Data Catalog
* Search enhancements
* Report Center
* Records Management
* Business Intelligence and Excel Server
* Forms Server and InfoPath
* The “Features” feature
* Alternate authentication providers and Forms-based authentication

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

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

The new and enhanced content management features in Office SharePoint Server 2007 fall within three areas:
* Document management
* Records management
* Web content management
Office SharePoint Server 2007 builds on the core document management functionality provided by Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, including check in and check out, versioning, metadata, and role-based granular access controls. Organizations can use this functionality to deliver enhanced authoring, business document processing, Web content management and publishing, records management, policy management, and support for multilingual publishing.
Does a SharePoint Web site include search functionality?
Yes. SharePoint Team Services provides a powerful text-based search feature that helps you find documents and information fast.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

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

The search component of Office SharePoint Server 2007 has been significantly enhanced by this release of SharePoint Products and Technologies. New features provide:
* A consistent and familiar search experience.
* Increased relevance of search results.
* New functions to search for people and expertise.
* Ability to index and search data in line-of-business applications and
* Improved manageability and extensibility.

Monday, August 24, 2009

What are the benefits of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007?

* Provide a simple, familiar, and consistent user experience.
* Boost employee productivity by simplifying everyday business activities.
* Help meet regulatory requirements through comprehensive control over content.
* Effectively manage and repurpose content to gain increased business value.
* Simplify organization-wide access to both structured and unstructured information across disparate systems.
* Connect people with information and expertise.
* Accelerate shared business processes across organizational boundaries.
* Share business data without divulging sensitive information.

* Enable people to make better-informed decisions by presenting business-critical information in one central location.
* Provide a single, integrated platform to manage intranet, extranet, and Internet applications across the enterprise.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Will SharePoint Portal Server and Team Services ever merge?

The products will come together because they are both developed by the Office team.
What does partial trust mean the Web Part developer?
If an assembly is installed into the BIN directory, the code must be ensured that provides error handling in the event that required permissions are not available. Otherwise, unhandled security exceptions may cause the Web Part to fail and may affect page rendering on the page where the Web Part appears.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

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

Windows SharePoint Services can use any of the following three options from ASP.NET and the CLR to provide assemblies installed in the BIN directory with sufficient permissions. The following table outlines the implications and requirements for each option.
Option Pros Cons Increase the trust level for the entire virtual server. For more information, see "Setting the trust level for a virtual server" Easy to implement. In a development environment, increasing the trust level allows you to test an assembly with increased permissions while allowing you to recompile assemblies directly into the BIN directory without resetting IIS. This option is least secure. This option affects all assemblies used by the virtual server.
There is no guarantee the destination server has the required trust level. Therefore, Web Parts may not work once installed on the destination server.
Create a custom policy file for your assemblies. For more information, see "How do I create a custom policy file?" Recommended approach.
This option is most secure.
An assembly can operate with a unique policy that meets the minimum permission requirements for the assembly.
By creating a custom security policy, you can ensure the destination server can run your Web Parts. Requires the most configuration of all three options.
Install your assemblies in the GAC
Easy to implement.
This grants Full trust to your assembly without affecting the trust level of assemblies installed in the BIN directory.
This option is less secure.
Assemblies installed in the GAC are available to all virtual servers and applications on a server running Windows SharePoint Services. This could represent a potential security risk as it potentially grants a higher level of permission to your assembly across a larger scope than necessary
In a development environment, you must reset IIS every time you recompile assemblies.
Licensing issues may arise due to the global availability of your assembly.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Does SharePoint work with NFS?

Yes and no. It can crawl documents on an NFS volume, but the sharepoint database or logs cannot be stored there.
How is SharePoint Portal Server different from the Site Server?
Site Server has search capabilities but these are more advanced using SharePoint. SPS uses digital dashboard technology which provides a nice interface for creating web parts and showing them on dashboards (pages). SS doesn't have anything as advanced as that. The biggest difference would be SPS document management features which also integrate with web folders and MS Office.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

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

A few suggestions:
# SPS and STS on same machine
# Tree view of Categories and Folders
# General Discussion Web Part
# Personalization of Dashboards
# Role Customization
# Email to say WHY a document has been rejected for Approval
# More ways to customize the interface
# Backup and restore an individual Workspaces
# Filter for Visio
# Better way to track activity on SPS

