Gowdra Gadhla

SharePoint 2013 Architecture my notes

2017-07-27T21:18:00.000-07:00

SharePoint 2013 Architecture my notes

Note: This content is extract from different sites for my reference

Microsoft breaks down Office 365 into two plans; P Plans and E Plans. Choose wisely as you cannot swap between the P and E plans once they are setup.

The P plan is geared towards small businesses that have no plans on implementing Single Sign-On (ADFS). Microsoft recommends no more than 50 users on this plan. You will get Exchange, Lync, and SharePoint, but these are limited in their capabilities. Keep in mind that this is geared for the small business. The draw back for this plan is that there is no support offered by Microsoft.

The E plan is built for the Enterprise clients. Depending on the sub-plan that you choose, the sky is the limit for services offered. This includes the ability to enable Active Directory integration (with ADFS and Directory Sync); single sign-on with local Active Directory credentials to services in Office 365 cloud. It also allows for hybrid configurations of Exchange, Lync and SharePoint. This allows your company to have some services in the cloud and some services on-premise.

Multi-Tenant (Public)

A public cloud is based on the popular definition of cloud computing – it provides services, applications and computing resources off-site. Multi-tenancy is synonymous with the term “public cloud”, as the resources used are shared by multiple organizations. This leads to greater efficiency, amazing scalability and lower costs, all of which are huge draws of public cloud computing. Businesses typically use a pay-as-you-go model, truly purchasing the cloud “as a service”. The cloud provider is responsible for the infrastructure costs, allowing businesses to see costs based only on need. Opposite of these benefits are a few of the downsides: less customization and greater restrictions Because the infrastructure is managed by the cloud provider, the individual businesses have very little control over the way it operates. There are also many security concerns with a public cloud environment. While it doesn’t provide an ideal situation for tailor-made security policies, cloud providers have ensured a focus on top-tier security. The reliability of the public cloud depends on the provider, and that’s why it’s important to conduct research before making the switch. A multi-tenant environment is typically best suited for small or medium businesses that need to bring their services to market quickly, heavily rely on Software as a Service, and have fewer compliance obstacles.

Dedicated (Private) VNext

Private cloud, on the other hand, is one that maintains the services, applications and computing resources within a private network. These resources are dedicated solely to one organization but can be hosted either on-site or off-site with the help of a third party provider. This single-tenancy is where the word “private” comes from, though many believe it refers to security. While greater control over security is definitely boosted in a private cloud environment, it still always depends on the quality of the specific situation. A dedicated cloud offers the benefits of advanced security and control, more flexibility and easier compliance with regulations. This cloud model is beneficial to larger organizations, but it also has its downsides: reduced cost savings and increased management and responsibility. With a private cloud, the company is typically more involved in the management and maintenance of the ecosystem as a whole, although RapidScale offers to completely manage their systems if they so choose. A private cloud environment is also very beneficial for large companies that need to conform to strict industry regulations and standards and regularly uses business-critical data and applications that require high levels of security. This includes healthcare providers, government organizations, and financial institutions.

Hybrid

The cloud model that is significantly increasing in popularity is hybrid, which fittingly combines both public and private clouds. This method allows organizations to decide which aspects of their business they want in each environment, allowing them to take advantage of all the benefits. Hybrid cloud computing accommodates the need for scalability as well as security. It is viewed as the best of both worlds because companies can complete non-sensitive operations and collaboration in the public environment while ensuring that critical data and applications remain controlled in the private cloud. But, like the other models, the hybrid cloud isn’t all perks. Its cons include greater complexity and increased management requirements. It requires organizations to keep track of various platforms and ensure that all facets of the business can communicate with each other. The hybrid environment is best suited for organizations that experience business fluctuation but still deal with confidential information. This includes e-commerce businesses, which see constant traffic shifts but also deal with personal and payment information. The hybrid cloud allows these types of businesses to complete processing and basic operations up-front, while keeping the private information, well, private.

SharePoint 2013 topologies

There are two type of approaches available for the topology as in the following:

Streamlined topologies: the distribution of services and other components in a farm is intended to maximize system resources of server hardware. Streamlined architectures include front-end servers, batch-processing servers, and database servers
Traditional topologies: Topologies are based on traditional approaches to building architectures with Web servers, application servers, and database servers.

The traditional three-tier roles of a Microsoft SharePointÂ® 2013 farm can be deployed on a single server for evaluation or development, or on many servers. The three-tier roles include the following

Web server roleFast, light-weight server that responds to user requests for web pages. All web servers in a farm are mirrors of each other and are load balanced

Hosts web pages, Web services, and Web Parts that are necessary to process requests served by the farm.
Directs requests to the appropriate application servers.
In dedicated services farms, this role is not necessary because web servers at remote farms contact application servers directly.

Application server roleProvides the service features of SharePoint products and technologies. An application server often provides all or a subset of service features. Multiple redundant application servers can be load balanced.

In many farms, all services will run on two identically configured application servers for redundancy.
The Search service application automatically configures the necessary services on application servers. Using the Services on Server page is not necessary.
After deployment, look for services that consume a disproportionate amount of resources and consider placing these services on dedicated hardware.

Database server roleStores content and service data. All databases can be assigned to one database server. Or databases can be spread across multiple servers. All databases can be clustered or mirrored for failover protection. In a small farm, server roles can be combined on one or two servers. For example, web server and application server roles can be combined on a single server or on two or more servers to provide redundancy.

Service Applications
Service applications are services that are shared across sites within a farm. Some service applications can be shared across multiple farms. Service applications are deployed to the application server tier. Some services include multiple components, and deployment of these components require planning.

Traditional web tier is redefined as Caching and Request Processing tier which would group similar web front end servers for end user request processing along with new service applications like Request Management and Distributed Cache which would require very low latency but very high throughout. Request Management is disabled by default and Distributed Cache is enabled by default. Since Request Manager is CPU intensive and Distributed Cache is memory intensive, both of these services can share same server without any major performance hit.
Traditional Application tier is divided into two optimized tiers – Front End Servers and Batch Processing Servers.
- Front-End Servers would group similar service applications which would serve user requests with low latency, low resource utilization, and optimized for faster performance and response time. Services like Central Administration, Managed Metadata, User Profile, App Management, Search Query Role, and Business Data Connectivity are ideal for Front End Servers.
- Batch Processing Servers would group similar service applications which would typically require long running back ground processes, high latency, and high resource utilization, and optimized for higher workload by maximizing system resources. Services like User Profile Sync, Work Management, Search Crawl and Index Role, Workflow, Machine Translation etc. are ideal for Batch Processing Servers. For large scale farms, Batch processing tier can be divided further into specialized load servers for services like Search, PerformancePoint, or Excel Services which can cause high spikes in performance during peak time.
- Database tier stays same in both traditional and streamlined model. These servers can be either clustered, mirrored, or configured with Always On.

Hardware requirements—web servers, application servers, and single server installations

Installation Scenario	Deployment type and scale	RAM	Processor	Hard disk space
Single server with a built-in database or single server that uses SQL Server	Development or evaluation installation of SharePoint Server 2013 or SharePoint Foundation 2013 with the minimum recommended services for development environments. For information, see Minimum recommended services for development environments.	8 GB	64-bit, 4 cores	80 GB for system drive
Single server with a built-in database or single server that uses SQL Server	Development or evaluation installation of SharePoint Server 2013 or SharePoint Foundation 2013 running Visual Studio 2012 and the minimum recommended services for development environments. For information, see Minimum recommended services for development environments.	10 GB	64-bit, 4 cores	80 GB for system drive
Single server with a built-in database or single server that uses SQL Server	Development or evaluation installation of SharePoint Server 2013 running all available services.	24 GB	64-bit, 4 cores	80 GB for system drive
Web server or application server in a three-tier farm	Pilot, user acceptance test, or production deployment of SharePoint Server 2013 or SharePoint Foundation 2013.	12 GB	64-bit, 4 cores	80 GB for system drive

Hardware requirements—database servers

Component	Minimum requirement
Processor	64-bit, 4 cores for small deployments (fewer than 1,000 users) 64-bit, 8 cores for medium deployments (between 1,000 to 10,000 users)
RAM	8 GB for small deployments (fewer than 1,000 users) 16 GB for medium deployments (between 1,000 to 10,000 users) For large deployments over 10,000 users, see the "Estimate memory requirements" section in Storage and SQL Server capacity planning and configuration (SharePoint Server 2010). This document does not apply to search in SharePoint 2013. These values are larger than those recommended as the minimum values for SQL Server because of the distribution of data that is required for a SharePoint 2013 environment. For more information about SQL Server system requirements, see Hardware and Software Requirements for Installing SQL Server 2008 R2.
Hard disk	80 GB for system drive Hard disk space depends on how much content that you have in your deployment. For information about how to estimate the amount of content and other databases for your deployment, see Storage and SQL Server capacity planning and configuration (SharePoint Server 2010).

