Hello Friends, Below are top SharePoint online interview questions and answers which will be helpful if you are preparing for SharePoint job interviews. I have also added a few more questions on SharePoint 2016 interview questions and answers, SharePoint 2013 interview questions and answers, SharePoint workflow interview questions and answers, and Office 365 SharePoint Online interview questions and answers.
Here are a few interview questions and answers that will be helpful for SharePoint developers as well as SharePoint administrators. Even if you are an experienced developer or preparing for SharePoint jobs, these SharePoint online interview questions and answers will be helpful.
If you are looking out for SharePoint end-to-end training with job placement, you can check out the SharePoint development training course.
SharePoint Online interview questions and answers
Office 365 SharePoint Online interview questions and answers:
1- What is SharePoint Online? How is it related to Microsoft Cloud Service Office 365?
Answer: Office 365 is the cloud service provided by Microsoft which has lots of features. These features can be used as subscription-based. A few services are Mail, Calendar, People, Yammer, OneDrive, Planner, Task, Delve, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Sway, PowerApps, etc.
Apart from all these services, Microsoft also provides SharePoint as a part of the services. This is known as SharePoint Online. It has all the features of SharePoint like the on-premise version. But Microsoft does not allow server-side code in Office 365 SharePoint online. If you want to know the features of Office 365, you can sign up for an Office 365 trial version.
2- What are the differences between SharePoint Online and SharePoint On-Premise?
Answer: There are lots of differences between SharePoint Online and SharePoint on-premise versions. In SharePoint on-premise, the server will be maintained by your organization, but in the case of SharePoint online, everything will be maintained by Microsoft, you just need to use it.
Similarly, patches and updates will be taken care of by Microsoft, but in an on-premise environment, everything will be taken care of by your IT team of the organization.
In SharePoint Online, Microsoft does not allow you to deploy any server-side code but we can develop and deploy solutions using the server object model in an on-premise environment.
Alternatively, Microsoft has improved the client-side object model and we can develop and deploy SharePoint Add-ins using the client object model. Check out a very good article on SharePoint Online vs on-premise.
3- What are SharePoint Add-ins? Is it the same as SharePoint Apps
Answer: According to the MSDN definition, A SharePoint Add-in is a self-contained piece of functionality that extends the capabilities of SharePoint websites to solve a well-defined business problem. We can develop pages, lists, workflows, custom content types, list templates, Web Parts, etc in SharePoint Add-in.
These are nothing but the Apps which have been introduced in SharePoint Online and SharePoint 2013 versions. Microsoft later renamed Apps to Add-in.
4- What are the different types of SharePoint Add-ins?
Answer: There are two kinds of SharePoint Add-ins.
SharePoint Hosted Add-in:
There is no server-side code in case of a SharePoint-hosted add-in. All business logic in a SharePoint-hosted add-in uses JavaScript either directly on a custom page or in a JavaScript file that is referenced from a custom page.
Custom pages in a SharePoint-hosted add-in are generally ASP.NET pages (ASPX) and they can declaratively reference ASP.NET and in-the-box SharePoint controls, but there can be no code behind. However, you can customize the SharePoint controls using a client-side rendering option and custom JavaScript.
The JavaScript in SharePoint-hosted add-ins can access data and resources that are outside of the add-in web by using either of two techniques for safely working around the browser’s same origin policy: a special JavaScript cross-domain library or a specific JavaScript WebProxy class. Using these techniques a SharePoint-hosted add-in can work with data on the host web, its parent subscription.
SharePoint-hosted add-ins consist almost entirely of SharePoint components in an add-in web. A user can run a SharePoint-hosted add-in from a tile on the Site Contents page of the SharePoint website to which it’s installed.
Provider Hosted Add-in:
Any SharePoint component that can be in a SharePoint-hosted add-in can also be in a provider-hosted add-in. But provider-hosted add-ins are distinguished from SharePoint-hosted add-ins because they include at least one remote component; such as a web application, service, or database that is hosted externally from the SharePoint farm or SharePoint Online subscription.
This could be a server in the same corporate network as a SharePoint farm or a cloud service. The external components can be hosted on any web hosting stack, including the Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP) stack.
When the remote components are implemented with .NET, the managed code SharePoint Client-Side Object Model (CSOM) library is available.
For remote components that are not based on .NET, there is a set of REST/OData APIs that can be used to access SharePoint data. These can also be used from a .NET client if you prefer working with an OData interface.