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

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

Document management does not scale beyond a single server, but scales great within a single server. For example, a quad Xeon machine with 4GB of RAM works great for a document management server that has about 900,000 - 1,000,000 document, but if you need to store 50,000,000 document and want to have them all in one single workspace then it does not scale at all. If you need a scenario like this, you need to plan your deployment right and it should scale for you, it just does not right out of the box.
If you are using your server as a portal and search server most for the most part it scales great. You can have many different servers crawl content sources and have separate servers searching and serving the content.
If you have < 750,000 documents per server and fewer than 4 content sources and fewer than 50,000 users, SPS should scale just fine for your needs with the proper planning.
What are the actual advantages of SharePoint Portal Services (SPS) over SharePoint Team Services (STS)?
SharePoint Portal Services (SPS) has MUCH better document management. It has check-in, check-out, versioning, approval, publishing, subscriptions, categories, etc. STS does not have these features, or they are very scaled back. SharePoint team 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.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

How Does SharePoint work?

The browser sends a DAV packet to IIS asking to perform a document check in. PKMDASL.DLL, an ISAPI DLL, parses the packet and sees that it has the proprietary INVOKE command. Because of the existence 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.

Monday, August 17, 2009

what is the difference between a document library and a form library?

Document libraries consist of your core documents. An example would be a word document, excel, powerpoint, visio, pdf, etc… Form libraries consist of XML forms.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

what is a web part?

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.

Friday, August 14, 2009

what is a document workspace?

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

Thursday, August 13, 2009

what is a meeting workspace?

A meeting workspace is a place to store information, attendees, and tasks related to a specific meeting.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

what is a document library?

A document library is where you upload your core documents. They consist of a row and column view with links to the documents. When the document is updated so is the link on your site. You can also track metadata on your documents. Metadata would consist of document properties.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

SharePoint Exam Questions

Question: 1
You are creating a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services application. You create a Windows SharePoint Services feature named MyFeature. You implement the feature within a Microsoft .NET namespace named MyFeature. You create a class named SiteMonitor that inherits from the SPWebEventReceiver class. The SiteMonitor class overrides two methods, named SiteDeleting and WebDeleting. Both methods cancel the deletion process.
You need to prevent all users, including site administrators, from deleting the MySite Web site. Which method should you use?
A. Public Sub AddReceiver(ByVal myWeb As SPWeb) myWeb.EventReceivers.Add(SPEventReceiverType.WebDeleting, _ "MyFeature", "MyFeature.SiteMonitor") End Sub
B. Public Sub AddReceiver(ByVal myWeb As SPWeb) For Each user As SPUser In myWeb.AllUsers user.IsSiteAdmin = False Next End Sub
C. Public Sub AddReceiver(ByVal myWeb As SPWeb) For Each user As SPUser In myWeb.SiteUsers user.IsSiteAdmin = False Next End Sub
D. Public Sub AddReceiver(ByVal myWeb As SPWeb , _ ByVal properties As SPFeatureReceiverProperties) Dim receiverAssembly As SPFeatureProperty = CType(properties._ Feature.Properties("ReceiverAssembly"), SPFeatureProperty) Dim receiverClass As SPFeaturePr operty = CType(properties._ Feature.Properties("ReceiverClass"), SPFeatureProperty)
receiverAssembly.Value = "MyFeature" receiverClass.Value = "SiteMonitor" End Sub
Answer: A
Question: 2
You create a custom administration page for a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Servicesapplication. The page is throwing a security exception. You verify that you have administrator rights on the Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services server. You need to ensure that the page can be used to perform administrative functions. Which two actions should you perform? (Each correct answer presents part of the solution. Choose two.)
A. Grant administrative rights to the impersonation account.
B. Register a hidden field by using the RegisterHiddenField method.
C. Impersonate an administrative account before calling the object model.
D. Use the RequestFromAdminPort method to specify the context of the request through the administrative port of the application.
Answer: B, D
Question: 3
You have a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services development server. You create a Web Part for a Windows SharePoint Services site. The Web Part must call a Web service.You deploy the Web Part on the development server. When you test the Web Part, the Web Part throws an exception. You need to prevent the occurrence of the exception when you test the Web Part. Which two actions should you perform? (Each correct answer presents part of the solution. Choose two.)
A. Update the Web.config file to use the new policy.
B. Impersonate a local administrator account in the Web Part.
C. Create a customized policy file in which WebPermission is enabled for the Web Part.
D. Create a customized policy file in which SecurityPermission is enabled for the Web Part.
Answer: A, C
Question: 4
You create the following two document libraries for the human resources department of your company:
Vacation requests for full-time employees Vacation requests for part-time employees You need to enable a single workflow to serve both document libraries.
What should you do?
A. Use Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to create the workflow. Install the assembly in the global assembly cache (GAC). Attach the workflow to both document libraries.
B. Use Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to create the workflow. Create a feature to deliver the workflow. Install and activate the feature. Attach the workflow to both document libraries.
C. Use Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer to create the workflow. During creation, assign the workflow to one of the document libraries. Attach the workflow to the other document library.
D. Use Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer to create the workflow. Attach the workflow to one of the document libraries. Create a list template that is based on the document library, and then create a new document library that is based on the list template.
Answer: B
Question: 5
You create a Web Part. The Web Part requires configuration information from the user. You plan to provide a custom interface for a custom field. You need to derive a class to implement the custom interface.
Which class should you use?

A. Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart
B. Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.ToolPart
C. Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebConfigModification
D. System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart
Answer: B
Question: 6
You create a custom task list in a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services site. You need to prevent users from changing the custom task list. You also need to ensure that an error message is displayed when a user tries to change the list. Which code segment should you use?
A. Public Overloads Overrides Sub ItemUpdating(ByVal properties _ As SPItemEventProperties) properties.Cancel = True properties.ErrorMessage = "Updating is not supported." End Sub
B. Public Overloads Overrides Sub ItemUpdated(ByVal properties _ As SPItemEventProperties) properties.Cancel = True properties.ErrorMessage = "Updating is not supported." End Sub
C. Public Overloads Overrides Sub ItemUncheckingOut(ByVal _properties As SPItemEventProperties) properties.Cancel = True properties.ErrorMessage = "Updating is not supported." End Sub
D. Public Overloads Overrides Sub ItemUncheckedOut(ByVal _properties As SPItemEventProperties) properties.Cancel = True properties.ErrorMessage = "Updating is not supported." End Sub
Answer: A
Question: 7
You create a Web Part that performs privileged operations. The Web Part requires permissions that the user might not have. You need to ensure that users with insufficient permissions can also run the Web Part to perform privileged operations.
Which method should you use?

A. SPSecurity.AuthenticationMode
B. SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges
C. SPSecurity.CatchAccessDeniedException
D. SPSecurity.SetApplicationC r endentialKey
Answer: B
Question: 8
You are writing a program that will periodically display activity on a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services site.
Which code segment should you use?
A. For Each job As SPJobDefinition In _ SPFarm.Local.TimerService.JobDefinitions Console.WriteLine("Job {0} will run at {1}", job.DisplayName, _ job.Schedule.NextExecution(DateTime.Now)) Next
B. For Each job As SPJobDefinition In _ SPFarm.Local.TimerService.JobDefinitions Console.WriteLine("Job {0} will run at {1}", job.DisplayName, _ job.Schedule.NextExecution(DateTime.MinValue)) Next
C. For Each job As SPRunningJob In _ SPFarm.Local.TimerService.JobDefinitions Console.WriteLine("Job {0} will run at {1}", _ j ob.JobDefinitionTitle, _ job.JobDefinition.Schedule.NextExecution(DateTime.Now)) Next
D. For Each job As SPJobDefinition In _ SPFarm.Local.TimerService.JobDefinitions Console.WriteLine("Job {0} will run at {1}", _ job.JobDefinitionTitle, _ job.JobDefinition.Schedule.NextExecution(DateTime.MinValue)) Next
Answer: A

History of SharePoint

Microsoft's first portal application was called Digital Dashboard. This product introduced the concept of Web parts — boxes of information on a page that represented a summary or overview of information. (Other vendors referred to these items as "portlets.") By assembling multiple parts on a page, each user could customize his view of the portal to contain the information that pertained to them. In theory, every visitor of the site could have different content at the same URL. However, the technology behind the Digital Dashboard was not up to the task, and it never made it out of the beta stage.
At the same time, Microsoft's Office group was working toward a collaboration solution. The need for many people to contribute to a single document or worksheet was growing. And, these people were not necessarily working at the same location. The result was SharePoint Team Services (STS), a Web-based solution that allowed shared access to information and documents. STS also allowed end-users to make changes to the site via a Web browser instead of requiring a development-oriented application.
The merging of the collaboration and aggregation functions lead to SharePoint Portal Server 2001. Portal Server has been upgraded to run on the .Net framework and is now referred to as SharePoint Products and Technologies. The "Product" is SharePoint Portal Server 2003 (SPS) and the "Technologies" are Windows SharePoint Services (WSS). A significant point about these two is that WSS is included with the Windows Server 2003 license. Any organization that is licensed for Windows Server 2003 can also host Websites that are based on WSS.