Minimum software requirements

This section provides minimum software requirements for each server in the farm.

Minimum requirements for a database server in a farm:

One of the following:
- The 64-bit edition of Microsoft SQL Server 2012.
- The 64-bit edition of SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1
The 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter or the 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter
The SharePoint parsing process crashes in Windows Server 2008 R2 (KB 2554876)
FIX: IIS 7.5 configurations are not updated when you use the ServerManager class to commit configuration changes (KB 2708075)
Hotfix: ASP.NET (SharePoint) race condition in .NET 4.5 RTM:
- Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (KB 2759112)
- Windows Server 2012 (KB 2765317)
Microsoft .NET Framework version 4.5

Minimum requirements for a single server with built-in database:

Note:
At this time, Windows Server 2016 RTM is not supported.

The 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter or the 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard or Datacenter

Note:
Windows Server 2012 R2 is only supported on a SharePoint Server 2013 Service Pack 1 environment. For additional information about Windows Server 2012 R2 support, see SharePoint 2013 SP1 support in Windows Server 2012 R2.

The SharePoint parsing process crashes in Windows Server 2008 R2 (KB 2554876)
FIX: IIS 7.5 configurations are not updated when you use the ServerManager class to commit configuration changes (KB 2708075)
Hotfix: ASP.NET (SharePoint) race condition in .NET 4.5 RTM:
- Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (KB 2759112)
- Windows Server 2012 (KB 2765317)
The Setup program installs the following prerequisite for a single server with built-in database:
- Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 - Express Edition
The Microsoft SharePoint Products Preparation Tool installs the following prerequisites for a single server with built-in database:
- Web Server (IIS) role
- Application Server role
- Microsoft .NET Framework version 4.5
- SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 Native Client
- Microsoft WCF Data Services 5.0
- Microsoft Information Protection and Control Client (MSIPC)
- Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime v1.0 SP1 (x64)
- Windows Management Framework 3.0 which includes Windows PowerShell 3.0
- Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) 1.0 and Microsoft Identity Extensions (previously named WIF 1.1)
- Windows Server AppFabric
- Cumulative Update Package 1 for Microsoft AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server (KB 2671763)

Minimum requirements for front-end web servers and application servers in a farm:

Note:
At this time, Windows Server 2016 RTM is not supported.

The 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter or the 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard or Datacenter.

Note:
Windows Server 2012 R2 is only supported on a SharePoint Server 2013 Service Pack 1 environment. For additional information about Windows Server 2012 R2 support, see SharePoint 2013 SP1 support in Windows Server 2012 R2.

The SharePoint parsing process crashes in Windows Server 2008 R2 (KB 2554876)
FIX: IIS 7.5 configurations are not updated when you use the ServerManager class to commit configuration changes (KB 2708075)
Hotfix: ASP.NET (SharePoint) race condition in .NET 4.5 RTM:
- Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (KB 2759112)
- Windows Server 2012 (KB 2765317)
The Microsoft SharePoint Products Preparation Tool installs the following prerequisites for front-end web servers and application servers in a farm:
- Web Server (IIS) role
- Application Server role
- Microsoft .NET Framework version 4.5
- SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 Native Client
- Microsoft WCF Data Services 5.0
- Microsoft Information Protection and Control Client (MSIPC)
- Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime v1.0 SP1 (x64)
- Windows Management Framework 3.0 which includes Windows PowerShell 3.0
- Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) 1.0 and Microsoft Identity Extensions (previously named WIF 1.1)
- Windows Server AppFabric
- Cumulative Update Package 1 for Microsoft AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server (KB 2671763)

Minimum requirements for client computers

A supported browser. For more information, see Plan browser support in SharePoint 2013. For information on browsers supported on mobile devices, see Mobile device browsers supported in SharePoint 2013.

Minimum recommended services for development environments

The following are the minimum SharePoint 2013 services and service applications that are recommended for development environments:

App Management service application
Central Administration web site
Claims to Windows Token service (C2WTS)
Distributed cache service
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2013 Site and Subscription Settings service
Secure Store Service
User Profile service application (SharePoint Server 2013 only)

Profile synchronization, also known as "profile sync," in SharePoint Server 2013.

A user profile is a collection of properties that describes a SharePoint user. Features such as My Sites and People Search use user profiles to provide a rich, personalized experience for the users in your organization. You can create user profiles by importing data from directory services, such as Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS). You can augment user profiles by importing data from business systems, such as SAP or SQL Server. The process of importing profile data from external systems and writing data back to these systems is called profile synchronization.

Get an overview of People Picker and links to topics about how to plan for People Picker in SharePoint 2013.

People Picker is a web control that is used to find and select users, groups, and claims to grant permission to items such as lists, libraries, or sites in SharePoint 2013. For web applications that use claims-based authentication, the People Picker control uses claims providers to list, resolve, search, and determine the "friendly" display of users, groups, and claims. A claims provider in SharePoint 2013 issues claims, which SharePoint 2013 then packages into security tokens for users.

Document management in SharePoint 2013

The elements of a document management system

An effective document management solution specifies the following:

What kinds of documents and other content can be created in an organization.
What template to use for each kind of document.
What metadata to provide for each kind of document.
Where to store a document at each stage of its life cycle.
How to control access to a document at each stage of its life cycle.
How to move documents within the organization as team members contribute to the documents' creation, review, approval, publication, and disposition.

The planning process

The document management planning process consists of the following major steps:

Identify document management roles Ensure that your plans incorporate the feedback of your organization's key stakeholders, you have the best team to implement the solution, and you know who will participate in document management processes.
Analyze document usage After you identify who works on documents, determine the kinds of documents that they work on and how they use them. For more information, see Identify users and analyze document usage in SharePoint 2013.
Plan the organization of documents You can organize documents in site collections, sites, and libraries. SharePoint 2013 offers a range of features to help organize and store documents, from specialized sites to loosely structured document libraries for quick document creation and collaboration. Within a library, you can additionally organize content into folders and subfolders. For more information, see Plan document libraries in SharePoint 2013.
Plan how content moves between locations It might be necessary to move or copy a document from one site or library to another at different stages of its life cycle. For more information, see "Plan the flow of content" in Plan document libraries in SharePoint 2013.
Plan content types Use content types to organize information about documents, such as metadata, document templates, and workflow processes. This is an important step to help you organize your documents and enforce consistency across your organization. For more information, see Plan content types and workflows in SharePoint 2013.
Plan workflows When you plan workflows for your organization, you can control and track how documents move from one team member to another as each participant collaborates in a document's life cycle. SharePoint Server 2013 includes workflows for common team tasks such as reviewing and approving documents. SharePoint 2013 also supports creating and installing custom workflows. For more information, see Plan content types and workflows in SharePoint 2013.
Plan content governance You can plan the appropriate degree of control that is based on content type or storage location. For example, you might require that documents in a particular library be checked out before they can be edited. For more information, see Plan document versioning, content approval, and check-out controls in SharePoint 2013.
Plan policies For each content type, plan information management policies to make sure that documents are audited, retained, and otherwise handled according to your organization's institutional and legal requirements. SharePoint Server 2013 includes policies that implement auditing, document retention, and bar codes (to make sure that printed content can be correlated with corresponding electronic versions). For more information, see Plan for information management policy in SharePoint Server 2013.

able: How document libraries are used

Library	Purpose
Library in a team site	Collaboration; easy sharing of content among peers; content control, such as versioning; SharePoint 2013 search.
Library in a portal area	Content that is intended for a wider audience in the organization; similar to a library in a team site, but typically implemented by using a stricter review and approval process.
Library in a Document Center site (SharePoint Server 2013 only.)	A large-scale library useful as an enterprise knowledge base or historical archive; includes features to help users navigate, search, and manage lots of documents in a deep hierarchy by using a set of specialized Web Parts.
Library in a Records Center (SharePoint Server 2013 only.)	Specialized records management; each library corresponds to a record type, such as contract, that the organization must retain for legal compliance purposes; libraries retain documents, metadata, and associated audits and are meant to be read-only.
Library in an Internet site (HTML) (SharePoint Server 2013 only.)	Content in web pages to incorporate into an Internet or intranet website; SharePoint Server 2013 supports editing web pages directly and manages the underlying document libraries for each page automatically.
Library in an Internet site (hybrid) (SharePoint Server 2013 only.)	Content available for downloading from a website; you can present content from document libraries on an Internet site.

Content type overview

A content type defines the attributes of a list item, a document, or a folder. Each content type can specify the following:

Properties to associate with items of its type.
Metadata to associate with items of its type.
Workflows that can be started from items of its type.
Information management policies to associate with items of its type.
Document templates (for document content types).
Custom features.

