MOSS Interview Preparation Guide
Download PDF

MOSS frequently Asked Questions by expert members with experience in MOSS. These interview questions and answers on MOSS will help you strengthen your technical skills, prepare for the interviews and quickly revise the concepts. So get preparation for the MOSS job interview

47 MOSS Questions and Answers:

1 :: What is MOSS?

MOSS stands for Microsft Office Share Point Server. MOSS is a portal based platform for complete management of documents & web services. It is a platform for creation of customized web based applications & portals like blogs, wiki etc. MOSS provides security features and can be configured to return separate content based on the fact that the user has logged on using internet, intranet or extranet.

2 :: Explain architecture of MOSS?

Architecture of MOSS:

Office Sharepoint Server: This layer manages excel services, infopath forms services, project server, enterprise search, policy, single sign on, business data catalogs.

Asp.Net Forms: This layer lies beneath Office Sharepoint Server layer. It is the layer responsible for Asp.Net based sites.

Windows Sharepoint Services: This is a collection of windows services which is used by sharepoint to connect to the database and can be used for development purposes.

Development tools: On the left is the collection of various development paradigms that can be used to perform development and create various webparts, or read and get information from WSS using Visual studio.

3 :: Explain page layouts of MOSS?

Page layout defines the look and feel of a Web page. Content for the page is stored in fields on the page. When you view or edit a page, the content is displayed in the field controls.

The types of fields on a page are determined by the content type for the page. Each content type contains columns. When you create a content type, you add column templates to the content type for each field. Column templates determine the default field control that is associated with the columns as well as the kind of content the field can contain, such as a single line of text, a hyperlink, or a picture.

Types of page layout columns:

Scheduling Start Date: displays the date and time when the page is visible on a site.

Scheduling End Date: It contains the date and time in which the page is no longer visible on a site.

Contact: contains the name of the person or group who created the page.

Contact E-mail Address: Page Content: contains the name of the page layout associated with each instance of a page. contains the e-mail address of the person who created the page.

Contact Name: contains the name of the person who created the page.

Contact Picture: contains the picture of the person you can contact about the page.

Page Content: contains the name of the page layout associated with each instance of a page.

4 :: Do you know Six Pillars of MOSS 2007?

Six pillars of MOSS2007:

Collaboration: SharePoint allows for collaboration by integrating workspaces, tasks, forums, surveys, blogs, RSS feeds and Wikis.

Portal: SharePoint is a portal framework built using multiple portlets known as web parts. It offers Master pages which can be used for maintaining consistency across the portal. The portal offers a single sign on access or information along with various search capabilities. The portal also has seamless integration with Visual studio, which can be used to build custom web parts to be used in SharePoint portal.

Enterprise search: MOSS includes ACL-aware search across both local and remote data stores with features that enable specialized search for people and expertise. It offers Business data store integration which helps in indexing the databases for searches.

Web & Enterprise Content Management: MOSS offers document management capabilities including versioning capabilities, check in/out, document locking, rich metadata, workflows, policies, role-based access controls on different levels i.e. library, folder, document levels.

Forms driven Business Process: MOSS offers XML based InfoPath forms which are available on a variety of platforms including mobile devices.

Business Intelligence: Websites in MOSS offers a rich dashboard on macro level. The B.I. capabilities offered include server-based Excel Services and Excel Web Services API's, line of business application and data repository integration, and more sophisticated abilities to monitor key performance indicators.

5 :: What are types of SharePoint Sites?

Types of sharepoint sites:

Wiki: This is usually where everyone is allowed to add/change content for a common knowledgebase.

Blog: This type of site is for posting specialized articles or information for everyone to read.

Publishing site: This site is used to approving particular content before it’s published to everyone.

Document library: A site mainly used for document management purposes.

Download site: This type of site helps in monitoring the count of downloads and track them.

List or Forum: The idea is to have specific people post a topic and then allow others to comment on the posts.

Survey: Usually a site that’s accessed by everyone for conducting a survey.

Dashboard: The idea of a dashboard is for business executives to gain information and perform reporting tasks.

6 :: Tell me the differentiate between Synchronous and Asynchronous events?

Synchronous event are the ones in which the caller needs to pause to wait for a response. The fact that it waits for a response means that the call is a “blocking” call to the event handler. This gives the thread that encountered the event an opportunity avoid executing code that the event identifies undo the effects of code that the event identifies.

Asynchronous event is one in which the caller continues without pausing for a response. This allows concurrency between both the caller and the method being called.

7 :: Explain the main benefits of Office SharePoint Server 2007?

Advantages:

Sharepoint provides simple user experience because of simple and consistent interface.
Provides good control over the content. It allows effective content management to increase the business value.
Simplify organization-wide access to both structured and unstructured information.
It allows us to group and connect people based on the kind of information.
It allows data sharing without leaking out the sensitive information.

SharePoint’s structure is made up of Site Collections and Sites. Explain them

Site collections: SharePoint is a collaborative medium which uses websites. The structure involves site collections which then include a list of sub-sites, all structured in a hierarchical manner. All the sites under a site collection have a common set of administrative settings, which enable maintaining consistent look and feel, features and branding among those sites. Every site collection has a top level site to begin with. The advantages of organizing a site collection are:

Sharing of libraries, galleries, branding, and consistent look and feel.

Unified way of administering multiple sites in a single collection including, security, policies, features, reports, BI etc.

Provides scalability in terms of a web farm, as each site can use its own content database which can be moved around as well.

Enables sharing of site columns, content types, web parts, authoring resources, workflow and other authoring features.

Enables unified navigation, search capabilities.

Sites: Sites are based on templates and may or may not have unique content and settings. Every site may have a unique template as needed. Some of the features of sites:

One can use language specific templates to create various sites

Define unique users/groups for every site.

Have every site its own welcome page and or other pages.

Use master pages or define unique layouts

Manage colors and skins through themes

Have different settings on sites based on regional settings

Have unique search capabilities within different sites

Have unique workflows in different sites.

8 :: What is SharePoint master page and its features?

Master pages provide a base look and feel and standard behaviors that are needed for all of the pages in your site. The content page combines with the layout of the master page to form the complete output. Microsoft SharePoint Foundation is built on top of Microsoft ASP.NET, therefore, it supports master pages for defining elements that are common to all pages.

Advantages of Master Pages:

People can save their time and resources by making design changes in one place they will be reflected in all pages that use the master page. The User interface can be reused.

More consistent pages and a better end-user experience

9 :: Do you know SharePoint has two ways to author content, i.e. Smart Client Authoring and Browser-based Authoring?

Ways to author content:

Browser-based authoring: Content creators and editors work directly in the web browsers through MOSS based features like Page editing toolbar, HTML editor toolbar.

Smart-client authoring: Content creators and editors work in any of the authoring applications and then use MOSS for document conversion to convert the content into a Web page format like HTML.

10 :: What is SharePoint Workflow?

Workflows are implementation of business processes allowing people to collaborate on documents through various project tasks assigned to individuals. They enhance productivity and organization of work in an organization. This enables people to only concentrate on tasks given to them. It’s basically a planned series of tasks assigned to individuals to achieve an outcome.

Workflows included in MOSS:

Approval

Collect Feedback

Collect signatures

Disposition approval

Three-state

Group approval

Translation management

Overall MOSS workflows target at higher productivity keeping collaboration and business processes in mind.