What is the difference between a site and a site collection?

A site is a single location that stores lists and libraries related to a common subject. A site collection represents a group of sites.

Your manager informs you that the organization is currently reviewing the need for a corporate portal. List two reasons that justify why organizations invest in portal technologies.

There are many reasons that organizations invest in portal technologies. Two major reasons are:

People need to connect with information that will help them make informed business decisions regardless of their physical location. Because portals are web-based and are available via the browser, large numbers of users can access information from a centralized location.

Portal technologies scale with an organization as it grows and can accommodate business processes and information management.

True or false: You must deploy Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 together.

False. When installing SharePoint 2010 you may choose between two versions of the software. SharePoint Foundation provides the core collaborative and file sharing capabilities available within the platform and is most suitable for smaller deployments and teams. SharePoint Server includes all the capabilities of SharePoint Foundation along with more Enterprise-suitable features such as content management, business intelligence, records management, and forms management.

If you wanted to receive an email notification every time a new item was added to a list, how would you do that?

To receive an email notification every time a new item is added to a list, you would create an alert. You create an alert by selecting Alert Me from the List tab of the Ribbon.

Describe the difference between a lookup column and a choice column.

A choice column features a value list, from which you can select options that a site manager has manually entered into the column. A lookup column displays a value list based on the contents of an existing column from another list on the site.

Describe how you would send a report of information stored in a list to a partner outside your organization who did not have access to your SharePoint list.

You can export SharePoint list views to an Excel spreadsheet from the Actions menu. This means you can take information from the SharePoint site, customize it, and send it to team members or partners who do not have direct access to the SharePoint list.

What are the differences between a tasks list and a projects task list?

A projects task list is created with a Gantt chart view by default. Also, you can associate a tasks list with a workflow activity template whereas you can't do this with a projects task.

True or false: You can allow users to skip specific questions based on their responses to specific survey questions.

True. SharePoint includes a concept known as branching logic in surveys that define what the next question is that a user should answer based on his response to a specific question.

Your project manager informs you that the version of the document you submitted for approval was not correct and that the version that was sent earlier in the week is more appropriate. How do you remedy the situation?

In this situation, you would browse the available versions of your document to find the version submitted earlier in the week. Once you have found the correct version, you would restore the previous version and finally resubmit the newly restored version to the project manager.

Your manager assigns your team a series of presentations for an upcoming conference. How can your team most efficiently collaborate on various slides?

In this case, you would browse to the View All site content page, select Create, and then select the Slide Library option to create a slide library where your team can collaborate and share slides.

You've been given the task of archiving an old document. Currently, these documents are stored in a common file share. What is the best method of mass-copying these documents to a document library?

Browse to the library that you want to use to archive your documents. Select Open with Explorer from the Library tab of the Ribbon menu. Copy and paste your documents into the Explorer view.

You need to change the metadata information for multiple documents. What is the fastest way to change the metadata of a particular column for multiple documents?

In this situation, you could open your library in Datasheet mode (available from the Library tab of the Ribbon). While in Datasheet mode, you can update a particular column for multiple documents, and change them all at the same time.

After conducting a planning workshop with some members of the sales team, you determine that, while the sales manager wants to see all information stored in a single location, the actual sales team members struggle with seeing too much information. As a result, it takes sales team members longer than necessary to look up contact phone numbers. The sales team prefers to only see contacts from their own region. What can you do to make both groups happy?

By creating a site column for Region, lists, such as the contact list, can feature custom views that filter items to only show items for a specific region. The sales manager can use a list view that shows items across all regions, and each regional office can have its own view that filters out information from regions other than its own. A list-centric column for Region would work specifically for this scenario as well. However, because you can assume this type of behavior is desired for other content lists on the site, a site column may be a better implementation choice.

Whenever a salesperson views the central list of contacts, he/she wants to see specific contacts that he/she has added. How would you accomplish that?

You can accomplish this by creating a custom view that has a filter to only show items where Created By is equal to [me]. It may also be beneficial to make the custom personalized view the default view so that users can see that view first when they enter a list.

