Pratik's SharePoint Blog - [MVP SharePoint]

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 exception 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 WebParts are generally considered better to use because SharePoint is built upon the ASP.NET 2.0 web architecture. Inheriting from the ASP.NET 2.0 base class offers you features that inherit to ASP.NET 2.0, such as embedding resources as opposed to use ClassResources for deployment of said types.

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 file 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 WebParts is used to notify the WebPart that there are children controls that should be output for rendering. Basically, it will add any child ASP.NET controls that are called instantiating each control with its relevant properties set, wire any relevant event handlers to the control, etc. Then the add method of the control class will add the control to the controls collection. In the relevant WebPart render method, the EnsureChildControls method can be called (or set to false if no child controls should be called) to ensure that the CreateChildControls method is run. When using CreateChildControls it implies that your WebPart contains a composition of child controls.

In order to create something like a label control in Create, you would create a new label control using the new keyword, set the various properties of the control like Visible=True and ForeColor = Color.Red, and then use Controls.Add(myLabelControl) to add the control to the controls collection. Then you can declare EnsureChildControls in the Render method of the WebPart.

7) What does the RenderContents method do in an ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart?

The render contents method will render the WebPart content to the writer, usually an HtmlTextWriter since WebParts will output to an HTML stream. RenderContents is used to tell how the controls that are going to be displayed in the WebPart should be rendered on the page.

*** Side Question: I got asked what the difference between CreateChildControls and the RenderContents method. The CreateChildControls method is used to add controls to the WebPart, and the RenderContents method is used to tell the page framework how to render the control into HTML to display on a page.

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 WebParts (controls), events, and misc. functionality that will occur in WebPartZones. For example, the WebPartManager is responsible for the functionality that is provided when you are working with moving a WebPart from WebPartZone to WebPartZone. It is known as the “the central class of the Web Part Control Set.”

*** Side Question: I got asked how many WebPartManager controls should be on a page. In order to have WebParts on a page there has to be just one WebPartManager control to manage all the WebParts on the page.

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 sites and all its subsites]). The SPWeb object represents an instance SharePoint Web, and SPWeb object contains things like the actual content. A SPSite object contains the various subsites and the information regarding them.

10) How would you go about getting a reference to a site?

PLAIN TEXT

C#:

oSPSite = new SPSite("http:/server");
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 SendMail method from the SPutility class to send simple emails, however it is not as robust as using the System.Net.Mail functionality since it doesn’t allow things like setting priorities on the email.

13) How do you connect (reference) to a SharePoint list, and how do you insert a new List Item?

PLAIN TEXT

C#:

using(SPSite mySite = new SPSite("yourserver"))
{
using(SPWeb myWeb = mySite.OpenWeb())
{
SPList interviewList = myWeb.Lists["listtoinsert"];
SPListItem newItem = interviewList.Items.Add();
newItem["interview"] = "interview";
newItem.Update();
}
}

14) How would you loop using SPList through all SharePont List items, assuming you know the name (in a string value) of the list you want to iterate through, and already have all the site code written?

PLAIN TEXT

C#:

SPList interviewList = myWeb.Lists["listtoiterate"];
foreach (SPListItem interview in interviewList)
{
// Do Something
}

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:

PLAIN TEXT

C#:

SPWeb site = siteCollection.RootWeb;
site.Title += "interview";
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.

Courtesy to: http://www.sharepointsecurity.com/sharepoint/sharepoint-development/sharepoint-developer-interview-questions-answers/

SharePoint 2010 Interview Questions With Answers

2011-12-30T12:31:00.000+05:30

Basic Intro SharePoint Architecture Questions

1) What are Web Applications in SharePoint?

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

2) What is an application pool?

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

3) Why are application pools important?

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

4) What are zones?

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

5) What are Web Application Policies?

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

6) What is a site collection?

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

7) What are content databases?

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

8) What is a site?

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

9) What are My Sites?

Specialized SharePoint sites personalized and targeted for each user.

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

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

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

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

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

A single-server SharePoint Server 2010 environment leverages a built-in SQL Server 2008 Express database. The problems with this environment is scalability, not being able to install the with built-in database on a domain controller, the database cannot be larger than 4 GB, and you cannot use User Profile Synchronization in a single server with built-in database installation.

