Thursday, May 3, 2012

Sharepoint Interview Questions and Answers

What is SharePoint ?

 Microsoft SharePoint is an enterprise collaboration and content management platform which enables users to connect each other and share the information across an organization. Indirectly which solves the problems in an organization to share the documents, security, business process, maintaining data etc. SharePoint 2010 has rich UI and plenty of features.

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

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 provides a broad range of levels for performing backups, including the entire farm, farm configuration information, site collections, subsites or lists.

SharePoint Server 2010 uses two different tools to configure backup and recovery.

1. Central Administration: Central Administration provides a user interface where SharePoint Administrators will be prompted via menu structures to select the information that needs to be backed up.

2. Windows PowerShell : Windows PowerShell is a command line tool that provides SharePoint administrators a way to perform backup and recovery with additional options such as file compression or working with SQL snapshots.

Listed below are a few of the benefits available when working with Windows PowerShell

Windows PowerShell scripts can be developed and scheduled (with Windows Task Scheduler), whereas Central Administration is used for single-use backups and restores.

Windows PowerShell has the advantage of running against SQL snapshots instead of the production database. One of the parameters of the Windows PowerShell command will cause a SQL snapshot to be generated, and then Windows PowerShell will run the action against the snapshot instead of the production database. This will reduce the resource impact of the backup operation on the production environment.

With Windows PowerShell, SharePoint administrators will have more granular control of options for the backup or restore.

What are the advantages of Service Applications over SSP?

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.

Additional improvements for the service application model include:

The services architecture is extensible, allowing third-party companies to build and add services to the platform.

Services are managed directly in Central Administration (rather than a separate administration site).

 Services can be monitored and managed remotely.

Services can be managed and scripted by Windows PowerShell.

Shared services communications take place over HTTP(S). Shared services do not directly access databases across farms.

Most new services are built on the Windows Communications Framework. They have optimization built into their protocol, using binary streams instead of XML for data transfer. Test results show improvements in network throughput with this change.

What is a workflow?

Workflow is the definition, execution and automation of business processes where tasks, information or documents are passed from one participant to another for action, according to a set of procedural rules.
Organizations use workflows to coordinate tasks between people and synchronize data between systems, with the ultimate goal of improving organizational efficiency, responsiveness and profitability.
Workflows automate the flow of employee tasks and activities, reducing the time the process took to complete as well as potential errors caused by human interaction.

What is the difference between a Site Definition and a Site Template?

Ans. Site Definitions are stored on the hard drive of the SharePoint front end servers. They are used by the SharePoint application to generate the sites users can create. Site Templates are created by users as a copy of a site they have configured and modified so that they do not have to recreate lists, libraries, views and columns every time they need a new instance of a site.

What are content types? 

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.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.

What is a document library in SharePoint? 

A document library in SharePoint is where you upload your main or core documents. Document Library is consist of a row and column view with links to the documents, When the document is updated and so is the link is created on your site. You can also track metadata of your documents. Meta data in SharePoint is consisting of document properties.

What is the difference between a document library and a form library in SharePoint? 

Document libraries in SharePoint consist of your main/core documents. For example a word document, excel, PowerPoint, Visio, pdf, csv, notepad etc. Form libraries consist of XML forms.

What is a template in SharePoint? 

A template is a pre-defined set of functions or settings that can be used over time. There are many templates within SharePoint software itself, Site Templates, Document Templates, Document Library and List Templates.
You can download More SharePoint templates from Microsoft site and the link is

What security levels are assigned to users for a SharePoint Website? 

Security levels are assigned by the administrator who is adding the user. There are four levels by default and additional levels can be composed as necessary.

* Reader - Has read-only access to the Web site.
* Contributor - Can add content to existing document libraries and lists.
* Web Designer - Can create lists and document libraries and customize pages in the Web site.
* Administrator - Has full control of the Web site.

How do I make my site non-restricted (Available for anonymous users without Authentication) in Sharepoint? 

If you want your site to have anonymous access enabled (i.e., you want to treat it like any site on the Internet that does not ask you to provide a user name and password to see the content of the site),
If you want to make your SharePoint website available on Internet and anybody can use it than you can follow below steps:

1) Log-in as an administrator
2) Click on site settings
3) Click on Go to Site Administration
4) Click on Manage anonymous access
5) Choose one of the three conditions on what Anonymous users can access:** Entire Web site** Lists and libraries** Nothing Default condition is nothing; your site has restricted access.
The default conditions allow you to create a secure site for your Web site.