Plan workflows

Workflows implement business processes on documents, web pages, forms, and list items in SharePoint 2013. They can be associated with libraries, lists, or content types.

In document management, use workflows to route documents from person to person so that they can each complete their document management tasks, such as reviewing documents, approving their publication, or managing their disposition. Also, use custom workflows to move documents from one site or library to another. For example, you can design a workflow to copy a document from one site to another when the document is scheduled to be archived.

SharePoint 2013 includes the Three-state workflow, which you can use to manage business processes that track the status of an item through three states or phases. SharePoint Server 2013 also includes the following workflows that address document management needs:

Collect Feedback Sends a document for review.
Approval Sends a document for approval, often as a prerequisite to publishing it.
Disposition Manages document expiration and disposition.
Collect Signatures Routes a document for signatures.

Document Sets are a feature in SharePoint Server 2013 that enables an organization to manage a single deliverable, or work product, which can include multiple documents or files. A Document Set is a special kind of folder that combines unique Document Set attributes, the attributes and behavior of folders and documents, and provides a user interface (UI), metadata, and object model elements to help manage all aspects of the work product.

Information management policies and policy features

Policies can be implemented to help an organization comply with legally mandated requirements, such as the need to retain records. For example, a Human Resources policy, used in an organization to ensure that employee records are handled in compliance with legally recommended guidelines, could include the following policy features:

Auditing, to record the editing and viewing history of each employee-related document.

Retention, to ensure that work-in-progress content is not kept for an unnecessarily long time.

Print restrictions, to ensure that sensitive employee-related documents are printed only on secure printers. Note that this is an example of a custom policy feature that must be implemented by using the SharePoint Server 2013 object model or obtained from a third-party software vendor.

About versioning, content approval, and check-outs

SharePoint 2013 includes the following features that can help you control documents in a document library:

Versioning is the method by which successive iterations of a document are numbered and saved.
Content approval is the method by which site members who have approver permissions control the publication of content.
Check-out and Check-in are the methods by which users can better control when a new version of a document is created and also comment on changes that they made when they check a document in

co-authoring feature in SharePoint Server 2013 or SharePoint Online to enable multiple users to work on a document, at any time, without interfering with each other's changes. Co-authoring removes barriers to server-based document collaboration and helps organizations to reduce the overhead associated with traditional document sharing through attachments

How would you a set up SharePoint farm for our 800 active users? What would the network topography look like?

· What most people say: “We can stand up a server for SharePoint itself that should handle all tasks and keep implementation simple. We can rely upon an existing SQL server to house our SharePoint databases.”

· What you should say: “At a minimum, the farm should consist of a couple of load-balanced Web front-end servers to handle the network traffic and serve up pages, one application/central admin server for SharePoint services and management, and an SQL cluster for the SharePoint databases. This should handle traffic load and keep performance high for this mid-size SharePoint farm. These servers should likely all be within the company’s perimeter network (DMZ) and have access to a Domain controller. An additional SharePoint farm should be considered for development, QA, and staging purposes.”

· Why you should say it: SharePoint quickly becomes a business critical platform to any companies that implement it. Uptime is critical. Setting up a farm that handles server failures and keeps going is key to assuring success.

Load balancing the front-end will provide performance gains and keep SharePoint running even if a Web server goes down. These web servers can also be tasked to take over SharePoint services and admin in the case of a failure of the application/central admin server.

The database servers should also be protected against failure, an SQL cluster or a similar configuration that assures no single point of failure. Additionally, SharePoint databases should never be housed on the same server as other databases.

The two primary reasons for this are that SharePoint databases require a lot of resources, and because the other databases can pose a risk to the environment when they cause errors or drain too many resources.

When setting up a SharePoint farm, security of the data that it will house is critical but sometimes overlooked. Whenever possible, the SharePoint farm should be protected within a company’s DMZ. Additional risk to a SharePoint farm comes from software updates, patches, hotfixes, custom code, third party tools and applications… the list goes on. To protect against these types of risks, it’s worthwhile to develop custom code in a separate environment and test all planned software and configuration-level changes in a controlled “staging” environment before they’re moved to the business critical SharePoint farm.

What should SharePoint governance look like at our company?

· What most people say (Version 1): “Our biggest concern has got to be user adoption with SharePoint. Governance needs to open the door for user adoption. If we over-govern SharePoint, it will turn people away.”

· What most people say (Version 2): “Governance is crucial to any and every change made to SharePoint. We need to develop out clear and concise rules on how any kind of change should be made.”

· What you should say: “Governance is key to success with SharePoint, however I cannot yet say exactly what form SharePoint governance should take for your organization. We’ll need to look at the environment and have discussions with its users before we can draft out what governance should look like for this company (or this SharePoint farm).”

· Why you should say it: SharePoint governance is the way in which SharePoint is managed and administered. SharePoint itself is just a platform and every company uses it in unique ways. What’s good for one company could be disastrous for another. At any given company there can be different policies for different SharePoint farms. The way a portal is administered is vastly different from how a collaboration or team space should be administered.

We need to organize and tag information with a shared company vernacular, like product or department names. This information needs to be stored consistently across SharePoint. How would you implement this?

· What most people say: “We either can provide lists of acceptable values and train our administrators to enforce these naming conventions, or we can setup Managed Metadata and Content Types to enforce these conventions.”

· What you should say: “We should plan out and define an information taxonomy alongside a governance plan for SharePoint. By doing that, we can assess and implement the best solution for managing the information in our SharePoint farms.”

· Why you should say it: There are many ways to manage information within SharePoint. Some are federated, some are centralized. It’s not enough to know that you can setup Managed Metadata or create Content Types. Without a plan on how to manage information, these forms easily can become overwhelming and difficult to manage. This quickly leads to disuse and the abandonment of whatever information architecture that was intended.

By assessing and defining how information should be organized, via a clear and understandable information taxonomy outline, you can develop an information architecture. By developing a good governance plan, you can assure that this architecture will be maintained correctly. Without both the taxonomy and the governance, you end up with a Jenga tower of competing information architectures.

SharePoint 2013 - Features

2017-07-27T20:43:00.002-07:00

SharePoint 2013 - Features

Note - this content is extracted from internet source

Sandbox Solutions are introduced in SP 2010 and now they are off, to encourage the usage of Apps

Full-trust SharePoint Solutions (WSP)
Apps

Reasons:

Custom code will not be executed on server. So this can avoid, Application / Server outages.

Custom code will be executed in Client-Browser or may be in some other scope like IIS or Windows Azure, which is completely out of SharePoint scope.

Server Object Model (SOM) code is replaced by Client side object model (CSOM) / Rest Services using which Apps can communicate with Server. Authentication is done by OAuth.

Installing / Updating / Uninstalling of apps can be done without affecting the SharePoint site.

Better usability in Tablets and Mobile devices.

Taking SharePoint to next level in terms of Usability, Development, Deployment and Hosting(cloud).

Finally, everything in SharePoint 2013 is an App.

Hosting Options:

Provider-hosted
Hosted in the cloud (Windows Azure autohosted)
Hosted in a SharePoint environment
Several combinations of these options.

Provider hosted apps

Provider-hosted apps for SharePoint include components that are deployed and hosted outside the SharePoint farm. They are installed to the host web, but their remote components are hosted on another server. Figure 2 illustrates the basic architecture of a provider-hosted app

Sharepoint hosted app

SharePoint-hosted apps, or apps where all components are hosted on either an on-premises or Office 365 SharePoint farm. SharePoint-hosted apps are installed on a SharePoint 2013 website, called the host web. They have their resources hosted on an isolated subsite of a host web, called the app web

Autohosted apps

Autohosted apps for SharePoint are cloud-hosted apps whose remote components are provisioned and deployed for you on Windows Azure. As with a provider-hosted app, an autohosted app for SharePoint can interact with a SharePoint website but also uses resources and services that are located on a remote site that is hosted by Windows Azure.

whats new for End user

§ Social Computing Features: SharePoint 2013 has introduced many good improvements with respect to Social Computing including Communities, Micro blogging, My Sites, Activity Feeds,Yammer Integration etc.

§ New Site Templates are introduced for Community sites in SharePoint 2013.

§ SharePoint 2013 has Micro blogs – It allows a user to broadcast a message publicly at a central location where other users can respond.

§ My Sites design has also been improved for better navigation.

§ Enterprise Content Management (ECM): As we already know that SharePoint is primarily an ECM (Enterprise Content Management) System, so every version has improved it’s capabilities with respect to Content Management.SharePoint 2013 has improvement as ECM e.g. Site MailBox, Site-Level Retention Policies and eDiscovery Capabilities etc.

§ It’s always been desired to Keep relevant and important emails in SharePoint. Now, it’s easy to keep emails and documents with SharePoint Site Mailbox.