5- How we can deploy a SharePoint Add-in to SharePoint online
Answer: We can deploy the SharePoint Add-ins to the following two places.
SharePoint Add-in Catalog: We can upload the SharePoint Add-in to the organization’s add-in catalog site.
An Add-catalog is nothing but a special collection in SharePoint online which contains a special type of document library that is used to upload and store app package files.
Once you add the add-in to the add-in catalog, the ad-in will be available to all SharePoint site collections.
To the Office Store: We can also deploy SharePoint Add-ins to the Office store. Microsoft has a Seller Dashboard to help you sell add-ins through the Office Store.
After you deploy the add-in in, either way, it’s available for installation on the add add-in page of SharePoint websites.
6- Can we use the server-side object model in the SharePoint add-in?
Answer: No, we can not use any server-side code in SharePoint Add-in. We can use only client-side code like JavaScript Object Model (jsom) code (SharePoint hosted add-in) or Client-side object model (csom, .Net managed object model code) in Provider hosted add-in.
7- What object model we can use in a provider-hosted add-in in SharePoint online?
Answer: In provider-hosted add-in, we can use .Net managed object model code (csom). Here we can write code using the below two dlls:
- Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll
- Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll
8- Can we create web applications in SharePoint online?
Answer: We can not create a web application in SharePoint online. We can create site collections from the SharePoint Admin Center.
9- Can we add a custom domain in Office 365 SharePoint online?
Answer: Yes we can add a custom domain in office 365 SharePoint online. You can go to the Office 365 Admin Center and click on +Add a domain in the Domains section.
10- Can we use the site collection storage quota in SharePoint online
Answer: Yes we can increase the site collection storage quota in the SharePoint site. We can do it from the SharePoint Admin Center. Read a SharePoint Online tutorial on SharePoint online Office 365 how to increase SharePoint site storage quota.
11- We have a small organization, which Office 365 plan should I take
Answer: There are lots of plans available for your business needs. You can check out in Office 365 official site and you can compare and choose.
12- Can we connect to SharePoint Online sites using PowerShell
Answer: Yes, As a developer we can connect to SharePoint Online site collections from PowerShell. We can do lots of operations using PowerShell in SharePoint Online. For this, we need to install the “SharePoint online management shell“.
13- How can we work with the JavaScript object model in SharePoint online?
Answer: We can do lots of site collection level, list level or item level, etc operations using the javascript object model in SharePoint online. SharePoint provides a script editor web part where we can write the JavaScript object model code. Or we can also develop SharePoint Add-ins where we can write a JavaScript object model code.
14- How can we work with Rest API in SharePoint online?
Answer: Like Jsom, we can use Rest API inside a script editor web part or inside SharePoint Add-ins in SharePoint online. You can check out some SharePoint online rest API tutorials.
15- Can we use the event receiver in SharePoint online?
Answer: We can not use event receivers in SharePoint online, instead we can use remote event receivers. Remote event receivers can be developed as a provider-hosted add-in and can be deployed to Microsoft Azure. Check out, Create remote event receiver in SharePoint Online
16- Can we develop a visual web part for SharePoint online site?
Answer: We can develop a visual web part as a sandboxed solution for SharePoint online sites. Sandboxed solutions are deprecated nowadays, so better you should develop as a SharePoint Add-in.
17- How can we retrieve SharePoint host web data in-app web in SharePoint Add-ins?
Answer: Yes you can retrieve host web data from the add-in web inside a SharePoint-hosted add-in.
18- What type of declarative components can you deploy for SharePoint Online?
Answer: Pages, lists, workflows, custom content types, list templates, Web Parts, Content-Type, Site columns, etc.
19- Which features differentiate a SharePoint Library from a SharePoint List?
Answer: checkin\check out, Major, Minor version, Document mandatory
20- In SharePoint Libraries, permissions can be granted on which of the following?
Answer: folder, document set, documents
21- In order for Sally to access sites hosted in SharePoint Online, which two tasks must be performed after her identity is added to Office 365 using directory synchronization?
Answer: 1. An administrator must assign a SharePoint license to Sally
2. Sally must be assigned permissions for the site collection on Office 365.
22- When saving the security certificate used for communications between SharePoint Server on-premises and SharePoint Online, the security certificate must be in which format?
Answer: Base-64 encoded X.509 (.CER)Base-64 encoded X.509 (.CER)
23- A reverse proxy server is required for?
Answer: Outbound search.
24- The protocol for the Result Source used for Outbound search in SharePoint online is?
