Microsoft SharePoint 2010 developer Interview Questions and Answers

This page contains the collection of Microsoft SharePoint 2010 developer Interview Questions and Answers / Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) under category Microsoft SharePoint. These questions are collected from various resources like informative websites, forums, blogs, discussion boards including MSDN and Wikipedia. These listed questions can surely help in preparing for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 developer interview or job.

How will you deploy files such as Css, js in SharePoint 2010? The most preferable way to deploy files in SharePoint is by using the solution package. In SharePoint 2010 you can create an empty project with VS 2010 and then add a new SharePoint Mapped folder in it. This will give the desired location in 14 hive where you can then add a file to deploy. Can you display a page as a modal dialog? Yes, any page can be displayed as modal dialog. A Modal dialog takes options as a parameter and we can speciy the url for any page usually saved in _layouts. Can you display the modal dialog from a webpart? Yes a modal dialog can be displayed from within a webpart code since its a JavaScript block that can be registered on the page. What is difference between an Application page and a Custom aspx page in SharePoint 2010. If you have to deploy a page with some code in it which one would you prefer? Application Page – You would typically use an applictaion page when you need some content that is merged with SharePoint master page. A master page enables application pages to share the same appearance and behavior as other pages on a site. Application page generally gets deployed in _layouts and inhertirs the look and feel of the site that you are using. A Custom .net aspx page on the other hand would need content and master page tags in your page to make it inherit the look and feel of the site. I would prefer deploying an application page with code as it is much easier and has built-in templates available in VS 2010. What is Docuement Set and how is it useful to the end users? A Document Set is a group of related documents that can be created in one step and then managed as a single entity. This can be seen as a folder of documents with a cover letter(welcome page) and which can share common data between its documents (share document set info\columns). Document Set is very useful when it comes to managing the documents for a single project or task. For e.g. a manager while working on a project wants to create a single folder\entity with all the documents related to that project. He also wants that each document shares the project info (for e.g. Project Id, Manager name etc.) and can be checked in\checked out individually. Document Set will also allow him to add a cover letter\welcome page to the entity(or his set of documents) and use some basic document features like record version history, start a workflow, e-mail document set etc. What are Projected Fields in SPQuery and when would you use that? In SharePoint 2010, Referential integrity can now be implemented using Lookup columns. Joins and ProjectedFields properties of SPQuery were introduced to facilitate this. Projected Fields are the fields which you can access when a list is joined by a lookup solumns. These are additional columns from a parent lookup column list. What is WebProvisioned event receiver and when would you use that?WebProvisioned event receiver is fired after the site has been created and is fully provisioned(asynchronous). For e.g. if you want to update the site title of logo after its been created or if you want to add a new list\library after the out-of-box site has been created you can use the WebProvisioned event handler. If you have to add a new Ribbon button to one of the existing tabs how will you identify the location? The Its typically Ribbon.Tabs.group.Controls._children. How does Client object model works ? When we use SharePoint client API’s to perform a specific task, the SharePoint Foundation 2010 managed client object model bundles up these uses of the API into XML and sends it to the server that runs SharePoint Foundation. The server receives this request, and makes appropriate calls into the object model on the server, collects the responses, forms them into JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), and sends that JSON back to the SharePoint Foundation 2010 managed client object model. The client object model parses the JSON and presents the results to the application as .NET Framework objects (or ECMAScript objects for ECMAScript). How many types of Client Object model extension are available in 2010 and when would you use one or the other. To develop rich client side solutions, three set of client-side APIs has been introduced in the Microsoft.SharePoint.Client namespace. The three APIs are targeted for three different types of clients. 1. .net Managed applications – These are used when we have to create console applications or window applications, web applications which are not running inside SharePoint Contex. 2. For Silverlight applications 3. ECMAScript – It is a client object model extension for using with JavaScript or JScript. This is used for creating applications which are hosted inside SharePoint. For example, web part deployed in SharePoint site can use this JavaScript API for accessing SharePoint from browser using JavaScript. What is difference between Load() and LoadQuery() methods ? Load method populates the client object directly with what it gets data from the server i.e. a collection object like ListItemCollection etc. but LoadQuery returns the data as a completely new collection in IEnumerable format. Other major difference is that the Collections that you load using the Load() method are eligible for garbage collection only when the client context variable itself goes out of scope where as, in these collections go out of scope at the end of IEnumerable<List> list. How can you write efficient and