The sales manager wants to see a list of all opportunities that are in the pipeline for his staff. Because he has some concerns about the length of time certain sales staff members are taking to close their leads, he wants to visually identify leads that have the longest duration from initial point of contact to the expected date of sale. What can you suggest to help address this situation?

By creating a Gantt view on the list, you can display visual indicators of items based on the date of initial contact and expected date of sale. The sales manager can easily identify the ones that are taking the longest to close.

The marketing department has a custom picture library approval status workflow. They would like to see a Visio diagram of a live flowchart that shows the steps of the workflow, and what activity has taken place. What setting do you recommend that they use?

In the workflow in SharePoint Designer, go to the Workflow Settings page. Put a checkmark next to "Allow this workflow to be manually started," and publish the workflow again.

Each document in the company policies library needs to go through a strenuous collaboration and approval process. When the workflow is kicked off, it first needs to be sent to everyone in the taxation department for review and feedback. After the feedback is collected, the approval process should automatically begin. How do you recommend they configure the out-of-box Approval workflow in the browser?

When adding the new Approval workflow in the browser, put the Taxation group of people in the Assign To box, with the order as Parallel. Click the Add a New Stage button. Add the same group of people, this time with the order as Serial. Save the workflow.

The personnel department has an approval workflow that needs to be strictly locked down so that members of the process cannot see each other's assigned tasks. Which action do you recommend that they use in their custom SharePoint Designer workflow?

Each of the three task process actions has its own settings screen, which has a checkbox to "Only allow task recipients and process owners to read and edit workflow tasks." They should use the Start Approval Process action, since it is an Approval workflow.

Sue Ellen has added the Content Approval Status action to her custom workflow, but she is baffled at why this action does not seem to be doing its job. What list setting do you recommend that Sue Ellen modify?

In They list settings, click on Versioning settings. Change the setting called "Require content approval for submitted items" to Yes. Click OK. The workflow will now be tied to the list's own content approval. Without this setting, the action called Content Approval Status does not work.

Bob is attempting to manually start his workflow called Policy Approval, but he does not see it in the Start a New Workflow section of the workflows page for that item. He has verified that the workflow is allowed to be manually started, and it has been published. Where can you look to troubleshoot his problem?

Bob should click on the item name in the list, and click Workflows. The workflow he needs is not displayed in the Start a New Workflow section because it is already in the Running Workflows section. The status is Error Occurred. Click on this running workflow's name, and click Terminate This Workflow.

True or false: You can only associate one document template with a document library.

This is somewhat of a trick question so the answer is both true and false. Prior to enabling content type management via the Advanced settings of a document library, you may only associate a single document template with a document library. However, if you enable content type management on your library, you can then manage multiple content types from that single location and have more than one document template associated with the library.

Imagine you are responsible for ensuring that all documents created and printed within your organization have the words Private and Confidential on them. What are your options for making this happen, and which would provide the best results?

You have two primary methods for accomplishing this.

People in your company have complained that recent job postings are being published on the corporate intranet website with typos and grammatical errors. Your management team demands a certain level of professionalism in any content that the division posts. What are some steps you can take to ensure that future job postings are reviewed prior to publishing them?

To manage approval processes around specific types of information such as job postings, you associate an Approval workflow template with the Job Postings content type. You can define the workflow activity to launch whenever an item is either created or modified. You can also select who needs to provide the approval for new content. Because the workflow is configured on the content type level, no matter how many location job postings exist throughout the portal, you can apply the same business process.

Some users visit one particular document library on a regular basis, and they claim that it is very important that they are aware as soon as a change is made in the library. They have set up email alerts to be notified but would also like the document library on the page to also automatically stay updated, so that they don't have to refresh the browser to see changes. How can you make this happen?

The answer is AJAX. Go to the document library and click Site Actions and Edit Page. Open the document library's Web Part tool pane, and expand the AJAX Options. Put checkmarks next to Show Manual Refresh Button and Enable Asynchronous Automatic Refresh. Set the interval in seconds per the site users' requirements. With these AJAX settings, the users will not only have a refresh button that they can click, but the document library will also refresh automatically.

