questions and answers

What is SharePoint?

SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform that integrates with Microsoft Office.

Microsoft SharePoint is an extensible platform that provides a variety of products that can help organizations with a solution for a variety of business needs.

What are the main features of SharePoint?

The main features of SharePoint are the following:

• SharePoint Sites makes it easy to create websites.
• SharePoint Communities fulfills its function of collaborating with other people.
• The contents make SharePoint a true CMS (Content Management System)
• Search Engine provides smart and efficient search for business content.
• Insights gather information from different data sources.
• Composition makes SharePoint an extensible platform and extends its capabilities by using different tools like SharePoint Designer etc.

What is a SharePoint Farm?

SharePoint Farm is a collection of one or more SharePoint servers that work together to provide a set of SharePoint services. Servers in a SharePoint farm typically share common resources and have a single central configuration database.

Web applications vs. site collections vs. sites in SharePoint?

• The web application is a collection of site collections in SharePoint OR in the order that a site collection resides in a web application.
• Site collection in SharePoint is a collection of SharePoint sites that share common characteristics such as content types, templates, site columns, permissions, web parts, and so on.
• SharePoint Site is basically a website. SharePoint allows us to create websites of specific types like personal site, a team site, social networking site, blogs or wiki site etc.

What is the concept of content type in SharePoint?

• SharePoint is all about Content, so Content-Type is a reusable collection of settings and metadata to represent a certain type of content. For example, a student content type might have a set of metadata such as student enrollment ID, name, enrollment year, and so on.
• The content type in SharePoint makes it easy to organize content in a more meaningful way. It supports inheritance of properties, behaviors, and appearances.

What are master pages in SharePoint?

• Master pages in SharePoint serve the same purpose as ASP.NET master pages. Certain parts of a web page normally remain the same, such as the header, footer, or navigation bar, etc. Therefore, we created master pages with these common parts to achieve a consistent look and feel for a SharePoint site.

Using master pages provides many benefits, including:

• Common controls in one location
• Write less code and centralized update
• Better user experience
• flexibility
• Easier administration of SharePoint sites

What is a site?

A site is a collection of web pages used to store information in an organized way. It stores a list of documents, discussions, events, tasks, and many other types of information. The site provides controlled access to share information between users.

What is a subsite?

A subsite is a single SharePoint within a site collection. A subsidiary can inherit the permissions and navigation structure of its parent site, or it can be specified and managed independently.

What is a list?

A SharePoint list is a collection of records related to an entity like a student, employees, etc. These types of records in the lists are called elements. A list contains columns or fields that define the item’s data or metadata.

What is a document library?

A document library allows users to easily upload, store, share, collaborate, and track documents or files.

What is the Image Library?

An image library allows users to easily upload, store, share, collaborate and track digital images or photos.

What is versioning?

• Versioning allows for updates, restore, and tracking of items in a list or library when they change.
• Version control uses version numbers to keep track of changes.

What is the web application in SharePoint?

• In SharePoint, the web application is nothing more than an IIS website.
• We can create a web application from Central Admin.
• We can extend the web application in different areas after the web application is created.

What is a site collection in SharePoint?

• A site collection is nothing more than a collection of websites.
• Each site collection has the top-level site.
• There can be multiple site collections in the web application, and each site collection can have multiple child sites.

What is a farm in SharePoint?

• The farm is a collection of SharePoint servers that have the same configuration database.
• The configuration database stores all the information needed to run the farm.
• Each farm is managed through a central administration.

What are site columns?

site columns are predefined data columns that are reused across multiple types of content. A content type is actually a collection of site columns.

What does a site definition mean?

A site definition is a collection of files. the files are like ONET.XML which defines the site template.

What do you mean MOSS?

• MOSS stands for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.
• It is the full version of a portal-based platform for collaboratively creating, managing, and sharing documents and web services.

What is ONET.xml?

• The Onet.xml file specifies all the components contained in a site. It is considered as the core of a site definition.
• It is present in the following location:

%SharePoint Root%TEMPLATESiteTemplatesXMLOnet.xml

What are the various classes in the server object model from a development point of view?

The following are the classes in the server object model from a development point of view:

• SPFfarm
• SPWebApplication
• SPsite
• SPWeb
• SPL list
• SPListItem
• SPDocumentLibrary

Explain content types in SharePoint?

• A content type is a WSS type definition that is flexible and reusable.
• It is used to define the columns and behavior of a list item or a document in a document library.

Differentiate between library and list?

• The library is used to store the document, while the Lists are the container for similar elements in the form of rows and columns.
• Basic documents like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint can be created using a library, while you cannot create a document in a list. The list can be used to attach a document.

What do you mean by field control?

• The field controls are ASP.NET 2.0 server controls. They provide basic field functionality in SharePoint.
• They also provide basic general functionality, such as displaying or editing list data as it appears on SharePoint list pages.

What are the different types of input forms that can be created for a workflow?

Four types of input forms can be created for a workflow:

• Association Form
• initiation form
• change form
• task editing form

Explain an ancestral type. How does it relate to content types?

• An ancestor type is the base type from which written content is derived.
• Defines the metadata fields included with the custom content type.

Explain Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server?

• SharePoint Portal Server is a portal server that connects people, teams, and knowledge across all business processes.
• Integrates information from multiple systems into a secure solution through enterprise application integration and single sign-on capabilities.
• It provides flexible deployment and management tools, and facilitates end-to-end collaboration through data aggregation, organization, and search.
• It enables users to quickly find relevant information through personalization of portal content and design, as well as through audience targeting.