§ Moving documents from one location to another in SharePoint by defining a Policy which is basically a set of rules.

§ eDiscovery capabilities is a key feature for End Users; it’s a better and improved way to protect Business.

§ Mobile

§ HTML 5 support in SharePoint 2013 extends its usage for Mobile devices.

§ Office Mobile Web Apps for Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

§ Push Notifications

§ New Geo location Field Type to store map coordinates.

§ Search: Search has always been a very important feature for End-User in an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) System, so SharePoint improved a lot in version 2013 as:

§ More powerful and unified search. It gives more functionality to search with results coming much faster.

§ Relevant and personalized Search on the basis of a user’s search history.

§ Document preview on search result without opening document.

§ In order to keep the index current (maximum possible), continuous crawl feature is introduced.

§ and much more to it that requires a complete separate post.

§ Business Connectivity Services (BCS):

§ Support for OData.

§ Improvements to Online SharePoint Business Connectivity Services.

§ REST based Object Model for Web and Mobile application developers.

§ Improved support for sorting and filtering of external Lists.

§ Export external list data to an Excel workbook.

§ Improvements to Event Listeners.

§ Business Intelligence (BI): SharePoint 2013 has presented Business Intelligence tool as a way to integrate all Microsoft Office Applications as well as other Microsoft technologies.

§ Visio Services.

§ Excel Services.

§ Performance Point Services i.e. Dashboard Migration, Filter Search, Support for Analysis Services, Support for Performance Point on iPad.

Here, you can find the list of key enhancements for SharePoint 2013 developers:

· Support for common Web Standards - Programming Model of SharePoint 2013 is based on common web standards including HTML, CSS and JavaScript that makes SharePoint development easy for web developer’s without Microsoft background. Standard web protocols like OData, REST and OAuth are also supported.

· Platform Enhancements

o Microsoft introduced RER (Remote Event Receiver) as core platform enhancement in SharePoint 2013 that is easy and straightforward to use.

o New Client as well as Server APIs.

o Support for REST (Representational State Transfer) endpoint for web services. So, if we need to access SharePoint data remotely, we can make REST based web requests for all CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete) Operations. Please follow for understanding about RESTful services.

o Client Side Rendering is a new cool feature that allows to render SharePoint elements using JavaScript instead of using server side XSLT.

· New Development Tools / Development Tools Enhancements

o Visual Studio 2013

§ ASP.NET MVC Project template for SharePoint Apps

§ Publishing Manager Tool

§ Visual Studio Provides RER (Remote Event Receiver) Service by default

§ Workflow Debugging support for SharePoint online

§ New SharePoint Phone Application Wizard Template

§ and more...

o Visual Designer 2013 - Enhanced support for customizing and publishing workflows in SharePoint Designer 2013

o “Napa” – a new web based tool for Office 365 development

o Updates 2014 – Office development tools for Visual Studio 2013, please follow here for details

· SharePoint 2013 Cloud App Model is a model for developing and installing apps having added advantages as:

o Apps are isolated so easier to deploy and maintain.

o Apps are stored on an apps server instead of SharePoint server resulting reduced load on SharePoint Server.

o Apps are ready for cloud.

· Business Connectivity Services

o SharePoint 2013 supports OData that provides a way to access data source using a simple URL.

o Support to subscribe to events from external system.

o SharePoint 2013 now support to consume external data by creating an App-scoped external Content type.

· Enterprise Content Management SharePoint being primarily an Enterprise Content Management product enhanced many core features in this area as:

o Managed Metadata

o e-Discovery

o Team Folders

· Search

o Consolidated Search platform that includes the capabilities of SharePoint 2010 and further enhances it.

o Rich results framework.

o Support for KQL (Keyword Query Language) and FQL (Fast Query Language) to build search queries.

· Social and Collaboration - Social support is key to any application these days. Web 2.0 is considered to be “The Social Web” and SharePoint 2013 has added a lot to social and collaboration features including Communities, Micro-blogging and Interactive feed, etc.

· Mobility Features – Mobile devices get much more support than ever before.

o In order to target different devices, SharePoint site can be rendered in multiple designs

o New Geo-location field type can also be used for mobile application development

o We can easily enable push notification service for sending updates to mobile devices

o Visual Studio app template

· Workflows

o Just like the new “app” model, Workflow also run in a separate service to SharePoint

o Workflow Engine – SharePoint 2013 uses WF 4.0 as compared to SharePoint 2010 that uses WF 3.5 for workflows

o Enhanced Workflow Manager Capabilities

o Designer and Project Template

SharePoint 2010 - Basic concepts

2011-11-17T03:46:00.000-08:00

SharePoint Hierarchy :

A web application needs to have at least 1 Site Collection. The Site Collection is the root site of the web site. Below the Site Collection, there can be one or more Sites. And a Site can contains sub sites.

An overview:

1. Web Application
1.1 Site Collection (SPSite)
1.1.1 Site (SPWeb)
1.1.2 Site (SPWeb)

1.2 Site Collection (SPSite)
1.2.1 Site (SPWeb)
1.2.1.1 Sub Site (SPWeb)
1.2.1.2 Sub Site (SPWeb)

How does Client object model works ?

Ans. When we use SharePoint client API’s to perform a specific task, the SharePoint Foundation 2010 managed client object model bundles up these uses of the API into XML and sends it to the server that runs SharePoint Foundation. The server receives this request, and makes appropriate calls into the object model on the server, collects the responses, forms them into JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), and sends that JSON back to the SharePoint Foundation 2010 managed client object model. The client object model parses the JSON and presents the results to the application as .NET Framework objects (or ECMAScript objects for ECMAScript).

Q. How many types of Client Object model extension are available in 2010 and when would you use one or the other.

Ans. To develop rich client side solutions, three set of client-side APIs has been introduced in the Microsoft.SharePoint.Client namespace. The three APIs are targeted for three different types of clients.
1. .net Managed applications – These are used when we have to create console applications or window applications, web applications which are not running inside SharePoint Contex.
2. For Silverlight applications
3. ECMAScript – It is a client object model extension for using with JavaScript or JScript. This is used for creating applications which are hosted inside SharePoint. For example, web part deployed in SharePoint site can use this JavaScript API for accessing SharePoint from browser using JavaScript.

What is the main difference between using SPListItem.Update() and SPListItem.SystemUpdate()?

Ans. Using SystemUpdate() will not create a new version and will also retain timestamps.

When do you use SPSiteDataQuery ?

Ans. You can use SPSiteDataQuery when you need to extract data from more than one list\library in your site colletcion. The data is extracted on the basis of the query you write and is
returened as a Datatable. You can also specify the GUID for the lists\libraries you want to query against.

Q. How do you create a Custom action for an item in a list ?

Ans. This can be done by adding a new feature into SharePoint. You would need to use customaction tag in your elements.xml file and will have to set various properties like imageurl or UrlAction for your customaction. You can later add this feature into sharepoint using stsadm install feature command.

Q. How would you bind this CustomAction to a specific list ?

Ans. To do this you can either create a new list type(again a feature) and use the listtype number for the new list in your RegistrationType property of the Customaction. The CustomAction will then show up only for the items of this list type. or You can create a new content type and then use that content type's id in your cutsomaction to bind the custom action to items of just that content type. Add the new content type to the list where you need this customaction.

Q. How will you deploy an existing asp.net webapplication or website in SharePoint?

Ans. You would need to wrap the web application in a solution package in order to deploy it in 12 hive or say ShraePoint. It is recommended to create a feature first, and then wrap everything in a Solution package. See example Depoly a Custom aspx Page in SharePoint

Q. How will you cancel a deployment from central admin -> solution managment, if its stuck at “deploying” or “Error”.

Ans. You can either try to force execute timer jobs using execadmsvcjobs command or can cancel the dpeloyment using stsadm command stsadm –o cancaldeployment –id {GUID} command. The Id here would be GUID of the timer or deployment job. You can get the Id from stsadm enumdeployment command. This will display all the deployments which are process or are stuck with Error.

Q. How do make an existing non-publishing site Publishing?

Ans. You can simply activate the SharePoint Publishing Feature for the Site, you want to make publishing.

Q. What are Application Pages in SharePoint?

Ans. Unlike site pages (for example, default.aspx), a custom application page is deployed once per Web server and cannot be customized on a site-by-site basis. Application pages are based in the virtual _layouts directory. In addition, they are compiled into a single assembly DLL.
A good example of an Application Page is the default Site Settings page: every site has one, and it's not customizable on a per site basis (although the contents can be different for sites).
With application pages, you can also add inline code. With site pages, you cannot add inline code.

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. How do you deploy a User Control in SharePoint ?