The marketing manager has spent a lot of time configuring a Chart web part that is based on data in an external content type. He would like to save this web part and put a copy of it on a site in another site collection. How would he accomplish this?

The answer is to export the web part and import it to the other site, and this is mentioned at the end of the "Chart Web Part" section of Chapter 7. By default, the Export option won't show, so this entails a quick edit to the Web Part properties.

The Human Resources department has its own Team Site for collaboration. Members of the site would like to quickly see a list of all documents that they are working on, no matter which library the files exist in. Which web part can accomplish this most easily?

The Relevant Documents web part not only accomplishes this goal but is also the easiest to set up. Simply add this web part to the home page of the HR Team Site.

The company picnic happened last week, and the picnic photos have been uploaded to a picture library on the site, along with all of the pictures from other past events. How can you display only the picnic pictures in a pretty slideshow view on your site?

You will use The Picture Library Slideshow web part for this task. Notice in the Web Part properties that there is an option to select a view from the list. The trick here is to create a filtered view in the library that only shows the picnic pictures and call it Picnic. One easy way would be to filter by date, so that the Created column is equal to the date that the picnic pictures were uploaded. In the Web Part properties view drop-down box, and select Picnic.

There is an announcement list on the site that really only pertains to IT managers. Without involving security or permissions, how do you display these announcements on a page so that only the SharePoint group of IT Managers can see the web part?

The answer is to use audiences. Insert the manager-only announcements list on the home page. In the Web Part properties, expand the Advanced section, at the bottom of which you will see a Target Audiences box. Pick the IT Managers SharePoint group, and click OK. This web part can now only be seen by that particular group of people, although anyone will be able to access it via the View All Site Content button on the site.

Describe the differences between a site collection and site.

A site collection is a container that holds many different types of content, including sites. Site collections have galleries associated with them that store content that can be used for all sites within the site collection. A site is created within a site collection. Sites are used to store different lists and libraries.

You have been asked to create a site to manage the collaboration of a small committee that meets on a regular basis. What template would be appropriate for managing this content?

An appropriate template for this scenario would be one of the Meeting Workspace templates.

What options do you have for working with your site offline?

You can work with your data offline when you use the SharePoint Workspace client.

Explain the importance of user experience to the user adoption process.

A number of factors can impact the experience of a user when using a technology solution, such as usability, navigation, and intuitive interfaces. All of these factors improve the ability of users to locate the information they seek and subsequently improve how they do their job. When users view a technology tool as an aid in how they work, they are more likely to adopt it.

True or false: Themes and master pages require an understanding of CSS in order to apply branding changes to a SharePoint site.

False. It is not necessary to have an understanding of CSS to make modifications to a SharePoint 2010 Theme. However, you should have an understanding of CSS for Master Page customizations.

True or false: A master page defines the chrome on a website.

True. The master page defines how the outer portion of the website will look. It does not impact the look and feel of the content areas of the page.

According to best practices, where should you store your style sheets?

Style sheets should be stored in a single location within a site collection. The optimal location is the Style Library located at the top level site of the site collection.

Why is it important to create and modify copies of existing versions of files rather than modifying the default files when branding SharePoint?

It is critical not to change default files when branding SharePoint for two primary reasons:

Explain the difference between a SharePoint site group and an audience.

A SharePoint site group is a role in SharePoint to which users can be assigned. It can be associated with a specific set of permissions to perform tasks and duties. An audience is a membership group that helps target relevant content to users based on personal profile properties or memberships within Windows or SharePoint groups.

True or false: By targeting content to users, you can ensure that only the right people have access to view items.

False. Targeting content to users via audiences has no impact on the user's access to an item. Instead, audiences filter through large amounts of data and target specific items as those to which a member will most likely have an interest.

What are the three different types of audiences that you can create?

You can create audiences in SharePoint based on Windows Group Memberships (distribution list or security groups), Profile Properties, or SharePoint Site Group Membership.

What are the different levels of access that you can control in SharePoint?

There are several levels of access to information including:

Explain from what source you can import user profile information.

Users can update their profile information directly within the SharePoint application. They can also import it from external systems such as Active Directory, LDAP servers, or Business Connectivity Services applications.