Answer: Remote SharePoint.
25- What is the difference between host web and app web in SharePoint Online?
Answer: Before starting development in SharePoint Add-in, it is really important to understand what is host web and what is add-in web.
- Host Web: When an add-in that includes SharePoint components is installed on a website, it is listed on the Site Contents page from which it can be launched. That listing, which is the launch point of the add-in, is the only required addition to the website, although certain other things can optionally be added, such as a custom action or an add-in part. The website to which the add-in is installed is called the host web.
- Add-in Web: Other than these UI elements, the SharePoint Add-in components, and content, such as lists, content types, workflows, and pages, are deployed to a different website in a special isolated domain. This fact is largely hidden from the user. The special website to which the add-in is deployed is called an add-in web.
26- What is the SharePoint On-Premises latest version?
SharePoint Server Subscription edition is the latest on-premises version from Microsoft. Before that, Microsoft released SharePoint 2019. It has lots of new features like the modern SharePoint team site, modern list, and modern libraries.
You can upload files up to 15GB in size to the SharePoint document library.
The URL path length increased to 400 characters from 260 characters.
SharePoint 2013 interview questions and answers
Here you will get to know a few SharePoint 2013 interview questions and answers.
Are you a SharePoint developer and preparing for interviews to get a job in SharePoint? then surely these sharepoint 2013 interview questions and answers will help you.
Q-1: What is new in SharePoint 2013 over SharePoint 2010?
A- Microsoft introduced various new features in SharePoint 2013 over SharePoint 2010. It introduced features like:
- SharePoint Add-ins (previously known as SharePoint Apps)
- Various social features like following, community sites, follow people, and follow the site.
- Mobile enhancements
- Design manager to create master pages and page layouts, Device channel
- A new workflow engine has been introduced in SharePoint 2013. After the SharePoint installation, we need to configure the workflow manager to work with 2013 workflows.
- New continuous crawl- By introducing continuous crawl, SharePoint made available to recent documents in search results. Users will always get fresh content.
- Content Search web part: By using content search web part user can change the look and feel of the search results in combination with display templates
Q-2: What are SharePoint Add-ins or SharePoint Apps?
A- Apps for SharePoint are self-contained pieces of functionality that extend the capabilities of a SharePoint website.
You can develop various SharePoint components like site columns, content type, lists, workflows, etc. As a developer, we need to remember that we can not use any server-side code inside a SharePoint add-in.
Q-3: What are the different types of SharePoint Add-in in SharePoint 2013?
A- There is two kinds of add-in we can develop in SharePoint 2013.
- SharePoint hosted add-in which can be developed using visual studio 2015 or visual studio 2017 and we can write JavaScript Object model (jsom) code.
- Provider-hosted add-in where we can use .Net managed object model code (Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll) and can be using visual studio 2015 or visual studio 2017.
Q-4: How can we deploy SharePoint Add-in in SharePoint 2013?
A- There are two ways we can package and deploy the add-in.
- To an organization’s app catalog or add-in catalog site collection.
- To Office store.
Q-5: Can I develop directly SharePoint Add-ins? Or do I need to configure anything?
A- After SharePoint installation, we need to Configure app environment for SharePoint 2013.
Q-6: How to deploy .wsp Solutions from SharePoint 2010 in SharePoint 2013?
A- You can do this using the CompatabilityLevel parameter of the Install-SPSolution cmdlet.
Q-7: Is it possible to create a sandboxed solution in SharePoint 2013?
A- Sandbox Solutions are depreciated in SharePoint 2013, but still, you can create them. Instead of a Sandbox solution, you should create add-ins. Sandbox solutions are there from SharePoint 2010, but there are lots of limitations are there in sandbox solutions.
Q-9: What are the hardware and software requirements for SharePoint 2013?
A- Microsoft provided minimum hardware and software requirements to install SharePoint 2013.
Unlike SharePoint 2010 which we can install in a client operating system, we can install SharePoint 2013 in Windows 7,8 or Windows 10. We need a server operating system. Read SharePoint 2013 hardware and software requirements.
Q-10: What is Shredded Storage in SharePoint 2013?
A- Shredded Storage is a new Feature Introduced in SharePoint 2013 where Documents and Changes to the Documents are stored as Shredded BLOBS.
Q-11: What are new event receivers in SharePoint 2013?
A- SharePoint 2013 has various new event receivers like SPSecurityEventReceiver. This class will help us adding event handlers to SharePoint Groups, Users, Roles, and Permission Inheritance which is absolutely new in SharePoint 2013.