Ans. You deploy your User Control either by a Custom webpart, which will simply load the control on the page or can use tools like SmartPart, which is again a webpart to load user control on the page. User Control can be deployed using a custom solution package for the webapplication or you can also the control in the webpart solution package so that it gets deployed in _controlstemplate folder.

Q. Which is faster a WebPart or a User Control?

Ans. A WebPart renders faster than a User Control. A User Control in SharePoint is usually loaded by a webpart which adds an overhead. User Controls however, gives you an Interface to add controls and styles.

Q. What SharePoint Databases are Created during the standard Install?

Ans. During standard install, the following databases are created :

SharePoint_AdminContent
SharePoint_Config
WWS_Search_SERVERNAME%_%GUID_3%
SharedServicesContent_%GUID_4%
SharedServices1_DB_%GUID_5%
SharedServices1_Search_DB_%
GUID_6%WSS_Content_%GUID_7%

Q. What are content types?

Ans. A content type is a flexible and reusable WSS type definition (or we can a template) that defines the columns and behavior for an item in a list or a document in a document library. For example, you can create a content type for a leave approval document with a unique set of columns, an event handler, and its own document template and attach it with a document library/libraries.

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

Ans. Yes, a content type can have an event receiver associated with it, either inheriting from the SPListEventReciever base class for list level events, or inheriting from the SPItemEventReciever base class. Whenever the content type is instantiated, it will be subject to the event receivers that are associated with it.

Q. Can you add a Cutsom Http Handler in SharePoint ?

Ans. Yes, a Custom httphandler can be deployed in _layouts folder in SharePoint. Also, we need to be register the handler in the webapp's webconfig file.

Q. While creating a Web part, which is the ideal location to Initialize my new controls?
Override the CreateChildControls method to include your new controls. You can control the exact rendering of your controls by calling the .Render method in the web parts Render method.

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

Q. How Do you deploy Files in 12 hive when using wspbuilder or vsewss?

Ans. Typically, you can add these files in the 12 hive folder structure in your project. In Vsewss however, you will have to create this structure manually.

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. What are Customized and Uncustomized Files in SharePoint ?

Ans. There are two types of Pages in SharePoint; site pages (also known as content pages) and application pages.

Uncustomized :

When you create a new SharePoint site in a site collection, Windows SharePoint Services provisions instances of files into the content database that resides on the file system. That means if you create a new Site "xyz" of type Team Site(or Team sIte Definition), an instance of the Team Site Definition( Which resides on the File System), i.e. "xyz" gets created in the Content database. So, When ASP.NET receives a request for the file, it first finds the file in the content database. This entry in the content database tells ASP.NET that the file is actually based on a file on the file system and therefore, ASP.NET retrieves the source of the file on the file system when it constructs the page.

Customized :

A customized file is one in which the source of the file lives exclusively in the site collection's content database. This happens When you modify the file in any way through the SharePoint API, or by SharePoint Designer 2007,which uses the SharePoint API via RPC and Web service calls to change files in sites. So, When the file is requested, ASP.NET first finds the file in the content database. The entry in the database tells ASP.NET whether the file is customized or uncustomized. If it is customized, it contains the source of the file, which is used by ASP.NET in the page contraction phase.

Q. What are event receivers?

Ans. Event receivers are classes that inherit from the SpItemEventReciever or SPListEventReciever base class (both of which derive out of the abstract base class SPEventRecieverBase), and provide the option of responding to events as they occur within SharePoint, such as adding an item or deleting an item.

Q. When would you use an event receiver?

Ans. Since event receivers respond to events, you could use a receiver for something as simple as canceling an action, such as deleting a document library by using the Cancel property. This would essentially prevent users from deleting any documents if you wanted to maintain retention of stored data.

Q. If I wanted to restrict the deletion of the documents from a document library, how would I go about it?

Ans. You would create a event receiver for that list/library and implement the ItemDeleting method. Simply, set: properties.Cancel= true and display a friendly message using Properties.Message("How can u delete this... Its not your stuff!");

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

Ans. An asynchronous event occurs after an action has taken place, and a synchronous event occurs before an action has take place. For example, an asynchronous event is ItemAdded, and its sister synchronous event is ItemAdding

Q. How do you Increase trust level for a single WebPart in the WebConfig file.

Ans. To list a Web Part with Full Permissions within your Web Application while still retaining a WSS_Minimal permission set for all other Web Parts, You need to create a Custom policy file. This file will be then referenced in SharePoint Web.config file and will allow your specific webpart to be of Full trust.
Steps :
1. Make a copy of the WSS_Minimal.Config file from the 12\Config folder and paste it into the same folder renaming it to Custom_WSS_Minimal.Config. Now, edit the Custom_WSS_Minimal.Config file using NotePad. Obtain the Public Key Token for the Web Part assembly that you want to deploy, using the following command: sn –Tp filename.dll. Create a new entry in your Custom_WSS_Minimal.Config file for your WebPart. Save the File.
Finally, Create a new TrustLevel element for your config file in the Web.Config called Custom_WSS_Minimal that points to your custom file in the 12\config folder. Recycle the Application Pool and You’re Done.

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 Services–specific 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. How would you pass user credentials while using SharePoint WebService from your Web Part or application.

Ans. The web service needs credentials to be set before making calls.

Examples:

listService.UseDefaultCredentials = true; // use currently logged on user

listService.Credentials = new System.Net.NetworkCredential("user", "pass", "domain"); // use specified user

Q. How would you remove a webapart from the WebPart gallery? Does it get removed with Webpart retraction?

Ans. No, Webpart does not get removed from the WebPart gallery on retraction. You can write a feature receiver on Featuredeactivating method to remove the empty webpart from the gallery.

Q. What is a SharePoint Feature? Features are installed at what scope

Ans. A SharePoint Feature is a functional component that can be activated and deactivate at various scopes throughout a SharePoint instances, scope of which are defined as
1. Farm level 2. Web Application level 3. Site level 4. Web level
Features have their own receiver architecture, which allow you to trap events such as when a feature is Installing, Uninstalling, Activated, or Deactivated.

Q. What type of components can be created or deployed as a feature?

Ans. We can create menu commands, Custom Actions,page templates, page instances, list definitions, list instances,event handlers,webparts and workflows as feature

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 CAML?

Ans. CAML stands for Collaborative Application Markup Language and is an XML-based languagethat is used in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services to define sites and lists, including, for Eg, fields, views, or forms, but CAML is also used to define tables in the Windows SharePoint Servies database during site provisioning. Developers mostly use CAML Queries to retrieve data from Lists\libraries.

Q. Can you display\add a Custom aspx or WebApplication Page in SharePoint Context ?

Ans. You need to make some modification in the aspx file to display it in SharePoint Context. Firstly, add the references for various sharepoint assemblies on the Page. Then wrap the Code in PlaceHolderMain contentPlaceholder, so that it gets displayed as a content page. Lastly, add a reference to SharePoint Master Page in aspx file and swicth it in Code behind if needed.

How many types of Client Object model extension are available in 2010 and when would you use one or the other.

Ans. To develop rich client side solutions, three set of client-side APIs has been introduced in the Microsoft.SharePoint.Client namespace. The three APIs are targeted for three different types of clients.
1. .net Managed applications – These are used when we have to create console applications or window applications, web applications which are not running inside SharePoint Contex.
2. For Silverlight applications
3. ECMAScript – It is a client object model extension for using with JavaScript or JScript. This is used for creating applications which are hosted inside SharePoint. For example, web part deployed in SharePoint site can use this JavaScript API for accessing SharePoint from browser using JavaScript

Q. What are the security improvements in SharePoint 2010 ?

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

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

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

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

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

Q. Whats New with SharePoint WebParts?

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

1. Visual Webparts - Allows you to Drag and Drop the controls from the Toolbox to WebPart Design surface. You can of course write your custom code in the code file. You can also package and deploy your webparts directly to Sharepoint from VS by pressing Clt+F5. Visual studio 2010 also provides you with three different views for developing webparts. The views are split view, design view and Source view(as we have in designer 2007).

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

2. ASP.Net WebParts - Where a developer can build up User Interface and logic in a class file. You do not have designer for drag and drop of controls. This webpart inherits from standard ASP.Net webpart. For Deployment we can again use ctrl+f5 to deploy this webpart.

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

Ans. Visual Studio 2010 includes SharePoint-specific project types and project item types, and includes powerful packaging, deployment, and debugging features that help increase your efficiency as a SharePoint 2010 developer.

Some of the Templates avaiable are :
1.Visual Web Part project template.
2. List defination template.
3. Content Type template.
4. Empty Project template.
5. Event Receiver template.
6. some workflow template.
7. the Site Definition template
and many more....