An example of a multiple tier farm would be a three-tier topology, considered one of the more efficient physical and logical layouts to supports scaling out or scaling up and provides better distribution of services across the member servers of the farm. This is considered a good architecture since one can add Web servers to the Web tier, add app servers to the application tier, and add database servers to the database tier.

SharePoint Backup and Restore Questions

13) What are some of the tools that can be used when backing up a SharePoint 2010 environment?

SharePoint farm backup and recovery
SQL Server
System Center Data Protection Manager

14) What Microsoft tool can be used for incremental backups?

System Center Data Protection Manager

Managed Metadata Questions

15) What is Managed Metadata?

Managed metadata is a hierarchical collection of centrally managed terms that you can define, and then use as attributes for items.

16) What are Terms and Term Sets?

A term is a word or a phrase that can be associated with an item. A term set is a collection of related terms.

17) How do Terms And Term Sets relate to Managed Metadata?

Managed metadata is a way of referring to the fact that terms and term sets can be created and managed independently from the columns themselves.

18) Are there different types of Term Sets?

There are Local Term Sets and Global Term Sets, one created within the context of a site collection and the other created outside the context of a site collection, respectively.

19) How are terms created and used?

There are several ways; however the most common is to use the Term Store Management Tool.

20) How is Managed Metadata, and the related Term technology used?

Through the UI, the most common use is through the managed metadata list column which allows you to specify the term set to use. It also related to searching and enhancing the user search experience.

Sandbox Solutions Questions

21) What is a sandboxed solution?

Components that are deployed to run within the sandboxed process rather than running in the production Internet Information Services (IIS) worker process.

22) What are some examples of things that might run within the SharePoint sandbox?

Any of the following are acceptable answers:

Web Parts

Event receivers

Feature receivers

Custom Microsoft SharePoint Designer workflow activities

Microsoft InfoPath business logic

others….

23) Why are sandboxed solutions used?

Primarily because they promote high layers of isolation. By default they run within a rights-restricted, isolated process based around Code Access Security (CAS). Isolation is possible to increase with activities like running the sandboxing service on only specific SharePoint 2010 servers.

SharePoint Search Questions

24) What is a content source in relation to SharePoint search? What’s the minimum amount of content sources?

A content source is a set of options that you can use to specify what type of content is crawled, what URLs to crawl, and how deep and when to crawl. You must create at least one content source before a crawl can occur.

25) What is a search scope?

A search scope defines a subset of information in the search index. Users can select a search scope when performing a search.

26) What is a federated location with SharePoint search?

Federated locations provide information that exists outside of your internal network to your end-users.

27) How does managed metadata affect search?

Enhances the end-user search experience by mapping crawled properties to managed properties. Managed properties show up in search results and help users perform more successful queries.

28) What is query logging in SharePoint 2010?

Collects information about user search queries and search results that users select on their computers to improve the relevancy of search results and to improve query suggestions.

29) What authentication type does the SharePoint crawler use?

The crawl component requires access to content using NTLM authentication.

Services Architecture Questions

30) Please describe what a Service Application is in SharePoint 2010.

Service applications in SharePoint 2010 are a set of services that can possibly be shared across Web applications. Some of these services may or may not be shared across the SharePoint 2010 farm. The reason these applications are shared is the overall reduction of resources required to supply the functionality these services cultivate.

31) Please provide an example of one of these service applications.

Any of the below are acceptable answers:

Access Services

Business Data Connectivity service

Excel Services Application

Managed Metadata service

PerformancePoint Service Application

Search service

Secure Store Service

State service

Usage and Health Data Collection service

User Profile service

Visio Graphics Service

Web Analytics service

Word Automation Services

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Subscription Settings Service

32) What are Service Application Groups used for?

Just provides a logical grouping of services that are scoped to a particular Web Application.

33) How are Service Applications deployed in terms of IIS (Internet Information Services)?

They are provisioned as a single Internet Information Services (IIS) Web site.

34) Explain how connections are managed with Service Applications.

A virtual entity is used that is referred to as a proxy, due to label in PowerShell.

35) What are some common examples of SharePoint 2010 services architectures, and what are the advantages of each design?