New SharePoint Interview Questions

1) What are the two base classes a WebPart you are going to use within SharePoint 2007 can inherit from?
There are two base classes that a WebPart which is going to be consumed by SharePoint can inherit from, either the SharePoint WebPart Base class or the ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart base class. When inheriting from the SharePoint WebPart Base class your derived WebPart class will inherit from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart. When inheriting from the ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart base class your derived WebPart class will inherit from System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart. It is considered good practice to use the ASP.NET WebPart base class since the old base class is meant for backwards compatibility with previous version of SharePoint; however there are four exceptions when it is better to leverage functionality from the SharePoint WebPart base class:
Cross page connections
Connections between Web Parts that are outside of a Web Part zone
Client-side connections (Web Part Page Services Component)
Data caching infrastructure
2) What are the differences between the two base classes and what are the inherit benefits of using one over another?
The difference is the Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart base class is meant for backward compatibility with previous versions of SharePoint. The benefit of using the SharePoint WebPart base class is it supported:
Cross page connections
Connections between Web Parts that are outside of a Web Part zone
Client-side connections (Web Part Page Services Component)
Data caching infrastructure
ASP.NET 2.0 Web Parts are generally considered better to use because SharePoint is built upon the ASP.NET 2.0 web architecture. Inheriting from the ASP.NET 2.0 base class offers you features that inherit to ASP.NET 2.0, such as embedding resources as opposed to use Class Resources for deployment of said types.
3) What is the GAC?
The GAC stands for the global assembly cache. It is the machine wide code cache which will give custom binaries place into the full trust code group for SharePoint. Certain SharePoint assets, such as Feature Receivers need full trust to run correctly, and therefore are put into the GAC. You should always try to avoid deployment to the GAC as much as possible since it will possibly allow development code to do more than it was intended to do.
4) What is strong naming (signing) a WebPart assembly files mean?
Signing an assembly with a strong name (a.k.a strong naming) uses a cryptographic key pair that gives a unique identity to a component that is being built. This identity can then be referred throughout the rest of the environment. In order to install assemblies into the GAC, they must be strongly named. After signing, the binary will have a public key token identifier which can be use to register the component in various other places on the server.
5) What are safe controls, and what type of information, is placed in that element in a SharePoint web.config file?
When you deploy a WebPart to SharePoint, you must first make it as a safe control to use within SharePoint in the web.config file. Entries made in the safe controls element of SharePoint are encountered by the SharePointHandler object and will be loaded in the SharePoint environment properly; those not will not be loaded and will throw an error.
In the generic safe control entry (this is general, there could be more), there is generally the Assembly name, the namespace, the public key token numeric, the typename, and the safe declaration (whether it is safe or not). There are other optional elements.
6) What is the CreateChildControls () method? How can you use it to do something simple like displaying a Label control?
The CreateChildControls method in Web Parts is used to notify the WebPart that there are children controls that should be output for rendering. Basically, it will add any child ASP.NET controls that are called instantiating each control with its relevant properties set, wire any relevant event handlers to the control, etc. Then the add method of the control class will add the control to the controls collection. In the relevant WebPart render method, the EnsureChildControls method can be called (or set to false if no child controls should be called) to ensure that the CreateChildControls method is run. When using CreateChildControls it implies that your WebPart contains a composition of child controls.
In order to create something like a label control in Create, you would create a new label control using the new keyword, set the various properties of the control like Visible=True and Fore Color = Color. Red, and then use Controls. Add (myLabelControl) to add the control to the controls collection. Then you can declare EnsureChildControls in the Render method of the WebPart.
7) What does the Render Contents method do in an ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart?
The render contents method will render the WebPart content to the writer, usually an HtmlTextWriter since Web Parts will output to an HTML stream. Render Contents is used to tell how the controls that are going to be displayed in the WebPart should be rendered on the page.
*** Side Question: I got asked what the difference between CreateChildControls and the Render Contents method. The CreateChildControls method is used to add controls to the WebPart, and the Render Contents method is used to tell the page framework how to render the control into HTML to display on a page.
8) What is the WebPartManager sealed class? What is its purpose?