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

Which are default master pages in Sharepoint 2010? 

1.    v4.master - This is default master page.
2. default.master - this is used to support the 2007 user interface
3. minimal.master
4. simple.master- it is used for accessdenied.aspx, confirmation.aspx, error.aspx, login.aspx, reqacc.aspx, signout.aspx & webdeleted.aspx pages.

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, 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.

The element types that can be defined by a feature include
menu commands, link commands, page templates, page instances, list definitions, list instances,
event handlers, and workflows.

The two files that are used to define a feature are the feature.xml and manifest file(elements.xml). 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.

What are features of SharePoint 2010? 

Features are:
       Document Collaboration
       Enterprise Search FAST Search
       New Enhance Web Part
       Silver Light web part
       Business Connectivity Services
       Social Media Investments
       Large lists
       Enhanced collaboration features
       Visio Services
       Usage reporting and logging
       Better Network Differencing & SharePoint Offline in SharePoint Workspace
       High Availability/ Disaster Recovery Innovation
       Admin Insights through the Logging & Usage database, and dev dashboard
       Service Applications
       SharePoint Designer Enhancements like portable workflows, and granular delegation
       Sandbox Solutions

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.

What are content databases? 

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

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/unique Permissions which can be controlled by a site collection administrator.

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

What are Web Applications in SharePoint?

An IIS Web site created and used by SharePoint 2010.

What is Content Deployment? 

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

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

What are the Enterprise features of MOSS 2007? 

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

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  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


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

What are the monitoring features that are integrated 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 Data
    Event Log Data
    Timer Service Data
    Metrics For Site Collections and Sites
    Search Usage Data

What is Web Application in SharePoint?

1. In SharePoint Web Application is a IIS website.
2. From Central Admin we can create the web application. Each web application is associated with one IIS web site.
3. Once the web application is created, we can extend the web application in different zones.
4. For each web application, content database is created.

 What is an application pool? Why are application pools important .
In Internet Information Services (IIS), a group of one or more URLs served by a worker process.

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

  What is ACL ?

A list of users or groups and their security permissions. Identifies who can update, modify, or delete an object on a computer or resource on the network.

What is an Alert ? 
A feature that notifies a user by e-mail when there is a change to an item, document, list, or document library on the Web site.

What is the difference between Classic mode authentication and Claims-based authentication?
As the name implies, classic authentication supports NT authentication types like Kerberos, NTLM, Basic, Digest, and anonymous. Claims based authentication uses claims identities against a against a trusted identity provider.

When would you use claims, and when would you use classic?
Classic is more commonly seen in upgraded 2007 environments whereas claims are the recommended path for new deployments.

What 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

What Microsoft tool can be used for incremental backups?
System Center Data Protection Manager

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.

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.


 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.


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.

 How are terms created and used?
There are several ways; however the most common is to use the Term Store Management Tool.

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.

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.

What is a federated location with SharePoint search?
Federated locations provide information that exists outside of your internal network to your end-users.

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.


What authentication type does the SharePoint crawler use?
The crawl component requires access to content using NTLM authentication.


What is the Secure Store Service (SSS)?
A secure database for storing credentials that are associated with application IDs

What is Content Deployment?
Content deployment enables you to copy content from a source site collection to a destination site collection.

What is the difference between SQL clustering and mirroring?
Clustering provides a fail over 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.

11 comments:

  1. Hi

    I read this post two times.

    I like it so much, please try to keep posting.

    Let me introduce other material that may be good for our community.

    Source: State Farm interview questions


    Best regards
    Henry

    ReplyDelete
  2. HI Carlos ,

    Thanks for your time and feedback . I had been away due to some unavoidable reasons .

    The link you have mentioned is really useful for readers of our community .

    Thanks for sharing the same .

    Regards

    Sushant

    ReplyDelete
  3. thanks for giving this document it's more lot of stuff here for preparing for interview's

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi ,

    Thanks Vijay for your time and feedback . I am trying my best :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. It is very useful for interview preparation.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Sushant, Nice explanation and also please remove repeated questions. Expecting more que & ans

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi this is balakrishna.., Iam new to sharepoint. I want sharepoint interview questions pdf. Please send me pdfs to kbkcse@gmail.com. thank You.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks man..its very helpful

    ReplyDelete
  9. Really Good one,
    You can also find material here http://www.whatissharepointportal.com/2013/01/08/sharepoint-interview-questions-and-answers-part-one/

    ReplyDelete

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