The three most popular designs are single farms with either a single service application group or multiple service application groups, or Enterprise services farms.

Single farms with a single service application group are generally the most common, and have the advantages of easy deployment, simple service application allocation, effective resource utilization and cohesive management.

Single farms with multiple service application groups is less common, and have the advantage of potential individual management of service applications as well as allowing data isolation, and while being more complex to deploy and maintain allows targeting of sites to particular service applications.

Enterprise Service Farms is pretty uncommon as it is a complete farm dedicated to Service Applications but promotes autonomous management and high levels of data isolation.

36) Are there any other type of relevant service architectures?

Depending on the environment requirements, a specialized farm can also be used in order to deploy specific services tailored to the organizational requirements which can aid in scaling out and conservation of resources.

37) What is the User Profile service?

Allows configuring and managing User profile properties, Audiences, Profile synchronization settings, organization browsing and management settings, and My Site settings.

38) What are User Profiles?

Aggregates properties from diverse identity content sources together to create unified and consistent profiles across an organization, used throughout the SharePoint environment.

39) What is Excel Services?

Allows sharing, securing, managing, and using Excel 2010 workbooks in a SharePoint Server Web site or document library. Excel Services consists of the Excel Calculation Services (ECS), Microsoft Excel Web Access (EWA), and Excel Web Services (EWS) components.

40) What is PerformancePoint Services?

Allows users to monitor and analyze a business by building dashboards, scorecards, and key performance indicators (KPIs).

41) What is Visio Services?

Allows users to share and view Microsoft Visio Web drawings. The service also enables data-connected Microsoft Visio 2010 Web drawings to be refreshed and updated from various data sources.

42) What is Access Services?

Allows users to edit, update, and create linked Microsoft Access 2010 databases that can be viewed and manipulated by using an internet browser, the Access client, or a linked HTML page.

43) What is the Secure Store Service (SSS)?

A secure database for storing credentials that are associated with application IDs

44) What is Content Deployment?

Content deployment enables you to copy content from a source site collection to a destination site collection.

Backup / DR Questions

45) Describe how redundancy can be built into a SharePoint environment. Please be specific in regards to any auxiliary components.

Multiple front-end web servers (WFE’s) can be deployed and correlated through Windows NLB or anything approach. Application servers can be deployed into the farm for a variety of purposes, depending on organizational requirements. Databases can be clustered or mirrored, again depending on requirements and environment.

46) From a basic standpoint, what is the difference between SQL clustering and mirroring?

Clustering provides a failover scenario whereby one or more nodes can be swapped as active depending on whether a node goes down. In mirroring, transactions are sent directly from a principal database and server to a mirror database to establish essentially a replica of the database.

Governance Questions

47) What Is Governance in terms of SharePoint 2010?

Governance is the set of policies, roles, responsibilities, and processes that guide, direct, and control how an organization’s business divisions and IT teams cooperate to achieve business goals.

48) What are some useful, OOB features of SharePoint that aid with governance of an environment?

Any of the below are acceptable answers. There are some others but these are the major ones that I generally look for from a candidate:

Site templates – consistent branding, site structure, and layout can be enforce a set of customizations that are applied to a site definition.

Quotas – limits to the amount of storage a site collection can use.

Locks - prevent users from either adding content to a site collection or using the site collection.

Web application permissions and policies – comprehensive security settings that apply to all users and groups for all site collections within a Web application.

Self-service site creation - enables users to create their own site collections, thus must be incorporated into a governance scheme.

Monitoring Questions

49) Describe the monitoring features that are baked into SharePoint 2010.

Diagnostic logging captures data about the state of the system, whereas health and usage data collection uses specific timer jobs to perform monitoring tasks, collecting information about:

Performance Counter Fata
Event Log Data
Timer Service Data
Metrics For Site Collections and Sites
Search Usage Data

General Workflow Questions

50) What is a declarative workflow? Can non-authenticated users participate in workflows?