The WebPartManager sealed class is responsible for managing everything occurring on a WebPart page, such as the Web Parts (controls), events, and misc. functionality that will occur in WebPartZones. For example, the WebPartManager is responsible for the functionality that is provided when you are working with moving a WebPart from WebPartZone to WebPartZone. It is known as the “the central class of the Web Part Control Set.”
*** Side Question: I got asked how many WebPartManager controls should be on a page. In order to have Web Parts on a page there has to be just one WebPartManager control to manage all the Web Parts on the page.
9) What is a SPSite and SPWeb object, and what is the difference between each of the objects?
The SPSite object represents a collection of sites (site collection [a top level site and all its sub sites]). The SPWeb object represents an instance SharePoint Web, and SPWeb object contains things like the actual content. A SPSite object contains the various sub sites and the information regarding them.
10) How would you go about getting a reference to a site?
Select For Unformatted Code
C#:
1. oSPSite = new SPSite("http:/server");
2.
3. oSPWeb = oSPSite.OpenWeb();
11) What does a SPWebApplication object represent?
The SPWebApplication objects represents a SharePoint Web Application, which essentially is an IIS virtual server. Using the class you can instigate high level operations, such as getting all the features of an entire Web Application instance, or doing high level creation operations like creating new Web Applications through code.
12) Would you use SPWebApplication to get information like the SMTP address of the SharePoint site?
Yes, since this is a Web Application level setting. You would iterate through each SPWebApplication in the SPWebApplication collection, and then use the appropriate property calls (OutboundMailServiceInstance) in order to return settings regarding the mail service such as the SMTP address.
Side Question: I got asked if there are other ways to send emails from SharePoint. The answer is yes, there is. You can use the Send Mail method from the SPutility class to send simple emails, however it is not as robust as using the System.Net.Mail functionality since it doesn’t allow things like setting priorities on the email.
13) How do you connect (reference) to a SharePoint list, and how do you insert a new List Item?
Select For Unformatted Code
C#:
1. using(SPSite mySite = new SPSite("yourserver"))
2. {
3. using(SPWeb myWeb = mySite.OpenWeb())
4. {
5. SPList interviewList = myWeb.Lists["listtoinsert"];
6. SPListItem newItem = interviewList.Items.Add();
7.
8. newItem["interview"] = "interview";
9. newItem.Update();
10. }
11. }
14) How would you loop using SPList through all Share Pont List items, assuming you know the name (in a string value) of the list you want to iterate through, and already have all the site code written?
Select For Unformatted Code
C#:
1. SPList interviewList = myWeb.Lists["listtoiterate"];
2. foreach (SPListItem interview in interviewList)
3. {
4. // Do Something
5. }
15) How do you return SharePoint List items using SharePoint web services?
In order to retrieve list items from a SharePoint list through Web Services, you should use the lists.asmx web service by establishing a web reference in Visual Studio. The lists.asmx exposes the GetListItems method, which will allow the return of the full content of the list in an XML node. It will take parameters like the GUID of the name of the list you are querying against, the GUID of the view you are going to query, etc.
Side Question: I got asked how I built queries with the lists.asmx web service. In order to build queries with this service, one of the parameters that the GetListItems method exposes is the option to build a CAML query. There are other ways to do this as well, but that was how I answered it.
16) When retrieving List items using SharePoint Web Services, how do you specify explicit credentials to be passed to access the list items?
In order to specify explicit credentials with a Web Service, you generally instantiate the web service, and then using the credentials properties of the Web Service object you use the System.Net.NetworkCredential class to specify the username, password, and domain that you wish to pass when making the web service call and operations.
*** Side Question: I got asked when you should state the credentials in code. You must state the credentials you are going to pass to the web service before you call any of the methods of the web service, otherwise the call will fail.
17) What is CAML, and why would you use it?
CAML stands for Collaborative Application Markup Language. CAML is an XML based language which provides data constructs that build up the SharePoint fields, view, and is used for table definition during site provisioning. CAML is responsible for rending data and the resulting HTML that is output to the user in SharePoint. CAML can be used for a variety of circumstances, overall is used to query, build and customize SharePoint based sites. A general use would be building a CAML query in a SharePoint WebPart in order to retrieve values from a SharePoint list.
18) What is impersonation, and when would you use impersonation?
Impersonation can basically provide the functionality of executing something in the context of a different identity, for example assigning an account to users with anonymous access. You would use impersonation in order to access resources on behalf of the user with a different account, that normally, that wouldn’t be able to access or execute something.
19) What is the IDesignTimeHtmlProvider interface, and when can you use it in WebParts?