Q. What are SharePoint Sandboxed soultions ?

Ans. SharePoint 2010 provides a new sandboxed environment that enables you to run user solutions without affecting the rest of the SharePoint farm. This environment means that users can upload their own custom solutions without requiring intervention from administrators, and without putting the rest of the farm at risk. This means that the existing sites\pages or components will not be effected by the newly added soultion.

Users can deploy the below four things as sandboxed soultions :
1. WebParts.
2. Event Receivers.
3. List Definations.
4. Workflows.

Q. What are Requirenments for SharePoint 2010.

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

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

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

The LINQ to SharePoint Provider is defined in the Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq namespace. It translates LINQ queries into Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML) queries.

Q . Whats New in SPALerts ?

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

Q. What Has Changed with SSP in SharePoint 2010.

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

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

Q. What does CMDUI.XML contain?

Ans. The definitions for the out-of-the-box ribbon elements are split across several files in the SharePoint root, with TEMPLATE\GLOBAL\XML\CMDUI.XML being the main one.

Q. What are the Disadvantages of Using LINQ in your Code?

Ans. LINQ translates the LINQ queries into Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML) queries thus adding an extra step for retrieving the items.

Q. What is different with SharePoint 2010 workflows ?

Ans. Some of the additions in workflow model are :

1. SharePoint 2010 workflows are build upon the the workflow engine provide .Net Framework 3.5.

2. In addition to the SharePoint lists we can now create workflows for SharePoint sites as well.

3. SharePoint Designer 2010 also has a new graphical workflow designer for designing workflows and deploying them directly to SharePoint.

4. Another Improvement in SharePoint Designer 2010 is that it now allows you to edit the out-of-the-box workflows that come with SharePoint.

Q. How would you add a link in the Ribbon?

Ans. You can add any link or Custom Action under any of the existing tabs of the ribbon or can create a new a new tab and place your links under it.

Q. What does CMDUI.XML contain?

Ans. The definitions for the out-of-the-box ribbon elements are split across several files in the SharePoint root, with TEMPLATE\GLOBAL\XML\CMDUI.XML being the main one.

Q. What are the Disadvantages of Using LINQ in your Code?

Ans. LINQ translates the LINQ queries into Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML) queries thus adding an extra step for retrieving the items.

Q. What is different with SharePoint 2010 workflows ?

Ans. Some of the additions in workflow model are :

1. SharePoint 2010 workflows are build upon the the workflow engine provide .Net Framework 3.5.

2. In addition to the SharePoint lists we can now create workflows for SharePoint sites as well.

3. SharePoint Designer 2010 also has a new graphical workflow designer for designing workflows and deploying them directly to SharePoint.

4. Another Improvement in SharePoint Designer 2010 is that it now allows you to edit the out-of-the-box workflows that come with SharePoint.

Q. Why would you use LINQ over CAML for data retrieval?

Ans. Unlike CAML, with LINQ to SharePoint provider, you are working with strongly typed list item objects. For example, an item in the Announcements list is an object of type Announcement and an item on a Tasks list is an object of type Task. You can then enumerate the objects and get the properties for your use. Also, you can use LINQ syntax and the LINQ keywords built into C# and VB for LINQ queries.

Q. Can we use our custom master page with the application pages in SharePoint 2010 ?

Ans. With 2010, you can now set whether the pages under _Layouts use the same Master Page as the rest of your site. You can enable or disable this functionality through the web application settings in Central Administration. This however, is not applicable to your custom application pages. If you want your custom applictaion page to inherit the site master page you must derive it from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.LayoutsPageBase class.

Q. What are WebTemplates and Site Definitions ?

Ans. Site definitions consist primarily of multiple XML and ASPX files stored on a front-end Web server in folders under the %ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\14\TEMPLATE\SiteTemplates directory.
Custom Web templates on the other hand, are stored in the database, and are created using an existing site, with or without its specific content, as a model. This provides a means for reusing sites that you have customized.In some ways, Web templates continue to depend, throughout their lifecycle, on the site definition that is their ultimate foundation.

Q. How do you write to SharePoint ULS logs in 2010 ?

Ans. In SharePoint Foundation, ULS exposes configurable settings in two ways, through the – Object model and Windows PowerShell cmdlets. For writing to SharePoint ULS logs developers can can use Diagnostics Service, which will make the customized categories viewable in the administrative UI for our errors.
or they can use the number of cmdlets available for accessing ULS logs using powershell. Some of the cmdlets are Get-SPDiagnosticConfig ,Get-SPLogEvent etc

Q. What does CMDUI.XML contain?

Ans. The definitions for the out-of-the-box ribbon elements are split across several files in the SharePoint root, with TEMPLATE\GLOBAL\XML\CMDUI.XML being the main one.

What is a dashboard?

A dashboard is basically a webpage containing multiple reports with graphs. This enables ConfigMgr administrators to have multiple information in reports on a single page.

The Configuration Manager dashboard is build with Microsoft Sharepoint webparts. A webpart is basically a frame containing code to display data in that frame. A single site can contain multiple webparts.

SharePoint Search

Two types of search

· KeywordQuery, dedicated to executing a query defined with the keyword syntax

· FullTextSqlQuery, used when the search query is defined by using the Enterprise SQL search query syntax

Search scopes allow users to narrow their searches based on the topics, areas, and content sources of items on the portal. Values can be “Site”, “All Site”, “People’

Federated Search

The key premise is the ability to search others sources beyond resources living within your SharePoint. A federated search is the simultaneous querying of multiple online databases (locations) for the purpose of generating a single search results page for end users.When you add a federated location to Office SharePoint Server 2007, end users can search for and retrieve content that has not been crawled by your server. Federated locations allow queries to be sent to remote search engines and feeds, after which Office SharePoint Server 2007 formats and renders the results to your end users as part of your crawled content.

SharePoint workflows

The two types of workflows which exist out of the box in Visual Studio are:

Sequential workflows:

1. Sequential workflow is known to be very predictable. It works like a flowchart - Example:

o The workflow works until the user approves or denies the file in order to continue. When ALL users approve/deny it will go to the next time

2. This kind of workflow is used when there is only one way to complete the task.

The workflow controls the processes of what happens throughout the workflow

State-Machine workflows:

1. State-machine workflows are workflows which are driven by particular events. Example:

o OnTaskChanged

o OnTaskCreated

o OnTaskDeleted

o OnWorkflowActivated etc

2. In order to move to another event, the workflow needs to meet another state.

o If a task is created, the workflow stays on that event until another even is called, for example the user decides to edit the task (on task changed)

3. The control of the workflow is decided by the user, according to what events he calls, the workflow will execute.

4. The workflow doesn't really have to end. It can stay in the same state for weeks for example.

Concepts

1) How to segregate the Business User Roles and IT user Roles

Roles and user groups have been implemented with view to give IT user a more facilitation role and allow Business manage most of their work/content and sites.
•Domain Groups or User Roles
•Users with contribute or read needs are classified into this.
•Also, sometimes we use Audience Targeting to control access to some web-parts
•For example KPI web-part in main site, can be seen A user and Another user can see a different web part.
•Specialized business groups to Manage Content or Communication of that business and Avoid giving full access “
•This is managed by
•Item level access
•Or by custom views to allow only specific features to post access
•Admin Groups ( MAINLY IT Teams)
•They have access to everything but will only handle exceptions. –mainly support teams or Internal ITContextRoles
2) Page is taking too much time to load

To decrease the response time(load time of a Page),
•Page Optimization
oReduce Picture Content / Reduce weight of images
oRemove Closed Web Part : The Page had many closed web part, which needed to be removed from the Page.
oUse of Ajax in SharePoint -To Remove Unnecessary Page Postback, Ajax implemented was done for the Page
•IIS Compression : Proper IIS Compression technique was implemented to improve bandwidth utilization
•Loading the core.js : Cutom coding was implemented to load the core.js file conditionally in the master page
•Page was Checked for unexpected HTTP 304, 401, 404 codes using Fiddler/ YSlow
•Page payload weight was measurdand reduced as far as PossibleIssueSolution

3) Load time of the Page was high because of specific webpart

For the Code Optimization following techniques were implemented
•Tested with SPDisposeCheck to ensure no memory leaks
•Eliminate unnecessary ViewState
•ViewState was turned off in web.config and then overridden it in controls/pages which really needed it
•For loops were removed(if unnecessary) or optimized
•Best practices for using SP objects and disposing them was implemented
•It was ensured that the Production code was not running in debug mode
•Ensured that SPSite or SPWeb objects are not stored in session or application variables. Instead GUID or URL was stored to rebuild the SP Objects
•Data Caching was implemented wherever necessary

4) To view the relevant data in a large lists

By Categorization - Handling large list with Metadata
Example - Metadata driven navigation allows the ability to navigate and filter results by metadata, allowing users to quickly and easily navigate through a collection of items and then reduce the result set to an acceptable limit