Workflows created by using Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010, the default setting enables deployment of declarative workflows. Yes, however you do not give non-authorized users access to the site. The e-mail message and attachments sent from notifications might contain sensitive information

Courtesy: http://www.sharepointsecurity.com/sharepoint/sharepoint-architecture/50-sharepoint-2010-interview-questions-with-answers-it-pro-architect/

Propagation shows waiting for initialization

2011-12-30T10:36:00.000+05:30

This is the most common issue sometimes we face when try to add a server with Query role in to a farm
Scenario:

There are total 8 servers with MOSS 2007
4 WEBs and 4 APPs
Indexer is on PRATIKAPP1 and other 3 have to be a query server
I have already added PRATIKAPP2 & PRATIKAPP3 as a query long time back and they are working fine and search is running smoothly
But recently we are facing heavy load in search and that’s why decided to go for another query server
So the plan is to add PRATIKAPP4 as a query in farm

Steps:

To achieve this goal I simply went to Central Administration > Operations > Services on Server
Selected the server from the drop down “PRATIKAPP4″
Then clicked on “Start” on “Office SharePoint Server Search” and applied path of Index folder shared on my APP4, hit OK
It took couple of minutes to be started
Checked timer job status and found the job to add PRATIKAPP4 has been initiated on PRATIKAPP1
Then checked Search Administration and found Propagation status showing “waiting for initialization (PRATIKAPP4)”
I had 400 GB of INDEX files data on other 2 query servers and periodically on PRATIKAPP4 INDEX folder was increasing in size, so I had to wait for some time.
Now the main villain came which destroyed my INDEX data and made it to count from 0 –zero
The reason was there are timer restart scripts ran on each server after 6 hours and I gone really mad when it INDEX file came back to zero from 250 GB.
All jobs again stated back from scratch.

Resolution:

Stopped OSearch from Central admin on PRATIKAPP4, which went to “Stopping” state
So manually stopped it using stsaadm command on PRATIKAPP4
- stsaadm –o osearch –action stop
Then disable timer restart scripts on all servers
Again followed all above steps
Periodically checked INDEX folder on PRATIKAPP4
It was increasing in size but the speed was too slow
Finally it reached to 398 GB and under search administration I found the 3^rd Query server added
Timer job status showed succeeded with 100 %
Propagation status showed IDLE
Everything was perfect as expected.

Thoughts:

What I was thinking to get this resolved?
Copy INDEX files from one location to another, but there were some active crawls going on and I did not want it to be stopped
Finally if the server was not listed then planned to run following stsaadm command on PRATIKAPP4
- stsadm -o osearch -propagationlocation filePathtoPropagationShare
There are so many articles and suggestions available on internet which talks about this scenario, but what I suggest is to first check your environment and then go for resolution.
Resolution or any issue is easy and I bet we guys definitely aware with it, but the thing only thing required is proper analysis and crystal clear knowledge of own environment.
This is what I had faced and resolved, please feel free to provide me suggestions and inputs on my above steps.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T20:03:00.000+05:30

To all my Friends and Blog reader,

Let’s welcome the year which is fresh,

Let’s welcome the year which is fresh and new,

Let’s cherish each moment it beholds,

Let’s celebrate this blissful New Year.

!! Merry Christmas !!

How to: display files extensions in SharePoint Document Library

2011-12-13T22:53:00.000+05:30

There are 2 ways to show file extensions in a SharePoint document library

Method1:

Convert the document library List View web part to a XSLT dataview
Open the document library with FrontPage,
Right click and convert to DataView.
Modify the XSLT to add select=”@File_x0020_Type”/>

Method2:

Modify the display pattern in ONET.XML
Add
Name=”File_x0020_Type”/>
Before
Name=”Created_x0020_Date”>.

After making a change to ONET.XML you have to do IISRESET.

Let’s start customization

2011-12-06T21:12:00.000+05:30

Here we go with some customization with a small piece of CODE to make SharePoint more stunning and more users friendly. I appeal to all of you, please share some customization tips to make SharePoint more BEAUTIFUL.

Here are some codes we can add into Content Editor Web Part to get desired results.

