SharePoint Interview Questions 1

1. What is the relationship between Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server and Microsoft Windows Services?
   Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies (including SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services) deliver highly scalable collaboration solutions with flexible deployment and management tools. Windows SharePoint Services provides sites for team collaboration, while Share Point Portal Server connects these sites, people, and business processes-facilitating knowledge sharing and smart organizations. SharePoint Portal Server also extends the capabilities of Windows SharePoint Services by providing organizational and management tools for SharePoint sites, and by enabling teams to publish information to the entire organization.
2. 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.
3. Workflow can be applied to what all elements of SharePoint ?
   Workflow associations are often created directly on lists and libraries, a workflow association can also be created on a content type that exists within the Content Type Gallery for the current site or content types defined within a list. In short, it can be applied ...
   
   At the level of a list/library At the level of a content type defined at site scope At the level of a content type defined at list scope
4. What are the types of input forms that can be created for a workflow ?
   You can create four different types of input forms including
   
   1. An association form
   2. An initiation form
   3. A modification form
   4. A task edit form.
   
   Note that these forms are optional when you create a workflow template.
5. What are ways to create input forms for workflow ?
   Two
   
   1. You can create your forms by using custom application pages, which are standard .aspx pages deployed to run out of the _layouts directory. ( disadv: lot of code required when compared to Infopath approach)
   2. Using Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 (disadv: picks up a dependenct on MOSS, i.e. it cannot run in a standalone WSS environment)
6. What is the difference between method activity and event activity in WorkFlow ?
   A method activity is one that performs an action, such as creating or updating a task. An event activity is one that runs in response to an action occurring.
7. 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 document library/libraries.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. 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
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. Can multiple SharePoint installs point to the same DB?
    Multiple SharePoint installs can use the same database server. Not literally the same database on that server. That server must be SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 2005. It cannot be Oracle or another vendor.
16. How to create links to the mapped network drives?
    Creating links to mapped drives in WSS v3 or MOSS 2007 can be done via the new content type for .lnk files.
17. 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.
18. What are the two base classes a WebPart you are going to use within SharePoint 2007 can inherit from?
    There are two base classes that a WebPart which is going to be consumed by SharePoint can inherit from, either the
    SharePoint WebPart Base class
    or the
    ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart base class.
    
    When inheriting from the SharePoint WebPart Base class your derived WebPart class will inherit from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart. When inheriting from the ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart base class your derived WebPart class will inherit from System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart. It is considered good practice to use the ASP.NET WebPart base class since the old base class is meant for backwards compatibility with previous version of SharePoint, however there are four 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
19. 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.
20. 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.”