By Indexes - Create Indexed Columns
You can index up to 20 columns in a list.
Index only Relevant columns and not all.
(Supported columns - Choice(has to be a single value though),Currency, Date and Time, Lookup (single),Managed Metadata, Number, Person or Group (Single),Single Line of text)
By Managing View Data Sizes / Caches - Create Views
Once index is created on a column , a view can be created that will limit the amount of items shown. The best approach is to set up a default view that returns fewer items than the throttle limit (5000)
By archiving older data not meant to be useful for current work.
By Configuration
Using Central Admin List Throttle properties like List View Threshold, Object Model Override, List View Threshold for Auditors and Administrators, Daily Time Window for Large Queries

5) Create a folder automatically ,if the no. of item in a folder is more than 5000

Use of Content Organizer feature in SharePoint 2010
Once activated, one can define rules and parameters from Content Organizer Settings and Content Organizer Rules in the Site Administration section of site settings.
A Document library is created when the feature is activated, called the Drop Off Library
library that users can use to submit new items that need to be routed
temporary staging area for items that do not have all required metadata
When item number 5001 is added to the library, the Content Organizer can automatically create a new folder and put the document in that folder.
In 2007 version, we have created “Event Handler to create a new folder each day/period (to avoid reaching more size). We believe we can create a new folder after reaching certain data size
6) How Fast search help for millions of items
Fast Search for 2010 adds extra features to SharePoint Search 2010.
Use metadata / categorization
Implement Inspirational, Cache past searches or cache popular search results (reduce hit to List)
Use Visual Best bets, Thumbnails and Previews.
The ability to read the underlying properties of a document and provide them as the entities of Navigation results in faster result finding.
Relevancy tuning, Ranking models, lemmatization applied on large results in faster and efficient result extraction

Note: All the above contents are picked from internet from different website, not my views

SharePoint 2010 : Not able to search documents containing noisewords

2011-11-17T03:22:00.000-08:00

Resolution

Find the noisefile Location . C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\14.0\Data\Config
you can find all the languages noisefile
Go to noiseenu.txt file for English
Remove all noisewords Note : (Removing All Noisewords creates problem so have single entry in the file) eg:a or b
Reset Index on search server
stop search service
Do A Full Crawl Content Source

Webpart error

2011-05-20T02:14:00.000-07:00

I was getting this error when I try to add webpart which was successfully deployed.

A Web Part or Web Form Control on this Page cannot be displayed or imported. The type could not be found or it is not registered as safe.

Did some R&D nothing worked out later got to know that my class name was wrong in Testwebpart.webpart file. This is because I have renamed the project after creating it.

xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v3">

name="Namespace.Class1, $SharePoint.Project.AssemblyFullName$" />

Windows could not start the service Error 1053: The service did not respond

2011-01-02T22:36:00.000-08:00

I was getting this error when I try to run one Window services application

Windows could not start the service on Local Computer.

Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

I was able to resolve this issue by doing this

Double click on the service, click on the Log On tab, select "Local System Account" and

"Allow service to interact with desktop".

InfoPath form 2010-Add dropdown items dynamically

2010-11-17T22:34:00.000-08:00

I was working on adding items to DropDown control in Infopath form, you can do this as explained below
Before doing this create datasource DataSources["options"]. with XML

private void BindCustomerDropDown()

{

try

{

DataTable dtCustomer = // Load datatable
if (dtCustomer != null && dtCustomer.Rows.Count > 0)

{

string name = string.Empty;

string id = string.Empty;

RemoveFirstItem();

foreach (DataRow row in dtCustomer.Rows)

{

if (row["CustomerName"] != null)

name = row["CustomerName"].ToString();

if (row["CustomerId"] != null)

id = row["CustomerId"].ToString();

AddItem(id, name);

}

RemoveFirstItem();

}

}

catch (System.Exception ex)

{

ShowMessage(ex.Message);

}

}

private void RemoveFirstItem()

{

XPathNavigator DOM = DataSources["options"].CreateNavigator();

if (DOM == null)

return;

XPathNavigator group1 = DOM.SelectSingleNode("//options", NamespaceManager);

if (group1 == null)

return;

XPathNavigator field1 = DOM.SelectSingleNode("//options/option", NamespaceManager);

if (field1 == null)

return;

field1.DeleteSelf();

group1.InnerXml = group1.InnerXml.Replace("\r", " ");

group1.InnerXml = group1.InnerXml.Replace("\n", " ");

}

private void AddItem(string itemId, string itemName)

{

//RemoveFirstItem();

XPathNavigator DOM = DataSources["options"].CreateNavigator();

if (DOM == null)

return;

XPathNavigator group1 = DOM.SelectSingleNode("//options", NamespaceManager);

if (group1 == null)

return;

XPathNavigator field1 = DOM.SelectSingleNode("//options/option", NamespaceManager);

if (field1 == null)

return;

XPathNavigator newNode = field1.Clone();

newNode.SelectSingleNode("value").SetValue(itemId);

newNode.SelectSingleNode("displayname").SetValue(itemName);

group1.AppendChild(newNode);

}

you can refer these links for more details
http://www.bizsupportonline.net/infopath2007/programmatically-fill-populate-drop-down-list-box-infopath-2007.htm
http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/sboldt/archive/2009/08/07/populating-a-list-box-in-infopath-2007-form-services-from-a-sql-stored-procedure.aspx

CRM sample code - Account Entity - retrieve from Account Name.

2010-10-21T00:21:00.000-07:00

Below is the sample code which explain retrieving CRM Account details based on the Account name.

I got sample code where you can get Account entity details if you pass guid, but didnot get sample code to retrieve Accoount details by Name.

So tried to give some sample where you can get Accoount details by name.

// Add authentication code here. you can get it from CRM SDK

// Create a column set that holds the names of the columns to be retrieved.

CRMService.CrmSdk.ColumnSet colsContact = new CRMService.CrmSdk.ColumnSet();

colsContact.Attributes = new string[] {"name", "accountid","new_status" };

// Create the ConditionExpression.

CRMService.CrmSdk.ConditionExpression conditionAccount = new CRMService.CrmSdk.ConditionExpression();

// Set the ConditionExpressions Properties so that the condition is true when

// the accountid or the contact is equal to accountId.

// Pass the filter value account id

//conditionContact.AttributeName = "accountid";

//conditionContact.Operator = CRMService.CrmSdk.ConditionOperator.Equal;

//conditionContact.Values = new string[] {"3455D9C5E-B311-DF43-A561-101E0B4CD088"};

// Pass the filter value account name

conditionAccount.AttributeName = "name";

conditionAccount.Operator = CRMService.CrmSdk.ConditionOperator.Equal;

conditionAccount.Values = new string[] { companyName };

// Create the FilterExpression.

CRMService.CrmSdk.FilterExpression filterAccount = new CRMService.CrmSdk.FilterExpression();

// Set the properties of the FilterExpression.

filterAccount.FilterOperator = CRMService.CrmSdk.LogicalOperator.And;

filterAccount.Conditions = new CRMService.CrmSdk.ConditionExpression[] { conditionAccount };

// Create the QueryExpression.

CRMService.CrmSdk.QueryExpression queryAccount = new CRMService.CrmSdk.QueryExpression();

// Set the properties of the QueryExpression.

queryAccount.EntityName = CRMService.CrmSdk.EntityName.account.ToString();

queryAccount.ColumnSet = colsContact;

queryAccount.Criteria = filterAccount;

// Retrieve the contacts.

CRMService.CrmSdk.BusinessEntityCollection myRetrievedAccount = crmService.RetrieveMultiple(queryAccount);

string accountId = string.Empty;

if (myRetrievedAccount != null && myRetrievedAccount.BusinessEntities[0] != null)

{

XPathNavigator navFields = default(XPathNavigator);

CRMService.CrmSdk.account myAccount = (CRMService.CrmSdk.account)myRetrievedAccount.BusinessEntities[0];

// get the values of accoount

accountId = myAccount.accountid.Value.ToString();

myAccount.new_status.name

Error - The remote name could not be resolved - Resolved

2010-10-21T00:10:00.000-07:00

I was working on dotnet application, which was trying to connect to CRM application thorugh CRM API.

I was getting error to connect to CRM server when I try to connect through code, but the application was opening in the browser properly.

The Error I was getting is "The remote name could not be resolved". I tried all the methods explained in different websites, but no use.

Finally, It started working after installing "ISA Client". you can download this based on your operating system.

Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.IdentityModel

2010-10-07T02:52:00.000-07:00

I was getting this error after upgrading my system from Windows 2008 standard to Windows 2008 R2

[Window Title]

Visual Studio Just-In-Time Debugger
[Main Instruction]
An unhandled exception ('System.IO.FileNotFoundException') occurred in OWSTIMER.EXE [3492].