Group Events:
- GroupAdded
- GroupAdding
- GroupDeleted
- GroupDeleting
- GroupUpdated
- GroupUpdating
Inheritance Events:
- InheritanceBreaking
- InheritanceBroken
- InheritanceReset
- InheritanceResetting
User Events:
- GroupUserAdded
- GroupUserAdding
- GroupUserDeleted
- GroupUserDeleting
- RoleAssignmentAdded
- RoleAssignmentAdding
- RoleAssignmentDeleted
- RoleAssignmentDeleting
- RoleDefinitionAdded
- RoleDefinitionAdding
- RoleDefinitionDeleted
- RoleDefinitionDeleting
- RoleDefinitionUpdated
- RoleDefinitionUpdating
Q-12: What is new in Search in SharePoint 2013?
A- There are various new things introduced like FAST search is now combined, previously it was coming separately in SharePoint 2010. Below are a few new things that come in SharePoint 2013 search.
- Continuous Crawl: Previously in SharePoint 2010, there were two types of crawling: Full Crawl and Incremental Crawl. To provide maximum freshness, continuous crawls focus on smaller changes and use the change logs to pick up those changes faster and in more efficient ways.
- Continuous crawls overlap each other, which means one continuous crawl doesn’t hold up the other one in picking up the changes. Continuous crawl can’t be paused or stopped, the only option is to disable it.
- Content by Search (CBS) Web Part: Content by Search (CBS) Web Part enables users to aggregate content directly from the search index. CBS is not constrained to one site collection. It’s based on search, so it must to go beyond the site collection boundary. The query results in CBS may not be up to date. CBS renders only major versions and cannot query content from site collections marked to be excluded from the search.
Did you mean? in Search: In SharePoint 2013 if a user enters a word in a search query that seems to a misspelled, then the search results page displays query spelling corrections, like in google search. This is also known as “Did you mean?”.
This is hosted in the SharePoint Term store.
You can add terms to the Query Spelling Exclusions and the Query Spelling Inclusions list to influence how query spelling corrections are applied or not.
It takes up to 10 minutes for any changes to the Query Spelling Exclusions or the Query Spelling Inclusions list to take effect. You can only include or exclude single words.
Q-13: What is OAuth used for in SharePoint 2013?
A- OAuth is a security protocol that enables users to grant third-party access to their resources without sharing their passwords. It also provides a way to grant limited access (in scope, duration, etc.)
Oauth is used to authorize requests by an app for SharePoint to access SharePoint resources on behalf of a user and is also Oauth is used to authenticate apps in the Office Store, an app catalog, or a developer tenant.
Q-14: What are remote event receivers in SharePoint 2013?
A- Remote event receivers are introduced in Sharepoint 2013. It occurs to an item in the app, such as a list, a list item, or a web.
Q-15: What are Community Sites in SharePoint 2013?
A- Community sites are introduced in SharePoint 2013. The community site is a new site template it provides a forum experience in SharePoint online.
Use communities to categorize and cultivate discussions among a broad group of people across organizations in a company.
You can also activate community site features on existing sites without creating community site templates to access the features like Badges, Discussions, Community Members, and Categories.
Q-16: What is the Content Search Web Part?
A- Content Search Web Part displays content that was crawled and added to the search index. See above.
Q-17: What are the new Delegate Controls in SharePoint 2013?
A- SharePoint 2013 introduced some new delegate controls like SuiteBarBrandingDelegate delegate Control, SuiteLinksDelegate delegate Control, PromotedActions Delegate Control, etc. Read:Â Delegate Controls in SharePoint 2013 using Visual Studio 2013
Q-18: What’s new with Visual Web Part in SharePoint 2013?
A- In SharePoint 2013, both web user control and the web part class are merged to one template file in a visual web part.
Q-19: Can we reuse SharePoint 2010 farm solutions in SharePoint 2013?
A- Most of the SharePoint 2010 farm solutions will work in SharePoint 2013. But it is always good to redevelop the solutions using visual studio.
Q-20: What is image renditions in SharePoint 2013?
A- SharePoint 2013 provides image renditions to optimize the user experience by optimizing images. Through image renditions, you can have one large image stored in your website and you can define a number of scaled variants to be used throughout the website.
SharePoint 2013 by default maintains some renditions but you can also customize them.
Q-21: What are jslink in SharePoint 2013? And how to use jslink in SharePoint 2013?