Hide QuickLaunch bar (Area remains – blank)

<style>

.ms-quicklaunch

{

display:none;

}

</style>

Hide QuickLaunch bar with Area

.leftNavArea{display:none;}

</style>

Hide Allwebparts from page

<style>

.ms-navframe

{

display:none;

}

</style>

Hide QuickLaunch bar with Area and all Web Parts from the page

<style>

.ms-pagetitleareaframe

{

display: none;

}

.ms-navframe

{

display: none;

}

.ms-titleareaframe

{

display: none;

}

</style>

Create custom Search Result Page using a basic page (No search center required)

2011-11-29T11:43:00.000+05:30

I know this is a very basic thing which all SharePoint experts know very well when they started their JOURNEY with SharePoint but there is something very interesting & simple we missed to check or use

Here are few steps with which we can create a custom search result page in very simple way. I use word because SIMPLE because it’s not required to create any search center sites or any search pages. This can be achieved with a simple Blank web part page and with ALL OOTB features.

First of all create a page, (i.e. Blank web part page). I call it “Simple Search”
Then click on Add a web part and add following web parts in sequence.

1. Search box

2. Search Paging

3. Search Core Results

Now click on edit page and select Search Box web part > click “Modify Shared Web part”
Under Miscellaneous section change – Target search results page URL to the newly created page – i.e. http://sitename/doclib/simplesearch.aspx (i.e. http://sitename/pages/simplesearch.aspx for site with publishing enabled)
That’s all, now when user lands on Simple Search Page and query for search he / she will get all search results on the same page and it gives the same look and feel which is there on OSSearchResult page as we have added search paging.
Search paging gives number of pages containing search results.

There are few more customizations which we can do on the same page like creating a custom scope for a search box or by customizing search core results.

Here are some references

Search Core Results XSLT Transformation:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms584121(v=office.12).aspx

Creating a Custom Search Page and Tabs in the Search Center of SharePoint Server:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb428855(v=office.12).aspx

Search Core Results Web Part XSLT:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms562390(v=office.12).aspx

Performance issue with Project Task List in SharePoint 2007

2011-11-17T19:22:00.001+05:30

Issue:

A Project Task List takes more than 5 minutes to load

Cause & Resolution:

· User had a project task list

· Total number of items = 2000+

· She had created a custom view in which she selected an option Grouped by “Column Name”

· Created my personal view (of course a standard view, no grouped by, no sort by or no filter)

· Browsed the list using my personal view and it had hardly taken a minute to open

· Also found this article - http://kb4sp.wordpress.com/2007/06/25/sharepoint-2007-hard-limitations/ which says – There is not a hard limit, but you might experience list view performance degradation as the number of field types in a list increases to 256 per list.

· And I also checked when we select Grouped By option in the view Field types in the list increased to more than 300, so removed grouped by option from user’s custom view which loaded the list faster.

Question sequence gets disordered when export a survey with Rating Scale questions to Excel sheet.

2011-11-04T12:15:00.000+05:30

Issue:
Question sequence is disordered when we export a survey list to excel
Resolution – Only to get questions in proper sequence in Excel sheet!!

Checked Survey settings
Found there were total 50 questions and found almost 30 questions were created using "Rating Scale" category
Changed question ordering from Survey settings > Change order of questions
Previously it was from Q-1 > Q-1-a….Q-5 > Q-5-e
Changed it to reverse order and arranged Q-5-e > Q-5…..Q-1-a > Q-1
Exported to spreadsheet, and got all the questions in right order.
Now another issue occurred, Q-6 (Multiple Line of Text) came first in datasheet, so from view removed it to be displayed or to be exported to spreadsheet.
The other issue noticed was when user clicks on "Respond to this survey", user will get the same reverse orders of questions (i.e. Q-5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 6)
Though this helps us to get questions in proper sequence only in Spreadsheet but this cannot be implemented as this occurs disordering of questions in survey.

Found 2 alternate workarounds
Workaround 1

Changed all "Rating Scale" questions to "Choice" category with "Radio button" & fill in "mandatory" option
Order remained same (i.e. Q- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
Now it worked proper for both scenarios, user got the right order when open "Respond to this survey" and also got the right order when exported to excel.

Workaround 2

Created a page and added a Data View Web part using SPD on the page
Used SharePoint survey as a Data source and added all questions / columns in to the web part
Then from Data view web part exported data to excel

Feel free to reach me in case of any queries on above steps. Thanks

SharePoint 2010 - The Security Token Service is not available

2011-10-26T04:29:00.001+05:30

After installing SharePoint Foundation 2010 I noticed a warning in the Central Admin > Review problems and solutions report that the Security Token Service is not available.