The Just-In-Time debugger was launched without necessary security permissions. To debug this process, the Just-In-Time debugger must be run as an Administrator. Would you like to debug this process?

[V] View process details [Yes, debug OWSTIMER.EXE] [No, cancel debugging]

[Expanded Information]
Process Name: OWSTIMER.EXE
User Name: NETWORK SERVICE

Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.IdentityModel ...........

try this
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=eb9c345f-e830-40b8-a5fe-ae7a864c4d76&displaylang=en

InfoPath 2010: Send Email on button click ( Custom Code)

2010-09-29T03:36:00.000-07:00

I was searching for sending Mail from Infopath form, on click of button through custom code.

Initially I tried this by googling,

EmailAdapterObject myEmailAdapter =

((EmailAdapterObject)thisXDocument.DataAdapters["Email Submit Internal"]);
myEmailAdapter.To = list@example.com;
myEmailAdapter.Subject = "Status Report";
myEmailAdapter.Submit();

But in above code, I was not able to get "thisXDocument" reference.

Then I used below code to send Email

Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.Application objOutlook = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.Application();

Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.MailItem objOutlookMsg = (MailItem)objOutlook.CreateItem(Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.OlItemType.olMailItem);

objOutlookMsg.To = " To Address ";

//objOutlookMsg.CC = AddressCC;

//objOutlookMsg.BCC = AddressBCC;

objOutlookMsg.Subject = "TestMail";
objOutlookMsg.Body = "Body of email";

// If you want to attach image

objOutlookMsg.Attachments.Add(@"\image\header.jpg", Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.OlAttachmentType.olByValue, objOutlookMsg.Body.Length + 1, "My Attachment");

objOutlookMsg.Importance = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.OlImportance.olImportanceNormal;

//objOutlookMsg.Display(true);

objOutlookMsg.Send();

objOutlook = null;
objOutlookMsg = null;

InfoPath 2010 : How to make Text fields Visible False

2010-09-29T03:03:00.000-07:00

I was just trying to figure our, how can we make the fields visible false in Infopath designer 2010.

I didnot find any direct way, but what we can do is, while designing, create textfield, appropriate field name will get create under "MYfields". Later delete the Text field from UI, but stil you can work with the fields declared under "MyFields".

Infopath 2010 - Error while connecting to Web service

2010-09-15T23:02:00.000-07:00

I was trying to populate data in Infopath form by calling webservice .

I was getting below error when I try to call webservice through code.

Request for the permission of type 'System.Net.WebPermission, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' failed.

After doing so many R&D, I found this can be solved by adding "Full" trust in Web.config, but in Infopath project, we won't get Web.config file. We have only App.Config file.

After searching in Infopath Form, where you can set Full Trust.

Open Infopath 2010 form in Design Mode.
Click on Langauge Tab.

Under Security and Trust - Select Full Trust option.

This will solve your problem

Error while opening Infopath file

2010-09-06T22:33:00.000-07:00

When I was trying to open Infopath file (.xsn) , I was getting below error.

This form cannot be opened because it requires the domain permission level

Error Details:
Forms that require the domain permission level contain features
that access information on a network, such as data connections, linked images, and code.

The solution for this is very simple.
Right click on the file, select "Design" option. this will work

Solution for the error while setting session using javascript

2010-08-25T23:27:00.000-07:00

I was working on setting projectid into session using javascript.

where I was using below code
if (projectid) {

// URL to get states for a given country
CreateXmlHttp();
// If browser supports XMLHTTPRequest object
if (XmlHttp) {
var requestUrl = "AJAXServlet.aspx?projectid=" + projectid + "";
//Initializes the request object with GET (METHOD of posting),
//Request URL and sets the request as asynchronous.
XmlHttp.open("GET", requestUrl, true);
//Setting the event handler for the response
XmlHttp.onreadystatechange = HandleResponse;
//Sends the request to server
XmlHttp.send(null);
}
else {alert("Unable to populate project session");
}
}

which was populating on click of list of projects with radio button, but it was working only for 2 clicks, after that If I select any other project session was not populating, but I was getting correct response message with XmlHttp.status = 200.

I sat to fix this for about 2 hours, but I didnot find any issue with ajax code.

Then, just for testing I append random number to the url, surpricingly it started working properly,

below is the change I have made
var rand_no = Math.random();
var requestUrl = "AJAXServlet.aspx?projectid=" + projectid + "&ran= "+ rand_no +"";

SQL query "when Null" will not work

2010-08-20T03:28:00.000-07:00

SQL query Null will not work for the below case
select case amount when null then 0 else amount end from [Table]

Change this as below, this will work
select case when Amount is null then 0 else amount end from [Table]

Change the size of the column in SQL

2010-07-20T03:33:00.001-07:00

To change the size of the column in SQL

ALTER TABLE [Deliverables] alter column [LastModifiedBy] nvarchar(50)

SharePoint Workflow not triggering when item changed - issue resolved

2010-06-22T15:06:00.000-07:00

I was working on SharePoint designer 2010 workflow, I was stuck in one workflow problem, where the workflow was not triggering when I change the item, even though I have selected the option of auto trigger when item change.

After lot of analysis, I found that, its the problem with not comple the previous workflow.

whenever, you are working with multiple condition workflow, complete the first workflow, then only the next workflow will gets triggered, because Sharepoint workflow is sequential, you can't run two workflow parallaly on the same item.

Customizing themes in SharePoint 2010

2010-06-20T11:29:00.000-07:00

I was trying to apply custom themes for the SharePoint 2010 Online site.

thought of making seperate theme, instead of applying for each site manually.

The steps to create the themes are explained in this link using power point

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/customize-and-save-a-theme-in-powerpoint-2007-HA010250106.aspx

follow the above steps, create thmx file, navigate to Site Settings, themes, upload this file in to the themes gallary.

you can see your custom theme available in themes list.

SharePoint 2010 Calculated Column - Get Days Left from Due date to current date

2010-06-10T22:39:00.000-07:00

I was trying to Get day's remaining from the Due Date to current date using SharePoint calculated column in of our SPO2010 MileStone List.

I used ths technique to get days left

Create a dummy column Today with Single line of text

Create a DaysLeft calculated column
Enter this value in formula place
=(DATEDIF(Today,[DueDate],"d"))-INT(DATEDIF(Today,[DueDate],"d")/7)*2-IF((WEEKDAY([DueDate])-WEEKDAY(Today))<0,2,0)+1
Make the above output as Single Line text

Note: You should have column with name "DueDate"

After doing this, click Ok, than delete the column "Today". come back to your list, you will see number of days remaining under the column "DaysLeft"

SharePoint designer 2010 - Changing the alternate Style of List View

2010-06-07T05:51:00.000-07:00

To change the alternate style of List view,
Open page in designer,
Select the rows
Select Row Formatting option
Click on Advanced option enter position() mod 2=0

or view code, enter the below code in place of

ms-alternating

Replace with

ms-rteBackColor-4
ms-rteBackColor-5

Save the file.

SharePoint Designer 2010 - Error in Approval Workflow

2010-06-04T05:43:00.000-07:00

I was working on Sharepoint 2010 workflow in Designer, I was creating simple approval workflow.

I was surprised to see the result, even I say rejected, I was getting mail has approve. did some R&D.

later, found it solved by enabling Content Approval flag.

To do this , Go to Library Settings - Version settings, select Enable content approval option

Office Excel 2010 - Publish to SharePoint option not available

2010-05-28T05:31:00.000-07:00

I was working on SharePoint 2010 Excel Services, where you can see in the Office Excel 2010, publish option to sharepoint is moved to "Save & Send" option, which comes under File, which is different from Office 2007.

But, If you go to that location,you will see Save to SharePoint option, but you will not see browse option to save that excel work sheet in to SharePoint Library.

This is because, your office installation is not uptodate. you may have to upgrade your Office Professional Plus 2010.

check this for upgrading details.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/983473/en-us?p=1

SharePoint 2010 : Table Of Content (TOC) webpart error

2010-05-24T00:07:00.000-07:00

I was getting "Unable to display this Web Part" error, when I try to add Table Of Content WebPart in SharePoint 2010 page with Team Site.

Error Details : Could not load XSL, the system cannot find the file specified.

I did some googling, later, tried activating publishing feature in Team Site and than tried to add this webpart, it started working.

SharePoint 2010 - A Microsoft SharePoint Server State Service error occurred while processing your request

2010-05-21T02:26:00.000-07:00

I was getting below error when I was working with Chart Webpart with SharePoint 2010

A Microsoft SharePoint Server State Service error occurred while processing your request

To solve this problem, Go Central Administration
Go to Configuration wizard
Go to
Farm Configuration

Launch the Farm Configuration Wizard

Complete the wizard, this will solve your problem