A- JSLink feature has been added in SharePoint 2013 where a user can render list, items, fields or even web parts using JavaScript.
For this Microsoft also introduced a new content type known as JavaScript Display Template. to work with it.
We can use JSLink to manipulate list view web parts. Now we can style complete List Views, Fields, Search Results even web parts using JavaScript rather than to write complex XSLT.
JSLink is fully client-side meaning the data is transformed on the client side rather in the server. So the page will load faster.
Q-22: What is the Minimal Download Strategy in SharePoint 2013?
A- SharePoint 2013 introduced a new feature known as “Minimal Download Strategy (MDS)”. This feature allows for partial page download which basically speeds up page rendering.
When MDS is enabled all pages for that site is rendered through the /_layouts/15/start.aspx page like when you request the home page or any other page then it will be like below:
URL when MDS is NOT enabled: http://site/SitePages/Home.aspx
URL when MDS is enabled: http://site/_layouts/15/start.aspx#/SitePages/Home.aspx
Internally the start.aspx page has a specific JavaScript object asyncDeltaManager which is responsible for this activity. Check out more: Minimal Download Strategy in SharePoint 2013
Q-23: What is Distributed Cache Service in SharePoint 2013?
A- Distributed Cache service provides the caching mechanism in SharePoint 2013, it is built on Windows Server AppFabric.
Q-24: What is cross-site publishing in SharePoint 2013?
A- Cross-Site Collection Publishing feature in SharePoint Server 2013 works like you use one or more authoring site collections to author and store content, and one or more publishing site collections to control the design of the site and to show the content.
The authoring site collection contains catalogs, such as Pages libraries, and lists, which contain content that is tagged with metadata. These catalogs are indexed by the search system and made available to the publishing site collection.
The publishing site collection issues query for data that has been indexed and show it on web pages by using Web Parts that use search technology.
When you use cross-site publishing, you create and store content in a different site collection than the site collections where users view the content. The authoring site collection contains Pages libraries and lists, which have been shared as catalogs.
Q-25: Can I directly migrate from Moss 2007 to SharePoint 2013?
A- No, you can not directly migrate from Moss 2007 to SharePoint 2013. The migration should happen from Moss 2007 to SharePoint 2010 and then from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013.
Q-26: SharePoint App web vs host web
A- This is another SharePoint 2013 interview question you will expect in the SharePoint interviews.
What is the difference between the SharePoint app web and host web?
The host web is the SharePoint site, where you have installed the app. And the App web is the actual site that will open when you click on the App from the Host web.
When you will create a SharePoint add-in, all the contents like list, content type, workflow, etc will be created on the App web.
Q-27: SharePoint seattle vs oslo master page
A- This is not a sharepoint administrator interview question 2013 rather this is a sharepoint 2013 developer interview question.
Now, let us see the difference between seattle and oslo master page.
There are two master pages that are presented in the SharePoint Online 2013 site, Seattle and Oslo master page. Mostly, in the team sites, we will have seattle.master page attached while in the publishing site, Oslo.master is applied.
In the Seattle master page, the left navigation will be enabled whereas in Oslo no left navigation enabled.
The Olso master page has SPSecurityTrimmedControl configured whereas in the Seattle master page it is not configured. You have to manually add the entries by editing the master page using SharePoint Designer 2013.
Q-28: SharePoint visual web part vs web part
A- This is one of the sharepoint 2013 developer interview questions you will expect in all SharePoint 2013 developer interviews. Let us check a few differences between the visual web part and the web part in SharePoint.
In SharePoint visual web part, there will be a user control file (.ascx), there you can drag and drop .Net controls. So it is easier for developers. Whereas in the case of web parts, you have to write the code to create controls. This will take a lot more time.
Since there is a different file for code and UI. So it is easy to maintain.
Q-29: SharePoint ExecuteQuery vs ExecuteQueryAsync
A- Here is another sharepoint 2013 developer interview question that usually gets in the interviews. What is the difference between ExecuteQuery() and ExecuteQueryAsync().
ExecuteQuery() is used for synchronous call whereas ExecuteQueryAsync() is asynchronous.
Q-30: Difference between SharePoint 2013 workflow vs SharePoint 2010 workflow
A- In SharePoint 2013 onwards, there will two platforms are available to create a workflow in SharePoint. SharePoint 2013 workflow and SharePoint 2010 workflow platform.
All the SharePoint 2010 workflows work fine in SharePoint 2013 or SharePoint Online sites.