The Security Token Service is not available.
The Security Token Service is not issuing tokens. The service could be malfunctioning or in a bad state.
SPSecurityTokenService (SecurityTokenService)

I have found so many articles while search and it seems the problem is same but the resolution is deferent for all scenarios. For my scenario problem ended up being that the default configuration of the IIS Application Pools was set to 32-bit:

When SharePoint was installed all of the application pool accounts were added with 32-Bit enabled which prevented the SharePoint application pools from starting. I had corrected this for the Central Admin site and also the root SharePoint site but the application pools for the Security Token Service were still set to use the 32-Bit application which was preventing the service from starting.
Changing this setting in each of the application pools (there were several created so check them all) fixed the issue and then the warning went away.

Connect to Outlook is missing in SharePoint Calendar

2011-10-20T06:01:00.001+05:30

A very common & known issue while migrating IE versions. There is couple of steps and checking should be done to get this resolved.

Make sure a single Office instance installed either 2003 or 2007 not both. In case you found a single instance of another version try below step.
Manually unregister and register the owssupp.dll with regsvr32 , if this will not resolve your issue try below step.
Enable add-on called “SharePoint Stssync Handler” in Internet Explorer. Go to Tools > Manage Add-Ons and look for add-ons called “SharePoint Stssync Handler” if disabled, Enable it. If enabled, disable it restart IE and re-enable it. Still getting issue try below one.

SharePoint Services Support feature should be installed on the machine.Control Panel > Microsoft Office > Change > Add or Remove features and add WSS features

For more on SharePoint STSSYNCHANDLER: Connect to Outlook to synchronize lists:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms456225.aspx / http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2007/03/26/searching-the-visible-moss-2007-code-for-activex-references.aspx

SharePoint 2007 WorkFlows - Very basics

2011-10-08T17:03:00.000+05:30

Very basic workflows and their related features

These features (under Site Action > Site Settings > Site Collection Features) must be activated to get respective workflows.

Please find the table below

Workflow	Features
Collect Signatures	Collect Signatures Workflow
Disposition Approval	Disposition Approval Workflow
Approval	Routing Workflows
Collect Feedback	Routing Workflows
Three-state	Three-state workflow
Translation Management (Only in Translation Management Library)	Translation Management Workflow

Feel free to reach me in case of any queries.

How to: fix InfoPath form error – “An error occurred when the form was being submitted’

2011-10-03T23:09:00.002+05:30

Issue:

While Trying to submit an InfoPath form getting error – “An error occurred when the form was being submitted'

Resolution Steps:

Found user has many fields and most of the fields are copied from other field so when we open a form in design mode found following error – Control stores duplicate data

At the first step of resolution I was suspecting this is the culprit behind this issue, and removed all duplicate fields added new fields and saved the form
Republished the form and when clicked on Submit button got the same error.
Again opened the form in design mode and checked following options in Form options Browser category

All options were @ the right place.
Then when I went to Submit options I was quite surprised because it’s a very small option I did not check and spent lot many time after this issue.
Go to Tools > Submit Options > Manage > Modify

Just checked “Allow overwrite if file exists” option.
Saved the form and published it again and saw all is good.
User did not check it because he was using a unique file name , he had manually written “Form” and he was afraid that if he this option is checked all form entries will be overwritten.
So I have changed file name to user name field, so whatever user enters into that filed, The form will be saved with that name.

Wiki Page not showing any content when a Wiki Page Library created from saved template

2011-09-26T22:19:00.001+05:30

This is a weird issue I found. One of my users saved a Wiki Page library as a template and created a new wiki page library.

The new Wiki Lib works fine as expected and then he had deleted the old one.

Now when he tried to create another wiki library from the new wiki lib, it gave all the pages but the weird thing is all contents are gone.

I performed following steps to resolve this issue.

i.e. Source Wiki Page Library = Lib A

i.e. New Wiki Page Library = Lib B

· Open Lib B which made from Lib A and having all the content

· Click on the drop down of each pages and then click “Edit Properties”

· Click on OK without changing any content

· Then save Lib B as a template

· Create a new Wiki Lib (i.e. Lib C)

· You will get all contents (Wiki Pages) with all contents in it.