The IDesignTimeHtmlProvider interface uses the function GetDesignTimeHtml() which can contain your relevant render methods. It was helpful to use in 2003 since it allowed your WebPart to have a preview while a page was edited in FrontPage with the Webpart on it, because the GetDesignTimeHtml() method contains the HTML for the designer to render.
20) What are WebPart properties, and what are some of the attributes you see when declaring WebPart properties in code?
WebPart properties are just like ASP.NET control properties, they are used to interact with and specify attributes that should be applied to a WebPart by a user. Some of the attributes you see with ASP.NET 2.0 properties are WebDescription, WebDisplayName, Category, Personalizable, and WebBrowsable. Although most of these properties come from the System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts class, ones like Category come out of System.ComponentModel namespace.
21) Why are properties important in WebPart development, and how have you exploited them in past development projects? What must each custom property have?
Properties are important because WebParts allow levels of personalization for each user. WebPart properties make it possible for a user to interact, adjust, and increase overall experience value with the programmatic assets that you develop without having the need to use an external editor or right any code. A very simple example of exploiting a property would be something like allowing the user to change the text on the WebPart design interface so that they can display whatever string of text they desire.
Each custom property that you have must have the appropriate get and set accessor methods.
22) What are ClassResources? How do you reference and deploy resources with an ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart?
ClassResources are used when inheriting from the SharePoint.WebPart.WebPartPages.WebPart base class, and are defined in the SharePoint solution file as things that should be stored in the wpresources directory on the server. It is a helpful directory to use in order to deploy custom images. In ASP.NET 2.0, typically things such as images are referenced by embedding them as resources within an assembly. The good part about ClassResources is they can help to eliminate recompiles to change small interface adjustments or alterations to external JavaScript files.
23) What is a SharePoint Solution File? How does it differ from WebPart .cab files in legacy development? What does it contain?
A SharePoint solution file is essentially a .cabinet file with all a developers ustom componets suffixed with a .wsp extension that aids in deployment. The big difference with SharePoint solution files is is that a solution:
allows deployment to all WFE’s in a farm
is highly manageable from the interface allowing deployment, retraction, and versioning
Can package all types of assets like site definitions, feature definitions (and associated components), Webparts, etc.
Can provide Code Access Security provisioning to avoid GAC deployments
Just to name a few things…
24) What is a .ddf file and what does it have to do with SharePoint Solution creation?
A .ddf file is a data directive file and is used when building the SharePoint solution bundle specifying the source files and their destination locations. The important thing for someone to understand is that the .ddf file will be passed as a parameter to the MAKECAB utility to orchestrate construction of the SharePoint solution fiel.
25) What file does a SharePoint solution package use to orchestrate (describe) its packaged contents?
The solution Manifest.XML file.
26) What deployment mechanism can you use to instigate Code Access Security attributes for your WebParts?
SharePoint solution files can add in order to handle code access security deployment issues. This is done in the element in the SharePoint solution manifest.XML, which makes it easier to get assemblies the appropriate permissions in order to operate in the bin directory of the web application.
27) What is a SharePoint Feature? What files are used to define a feature?
A SharePoint Feature is a functional component that can be activated and deactivate at various scopes throughout a SharePoint instances, such as at the farm, site collection, web, etc. Features have their own receiver architecture, which allow you to trap events such as when a feature is installing, uninstalling, activated, or deactivated. They are helpful because they allow ease of upgrades and versioning.
The two files that are used to define a feature are the feature.xml and manifest file. The feature XML file defines the actual feature and will make SharePoint aware of the installed feature. The manifest file contains details about the feature such as functionality.
Side Question: I got asked how the introduction of features has changed the concept of site definitions. SharePoint features are important when understanding the architecture of site definitions, since the ONET.XML file has been vastly truncated since it has several feature stapled on it.
28) What types of SharePoint assets can be deployed with a SharePoint feature?
Features can do a lot. For example, you could deploy
Simple site customizations
Custom site navigation
WebParts
pages
list types
list instances
event handlers
workflows
custom actions
just to name a few….
29) What are event receivers?
Event receivers are classes that inherit from the SpItemEventReciever or SPListEventReciever base class (both of which derive out of the abstract base class SPEventRecieverBase), and provide the option of responding to events as they occur within SharePoint, such as adding an item or deleting an item.