SharePoint 2013 workflow platform supports web service call, it introduces stages, App steps, and new data types as DynamicValue.
Q-31: SharePoint workflow vs event receiver
A- This is another SharePoint developer interview question, the difference between workflow and event receivers. Workflows are synchronous whereas event receivers are both synchronous and asynchronous.
Workflow can be started manually or automatically when an item is added or updated, whereas the event receiver starts automatically.
We can create a workflow using SharePoint designer, visual studio, Visio or out of box using the browser. But we can create an event receiver using visual studio only.
Q-32: SharePoint timer job vs SharePoint event receiver
A- Like event receivers, we can develop a timer job in SharePoint using visual studio. One of the major differences between a timer job and an event receiver is that the event receiver triggers on an event whereas the timer job triggers on a scheduled time.
A timer job executes via timer service where an event receiver is executed in W3WP worker process.
We can execute a timer job at the farm level and we can execute event receivers at site, web, list, or library level.
Q-33: What is oData and how to use oData
A- By using OData or the Open data protocol, we can access by using a URL or endpoint. In SharePoint, we use the OData protocol in SharePoint Rest API.
Q-34: What is SharePoint design manager
A- Microsoft provides a SharePoint design manager to customize the master page and page layouts from SharePoint 2013 version onwards.
If you have the SharePoint server publishing feature is enabled, then you can see the SharePoint design manager. You can easily create a master page using SharePoint design manager.
Q-35: What Are Device Channels in SharePoint?
A- SharePoint provides a device channel, that you can use to create a site or page that supports in multiple devices. This comes with the SharePoint design manager.
I hope these best sharepoint 2013 interview questions and answers will help you to clear the interview.
These sharepoint 2013 interview questions will help you to prepare for interviews in SharePoint.
SharePoint Workflow Interview Questions and Answers
Here we will discuss some SharePoint workflow interview questions and answers. Workflows are very important in SharePoint and we can develop workflows using out-of-the-box, SharePoint Designer 2013 as well as we can develop workflows using visual studio.
What is a workflow?
Workflows are the way an organization functions, a series of actions that correspond to a work process, such as the process for purchase orders. SharePoint 2010 helps you automate these workflows, thereby increasing the efficiency and productivity of the organization.
What are the types of workflow that you can design in SharePoint 2010?
You can design List Workflows, Reusable List Workflows, and Site workflows using SharePoint Designer 2010 or SharePoint Designer 2013.
What are Reusable List Workflows and Site workflows?
- Reusable List Workflows: You can create a reusable list workflow (reusable workflow) in the top-level site in the site collection, and that workflow can be made globally reusable – meaning that the workflow can be associated to any list, library, or content type in the site collection. You can also create a reusable workflow in any subsite in the site collection; this workflow is available for reuse in that particular subsite.
- Site workflows: A site workflow is associated with a site – not with a list, library, or content type. So unlike most workflows, a site workflow is not running on a specific list item. Because of this, many of the actions that are available for items not available for site workflows.
Can you modify the Out-of-Box workflows in SharePoint 2010?
In SharePoint 2010, you have the option to customize the Out-of-Box workflows. The four most popular workflows in SharePoint Server 2007 – the Approval, Collect Feedback, Collect Signatures, and Publishing Approval workflows – have been completely rebuilt as declarative reusable workflows, meaning that they are now fully customizable in SharePoint Designer 2010.
What are events, actions, conditions, and steps in Workflows?
Let’s look at these one by one.
Events:
An event is what starts or initiates a workflow. Events can also be used to manage the timing of actions within a workflow, such as waiting for the status of an item to change. There are three events that can start a workflow:
- An item is created.
- An item is changed.
- A workflow participant clicks a start button on the SharePoint site.
Actions:
Action is the most basic unit of work in a workflow. SharePoint Designer 2010 provides a set of ready-made, reusable actions for you to incorporate into your workflow.
For example, your workflow can:
- Create, copy, change, or delete list items (including documents).
- Check items in or out.
- Send an e-mail message.
Conditions:
When you design a workflow, you can use the workflow editor to create rules that apply conditional logic to SharePoint sites, lists, items, and content types. A rule establishes a condition where the workflow performs the associated action only if that condition is true. For example, you can create a rule where the workflow sends a reviewer an e-mail message only if an item is created by a specific person.
What are Parallel and Serial actions in Workflow?
When you have more than one action associated with a condition, the actions can be set up to run at the same time (parallel) or one after another (serial), the default.