better performing client object applications ? You can always use Lambda expressions in your queries to return only specific properties that will be used in your block. You can also use LoadQuery() method and specify multiple levels of properties to load for e.g. while returning specific properties of the lists using LoadQuery(), you can also specify the fields to return from each list to optimize the data access. What are the Authentication methods for your client object model application ? Basically there are three (3) authentication options you can use when you�re working with the Client Object Model in SharePoint 2010: * Anonymous * Default * FormsAuthentication You can specify clientContext.Authentication = Anonymous\Default\FormsAuthentication, If you do not choose an authentication method in your code, the application will default to using the client�s Windows Credentials (DefaultCredentials). How do you access ECMAScript object model API’s ? The ECMAScript library is available in a number of JS files in the LAYOUTS folder. The main file among number of .js files is SP.js. When you include this file in the APSX page using a ScriptLink control, all other required JS files are loaded automatically. By linking SP.js to your page, the SP namespace gets registered. SP is the SharePoint namespace that contains all objects. For debugging purposes every js file also has a �debug� equivalent in the same folder. What is the purpose of calling clientContext.ExecuteQuery() ? ExecuteQuery gives you the option to minimize the number of roundtrips to the server from your client code. All the components loaded into the clientcontext are executed in one go. Why would you use LINQ over CAML for data retrieval? Unlike CAML, with LINQ to SharePoint provider, you are working with strongly typed list item objects. For example, an item in the Announcements list is an object of type Announcement and an item on a Tasks list is an object of type Task. You can then enumerate the objects and get the properties for your use. Also, you can use LINQ syntax and the LINQ keywords built into C# and VB for LINQ queries. Can we use our custom master page with the application pages in SharePoint 2010 ? With 2010, you can now set whether the pages under _Layouts use the same Master Page as the rest of your site. You can enable or disable this functionality through the web application settings in Central Administration. This however, is not applicable to your custom application pages. If you want your custom applictaion page to inherit the site master page you must derive it from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.LayoutsPageBase class. What are WebTemplates and Site Definitions ? Site definitions consist primarily of multiple XML and ASPX files stored on a front-end Web server in folders under the %ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\14\TEMPLATE\SiteTemplates directory. Custom Web templates on the other hand, are stored in the database, and are created using an existing site, with or without its specific content, as a model. This provides a means for reusing sites that you have customized.In some ways, Web templates continue to depend, throughout their lifecycle, on the site definition that is their ultimate foundation. How do you write to SharePoint ULS logs in 2010 ? In SharePoint Foundation, ULS exposes configurable settings in two ways, through the – Object model and Windows PowerShell cmdlets. For writing to SharePoint ULS logs developers can can use Diagnostics Service, which will make the customized categories viewable in the administrative UI for our errors. or they can use the number of cmdlets available for accessing ULS logs using powershell. Some of the cmdlets are Get-SPDiagnosticConfig ,Get-SPLogEvent etc. What does CMDUI.XML contain? The definitions for the out-of-the-box ribbon elements are split across several files in the SharePoint root, with TEMPLATE\GLOBAL\XML\CMDUI.XML being the main one. What has Changed in SharePoint 2010 Object model? Microsoft has replaced the “12 hive” structure that we had in SharePoint 2007 with “14 Hive” structure in 2010. It has apparently added four new folders to its hive. The Folders are : * Policy * UserCode * WebClients * WebServices How would you deploy WebPart Using Windows PowerShell? At the Windows PowerShell command prompt (PS C:\>), type the below command : Install -SPWebPartPack -LiteralPath “FullPathofCabFile” -Name “Nameof WebPart” How would you re-deploy the old custom solutions in SharePoint 2010.What Changes are needed to the old Solution files. SharePoint 2010 object model contains many changes and enhancements, but our custom code will still compile and, will run as expected. You should however, rewrite and recompile any code that refers to files and resources in “12 hive”. For Details See : SharePoint Object Model � Backward Compatibility How would you add a link in the Ribbon? You can add any link or Custom Action under any of the existing tabs of the ribbon or can create a new a new tab and place your links under it. What does CMDUI.XML contain? The definitions for the out-of-the-box ribbon elements are split across several files in the SharePoint root, with TEMPLATE\GLOBAL\XML\CMDUI.XML being the main one. What are the Disadvantages of Using LINQ in your Code? LINQ translates the LINQ queries into Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML) queries thus adding an extra step for retrieving the items. What is different with SharePoint 2010 workflows ? Some of the additions in workflow model are : 1. SharePoint 2010 workflows are build upon the the workflow engine provide .Net Framework 3.5. 2. In addition to the SharePoint lists we can now create workflows for SharePoint sites as well. 3. SharePoint Designer 2010 also has a new graphical workflow designer for designing workflows and deploying them directly to SharePoint. 4. Another Improvement in SharePoint Designer 2010 is that it now allows you to edit the out-of-the-box workflows that come with SharePoint.