30) When would you use an event receiver?
Since event receivers respond to events, you could use a receiver for something as simple as canceling an action, such as deleting a document library by using the Cancel property. This would essentially prevent users from deleting any documents if you wanted to maintain retention of stored data.
31) What base class do event receivers inherit from?
Event receivers either inherit from the SPListEventReciever base class or the SPItemEventReciever base class, both which derive from the abstract base class SPEventReceiverBase.
32) If I wanted to not allow people to delete documents from a document library, how would I go about it?
You would on the ItemDeleting event set: properties.Cancel= true.
33) What is the difference between an asynchronous and synchronous event receivers?
An asynchronous event occurs after an action has taken place, and a synchronous event occurs before an action has take place. For example, an asynchronous event is ItemAdded, and its sister synchronous event is ItemAdding.
34) How could you append a string to the title of a site when it is provisioned?
In the OnActivated event:
Select For Unformatted Code
C#:
1. SPWeb site = siteCollection.RootWeb;
2. site.Title += "interview";
3. site.Update();
35) Can an event receiver be deployed through a SharePoint feature?
Yes.
36) What is a content type?
A content type is an information blueprint basically that can be re-used throughout a SharePoint environment for defining things like metadata and associated behaviors. It is basically an extension of a SharePoint list, however makes it portable for use throughout an instance regardless of where the instantiation occurs, ergo has location independence. Multiple content types can exist in one document library assuming that the appropriate document library settings are enabled. The content type will contain things like the metadata, listform pages, workflows, templates (if a document content type), and associated custom written functionality.
37) Can a content type have receivers associated with it?
Yes, a content type can have an event receiver associated with it, either inheriting from the SPListEventReciever base class for list level events, or inheriting from the SPItemEventReciever base class. Whenever the content type is instantiated, it will be subject to the event receivers that are associated with it.
38) What two files are typically (this is kept generally) included when developing a content type, and what is the purpose of each?
There is generally the main content type file that holds things like the content type ID, name, group, description, and version. There is also the ContentType.Fields file which contains the fields to include in the content type that has the ID, Type, Name, DisplayName, StaticName, Hidden, Required, and Sealed elements. They are related by the FieldRefs element in the main content type file.
39) What is an ancestral type and what does it have to do with content types?
An ancestral type is the base type that the content type is deriving from, such as Document (0x0101). The ancestral type will define the metadata fields that are included with the custom content type.
40) Can a list definition be derived from a custom content type?
Yes, a list definition can derive from a content type which can be seen in the schema.XML of the list definition in the element.
41) When creating a list definition, how can you create an instance of the list?
You can create a new instance of a list by creating an instance.XML file.
42) What is a Field Control?
Field controls are simple ASP.NET 2.0 server controls that provide the basic field functionality of SharePoint. They provide basic general functionality such as displaying or editing list data as it appears on SharePoint list pages.
43) What base class do custom Field Controls inherit from?
This varies. Generally, custom field controls inherit from the Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.BaseFieldControl namespace, but you can inherit from the default field controls.
44) What is a SharePoint site definition? What is ghosted (uncustomized) and unghosted (customized)?
SharePoint site definitions are the core set of functionality from which SharePoint site are built from, building from the SiteTemplates directory in the SharePoint 12 hive. Site definitions allow several sites to inherit from a core set of files on the file system, although appear to have unique pages, thereby increasing performance and allowing changes that happen to a site propagate to all sites that inherit from a site definition. Ghosted means that when SharePoint creates a new site it will reference the files in the related site definition upon site provisioning. Unghosted means that the site has been edited with an external editor, and therefore the customizations are instead stored in the database, breaking the inheritance of those files from the file system.
45) How does one deploy new SharePoint site definitions so that they are made aware to the SharePoint system?
The best way to deploy site definitions in the SharePoint 2007 framework is to use a SharePoint solution file, so that the new site definition is automatically populated to all WFE’s in the SharePoint farm.

what is SharePoint?

Portal Collaboration Software.
what is the difference between SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services?
SharePoint Portal Server is the global portal offering features like global navigation and searching. Windows SharePoint Services is more content management based with document libraries and lists. You apply information to certain areas within your portal from Windows SharePoint Services or directly to portal areas.