What are the Types of forms associated with the workflow?
With SharePoint Designer 2010, you can create three types of workflow forms:
- Initiation form: An initiation form gathers information from the workflow participant when they start the workflow. It is automatically generated when you create the workflow in SharePoint Designer 2010. Initiation forms are displayed to users when they manually start a workflow on a given SharePoint item. With an initiation form, users can specify additional parameters or information about the workflow as it applies to the given SharePoint item.
- Task form: A custom task form allows workflow participants to interact with tasks in the Tasks list specified for the workflow. With the Custom Task Wizard, you can easily create custom form fields and add them to a custom task form. When you finish designing the workflow, SharePoint Designer 2010 automatically generates the InfoPath or ASP.NET forms for your custom tasks.
- Reusable workflow – association form: A reusable workflow, by default, only provides the fields common to all items, such as Created and Modified by. This is because a reusable workflow isn’t by default associated with a list, library, or content type. An association form enables you to associate fields with a reusable workflow so that the fields will be available when you design and run the workflow.
When are these forms get created? And how do you customize it?
SharePoint Designer 2010 automatically generates the forms, but you can customize them by going to the settings page for the workflow, in the Forms section, click the form you want to customize. Workflow forms are either InfoPath or ASP.NET pages. They are stored on the SharePoint site with the workflow source files.
Choose a workflow authoring tool (SharePoint Server 2010): http://technet.microsoft.com/library/cc263308(office.14).aspx
Workflow Stages: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms479274(v=office.14).aspx
Hope this SharePoint workflow interview questions and answers will be helpful to go through interviews.
SharePoint interview questions and answers
Here are a few important SharePoint interview questions and answers which is very common and all developers must know and are asked by most companies.
1. What is a SPSite and SPWeb object, and what is the difference between each of the objects?
SPSite:– The SPSite object represents a collection of sites, i.e. Site Collection, a top-level site, and all its sub-sites.- It is used to get a subsite of a Site Collection.
It is represented within a SPSiteCollection object that consists of the collection of all site collections in the Web application. It contains the various subsites and the information regarding them.
SPWeb:– The SPWeb object represents an instance of a SharePoint Web, and the SPWeb object contains things like the actual content. It represents a SharePoint Foundation website. SPWeb object automatically adds the new SPWeb object to an internal list. It contains things like the actual content.
2: What is JSlink with an example in SharePoint?
JSLink is a new approach combining JavaScript, HTML, and CSS elements to customize the look of a SharePoint list view, list forms, and can control the rendering of fields. JSLink was introduced with SharePoint 2013.
3: Do you have knowledge of SharePoint Apps (Provider & SharePoint Hosted) in SharePoint Online?
Microsoft has deprecated the use of custom-managed code within the sandboxed solution in SharePoint 2013 and introduced the SharePoint App model as a replacement.
The app model decouples the SharePoint core product from app run-time which gives the ability to the user to run the code from any environment.
There are two types of Apps, we can develop:
You can follow the below image for more details.
4: What is the difference between Site Definition and Site Template?
A site definition defines a unique SharePoint site. Site definition is a combination of multiple files like .xml, .aspx, .ascx, and .master page, .gif , .doc, etc, and are stored in C:\ProgramFiles\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\14\TEMPLATE\SiteTemplates directory.
But Site Templates are created from an existing site and are stored in the Content database in the Sandboxed Solution gallery.
5: Define Display template/Item Template in SharePoint
Display Templates are used with CSWP to format/style search results generated by a CSWP search query. Display Templates control which managed property is shown in the search results and how they appear in the Web Part.
Each Display Template has two files: an HTML version of the Display Template that you can edit in your HTML editor, and a .js file that is for SharePoint use and should never be modified. CSWP uses a combination of two Display Templates, Control Templates, and Item Templates to render results.
Item Template provides HTML that determines how each item in the result set is displayed. For example, the Item Display Template might provide the HTML for a list item that contains a picture, three lines of text that are mapped to different managed properties associated with the item.
The Item Display Template is rendered one time for each item in the result set. So, if the result set contains ten items, the Item Display Template creates its section of HTML ten times.
6: What is a Content Search web part?
When visitors browse to a page that contains a CSWP Web Part automatically issues a query. The search results are displayed within the CSWP. In most cases, visitors won’t even know that search technology is being used to display the content they’re viewing.
To them, it’ll look and feel like any other web page. By configuring a query in a CSWP, you can define which content visitors will see when they browse to a page that contains a CSWP.