Please let me know in case of any issues / queries.

How to: Export a Discussion topic List item (SharePoint 2007) to excel or PDF ?

2011-09-26T17:59:00.004+05:30

Here is some tricky way to achieve this GOAL

When you reply to a discussion it changes to Flat view and redirected to flat.aspx page.

So to export discussion topic in excel you have to manually change the URL from flat.aspx to allitems.aspx.

I.e. to enable export to spreadsheet option URL should be http://siteURL/Lists/discussionname/allitems.aspx

Else to export from “Flat view” tries following steps.

· Open Excel

· Click on DATA tab

· Select from Web option

· Then in URL provide the URL with http://siteURL/Lists/discussionname/flat.aspx

· This will open a page with Allitems.aspx in pop up and then you can select (arrows) to insert required data to excel.

· And from Excel you can easily export to PDF

Feel free to reach me in case of any queries / issues related to above post.

SharePoint 2010 useful links

2011-09-19T15:02:00.002+05:30

Manage Excel Services trusted locations

This article explains how to manage the default trusted location for a SharePoint Server 2010 farm. It also explains how to add, configure, delete, and edit existing trusted locations for Excel Services in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff191194(office.14).aspx

Manage Excel Services connections

This article explains how to deploy Excel workbooks with external data connections using Excel Services. It provides details for managing both trusted data connection libraries and trusted data providers.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff191200(office.14).aspx

Manage Excel Services authentication

This article explains how to manage Excel Services settings using the Central Administration site.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff191192(office.14).aspx

Manage Excel Services with Windows PowerShell

This article explains how to use the Windows PowerShell commands with Excel Services. It also provides several sample commands.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff191201(office.14).aspx

Configure Secure Store Service for Excel Services

This article explains how to configure and manage the Secure Store Service for Excel Services. It also provides details for setting permissions and accounts to use the unattended account with Excel Services.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff191191(office.14).aspx

Plan visual upgrade (SharePoint Server 2010)

This article discusses the new visual upgrade feature in SharePoint Server 2010. You can choose to preserve the look and feel of sites during an upgrade from Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, or you can move all sites to the new user interface.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff191199(office.14).aspx

Create a PowerPivot data connection (PerformancePoint Services)

This article describes how to create a data source connection to PowerPivot using PerformancePoint Services.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff191197(office.14).aspx

Create a SharePoint List data connection (PerformancePoint Services)

This article describes how to create a data connection to a SharePoint Server 2010 using PerformancePoint Services.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff191195(office.14).aspx

Create a SQL Server table data connection (PerformancePoint Services)

This article describes how to create a data source connection to a SQL Server table using PerformancePoint Services.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff191190(office.14).aspx

Create an Analysis Services data connection (PerformancePoint Services)

This article describes how to create an Analysis Services data connection in PerformancePoint Services.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff191198(office.14).aspx

Create an Excel Services data connection (PerformancePoint Services)

This article describes how to create a data source connection to Excel Services using PerformancePoint Services.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff191193(office.14).aspx

Create an Excel Workbook data connection (PerformancePoint Services)

This article describes how to import a workbook using PerformancePoint Services.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff191202(office.14).aspx

Create data connections (PerformancePoint Services)

This article provides an overview on creating data connections to external sources using PerformancePoint Services.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff191196(office.14).aspx

Plan for backup and recovery (SharePoint Server 2010)

This article has been updated to include a link to a planning worksheet, and includes updated information about choosing a backup solution.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261687(office.14).aspx

Backup and recovery overview (SharePoint Server 2010)

This article has been updated to more fully describe granular backup, and how SharePoint Server 2010 backup works with the SQL Server FILESTREAM remote BLOB storage provider.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee663490(office.14).aspx

Configure and use the Lotus Notes connector (SharePoint Server 2010)

This article describes the process for installing and configuring the Lotus Notes connector for SharePoint Server 2010.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff463593(office.14).aspx

Language packs (SharePoint Server 2010)

This technical reference article lists the language packs that are available for SharePoint Server 2010.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff463597(office.14).aspx

Restrict or enable access to a service application (SharePoint Server 2010)