By default, the query in the CSWP is configured to show the three most recently changed items on the site. By configuring the query, you can change the number of items that are shown in the CSWP and which content is shown.
For example, you can configure the query so that the CSWP will show nine list items from a particular list, or the last six documents the visitor created in a document library. Top of Page.
Add a Content Search Web Part Make sure that you’re a member of the Designers SharePoint group on the site where you want to add the Web Part. Go to the page where you want to add the Web Part.
From Settings Small Settings gear that took the place of Site Settings. , select Edit page. In the Zone where you want to add the Web Part, select Add a Web Part. In the Categories list, select Content Rollup. In the Parts list, select Content Search > Add.
7: What is the structure of the InfoPath form data?
An InfoPath form template is actually a CAB File containing different component files. Below is a list of files that forms part of an InfoPath template..xsf file: A manifest file that describes the basic definition of other form files..xsl file: Defines the transformation for data into different views..xsd file: Defines the data source schema..dll file: Carries the custom logic built into .NET or COM..htm and other resource files: Custom HTML resource files and other resources for the form.
When a form template is uploaded using Administrative deployment, the template is stored in the content database of the site. Office Forms Services provide a server-runtime environment for InfoPath Forms Services.
While running on the browser, all rules, validations, and calculations are executed in the browser using a client-side script. All business logic is executed on the server.
So when a browser requests business logic execution, a postback is executed using low-cost XMLHTTP. FormsServer.aspx is an Infopath Forms Services page that accesses the form’s data from the content database and renders it to the client.
8: What is meant by OData in SharePoint 2013?
The Open Data Protocol (OData) lets you access a data source, such as a database, by browsing to a specially constructed URL. This allows for a simplified approach for connecting to and working with data sources that are hosted within an organization.
OData is a protocol that uses HTTP, Atom, and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) to enable developers to write applications that communicate with an ever-growing number of data sources.
Microsoft supports the creation of this standard as a way to enable the exchange of data between applications and data stores that can be accessed from the web.
9: What is the use of Sandbox Solution?
Sandboxed solutions, which are hosted in the SharePoint user code solution worker process (SPUCWorkerProcess.exe), run code that can only affect the site collection of the solution. Because sandboxed solutions do not run in the IIS worker process, neither the IIS application pool nor the IIS server must restart.
Visual Studio attaches the debugger to the SPUCWorkerProcess process that the SPUserCodeV4 service in SharePoint automatically triggers and controls. It is not necessary for the SPUCWorkerProcess process to recycle to load the latest version of the solution.
10: Difference between Close() and Dispose() Method in SharePoint ?
The basic difference between Close() and Dispose() is when a Close() method is called, the connection will be temporarily closed and can be opened once again. Whereas Dispose() method permanently close and removes connection object from memory and the resource no longer exists for any further processing.
Example:
try
{
string constring = "Server=(local);Database=my; User Id=sa; Password=sa";
SqlConnection sqlcon = new SqlConnection(constring);
sqlcon.Open(); // here connection is open
// some code here which will be execute
}
catch
{
// code will be execute when error occurred in try block
}
finally
{
sqlcon.Close(); // close the connection
sqlcon.Dispose(); // desroy the connection object
}
11: Difference between list and library in SharePoint?
Lists: Can have attachments Have major versions only Do not have Check-in/Check-out features.
Libraries: Can not have attachments (files are directly in the library)Have both minor (draft) and major (published) versioning Have Check-in/Check-Out Publishing Libraries can use Page Layouts Have Unique Document Ids out of the box.
Read: Different between SharePoint list and Document library
12: What is the difference between Syncronous & Asyncronous events?
An asynchronous event occurs after an action has taken place, and an asynchronous event occurs before an action has taken place. For example, an asynchronous event is ItemAdded, and its sister synchronous event is ItemAdding.
13. How is SharePoint Portal Server different from the Site Server?
Website creation for information sharing and document collaboration is treated as service by SharePoint Portal Server.
SharePoint server services are key information worker infrastructure that provides additional functionality to the MS Office system applications.
Site Server: Manages websites with multiple technologies Content management, product management, order processing, and advertisement serving are some of the functionality.
Conclusion
I hope all these SharePoint Online interview questions and answers will be helpful. If you are preparing for job, then not only this, you should also check out, Power Platform interview questions and answers and also SPFx interview questions and answers.
The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt.
Very nice blog, explained about all real time scenarios. thank you so much.
How to handle large data in SP Online?