This article describes how to restrict access to a service application by assigning and removing service accounts. It also describes how to reestablish local farm-wide service access to a service application.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff463596(office.14).aspx

Diagnostic logging in Business Connectivity Services overview (SharePoint Server 2010)

This article describes how to use diagnostic logs on servers that are running SharePoint Server 2010 and on Microsoft Office 2010 client applications to troubleshoot issues related to Microsoft Business Connectivity Services. It also describes how to use Activity IDs to trace issues to external systems.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff463594(office.14).aspx

Versioning, content approval, and check-out planning (SharePoint Server 2010)

This article describes how to plan to use versioning, content approval, and check-out functionality in SharePoint Server 2010 to control document versions throughout their lifecycle.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262378(office.14).aspx

Records management overview (SharePoint Server 2010)

This article describes records management and provides an overview of the process of planning for records management.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261982(office.14).aspx

Create a file plan to manage records in SharePoint Server 2010

This article describes the contents of a file plan and summarizes how to create one for your organization.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261708(office.14).asp x

Plan how records are collected (SharePoint Server 2010)

This article reviews techniques that you can use to declare active documents to be records.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263464(office.14).aspx

Physical records planning (SharePoint Server 2010)

This article describes how to plan to use SharePoint Server 2010 to manage physical records.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263416(office.14).aspx

Planning for eDiscovery (SharePoint Server 2010)

This article describes how SharePoint Server 2010 supports eDiscovery.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff453933(office.14).aspx

Plan Visio Services security (SharePoint Server 2010)

This article describes security for Visio Services in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. It has been updated to provide additional information about available security options.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee663483(office.14).aspx

Create a Visio Graphics Service application proxy (SharePoint Server 2010)

This article describes how to create a Visio Graphics Service application proxy. It has been updated to clarify when such a proxy can be created by using the SharePoint Central Administration Web site.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee524060(office.14).aspx

Configure Visio Graphics Service global settings (SharePoint Server 2010)

This article describes the various global settings for Visio Graphics Service. It has been updated to include more information about cache and recalculation options.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee524061(office.14).aspx

Configuring Visio Graphics Service trusted data providers (SharePoint Server 2010)

This article describes Visio Graphics Service trusted data providers configuration. It has been updated to provide more detailed information about the included trusted data providers.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee524056(office.14).aspx

Upload files from local machine to SharePoint document library Automatically (DOS command)

2011-08-23T07:37:00.004+05:30

From research I have found so many ways to upload files / documents from File server or from local desktop to SharePoint document library. There are lots of JavaScript available to achieve this goal.

But using these methods end user definitely becomes crazy.

Here I have used a very simple method which automatically uploads document from source folder to SharePoint document library.

Following steps we have to implement to use this method.

· On your machine map a SharePoint site, make sure to create a mapped drive of SharePoint site (not a network place)

· This will assign a letter to site (i.e. Z), and this will create a SharePoint site as a folder.

· So now we have “Z” drive which contains our SharePoint site and all its content and when you navigate to any of the content make sure it will open a folder with “z:\content folder” (as simple as opening a local folder in C / D drive)

· Now we have two local drives one is Source folder and one is SharePoint site.

· Now run following command to check whether we are able to copy documents from one location to another (From local source folder to SharePoint site)

COPY “sourcefolder\filename” “destination (SharePoint Site)”

Copy c:\Pratik\*.* z:\Documents

· (Above command will copy all files from “C:\Pratik” folder to SharePoint site)

· If this will be done successfully then simply create a batch file which copies documents on a click

· And to make this click automated put that batch file in windows task scheduler so that @ a specific time frame it will run and picks up document from local source folder and uploads it to SharePoint site.

· You might face some issues while making map drive, to resolve it follow these steps

On Windows XP machine

· Right click “My Computer” > Map Network Drive

· It will open a wizard, provide SharePoint site name with UNC path (i.e file://servername/folder)

· If you will get any error please chec webclient is activated on the machine.

On Windows 7 machine

· Right click “My Computer” > Map Network Drive

· It will open a wizard, provide SharePoint site name same as you provide in explorer address bar (http://sitename/)

Suggations and feedbacks are always welcome J. Feel free to reach me n case of any issues.