You need to see where in the organizational chart a person named Christa Gellar fits in. How can you find that information about her?

Click your name at the top right and choose My Site. In the Find People box at the top of the page, type Christa Gellar's name and click the magnifying glass. On the search results page, under Christa's name, click Browse in Organizational Chart.

Bob complains that the activity feed on his My Site has too much information, especially about ratings. What changes do you recommend for his settings?

Here are the instructions to give Bob: At the top right, click My Site. Click Newsfeed Settings. In the Activities I am following section, uncheck "Rating," and click Save and Close.

Sally uses the Projects library on the Marketing site quite frequently. She would like it to be more readily available to her within the Office applications. How can she add this shortcut?

When Sally is on the Projects library page, she can click the Library tab in the contextual Ribbon. Then, she can click Connect to Office and Add to SharePoint Sites.

Todd has added the Tag Cloud web part to his team site. He wants to know if he can configure it to display the number of times each tag was used. What is the answer?

In the Tag Cloud web part properties, Todd can check the box next to Show Count. This will display a number in parentheses next to each tag in the cloud.

Management has decided that the link to My Links should be displayed in the top navigation of My Site. How can this be accomplished?

In the User Profile Service Application in Central Administration, the SharePoint administrator can add a new Personalization Site Link. This URL is to the My Links page, and as long as no audience is applied, then everyone will see it.

Explain the reasons why you would decide to create a form that supports editing in the browser.

Because not all users have access to the InfoPath application, creating a form template that is supported by the browser can expose the form to a wider audience. In addition, because the browser removes some of the interface elements that the InfoPath form itself offers, such as a view switcher or formatting controls, it may be a more controlled environment to have users complete and review form data. Finally, by using Forms Services to present the form to users, they see the form as a standard web-based form and can spend less time focusing on the technology and more time thinking about the information they are supplying and the decisions they are required to make as part of a business process.

Explain the different scenarios by which you can publish a form template.

A form template can be published to SharePoint directly from a document library. This is suitable for scenarios where the form is only required to be hosted in a single location. Another alternative is to publish the form as a content type to a SharePoint Server. This method is most appropriate when there is a requirement to publish the form to multiple locations within a single site collection. Finally, there is an option to upload the form template via the Central Administration site as a server administrator. This method is most appropriate for complex forms featuring advanced customizations or custom code. It is also suitable for situations where a form template needs to be accessible across multiple site collections within a single server farm.

Describe a template part.

A template is a reusable component that is comprised of form fields, controls, and customizations that can be saved as a single control and added to other form templates. An example of a template part might be a group of fields for entering contact information within a form. Because these fields are often exactly the same across all forms, it would be advantageous to save them once as a template part for reuse in other form templates.

Explain the difference between a control and a data source element.

A data source element represents information and data that can be collected within a form. However, a control is the mechanism by which the data will be entered or viewed within the form. One single data source element may use multiple controls across different views depending on the requirements for data entry or viewing. However, each instance of a control that is added to a form can only be mapped to a single data source.

True or false: InfoPath cannot submit to a data connection. It can only retrieve information.

False. InfoPath can submit data to an external data source as well as receive data.

Your manager informs you that you have been selected to create a website for the communications department on the new SharePoint Server. The main requirement is to have the site allow non-technical employees in the communications division to publish product information that can be viewed as a web page. What do you do?

In this situation, you begin by creating a Collaboration Portal. You would first create a Newsletter content type to have columns that represent such things as a title, body text, and a picture. Next, you create a page layout based on this content type. You would call the page layout "Newsletter," and the types of content you can create on this page would be the columns title, body text, and picture.

You can email communications to notify them that users with appropriate permissions can create newsletters by selecting Site Actions

True or false: You can enable the Publishing feature after you create a team site.

True. Although initially you can create a website using a template, such as the Team Site, you can make it publishing-capable at a later date using the power of Features. You enable Features from the Site Collection Features and Site Features pages which you access from the Site Settings page. After enabling the Publishing feature on a team site, all publishing lists, libraries, and functionality are made available on your team site.

The sales manager says a recent sale requires the implementation of an externally facing customer support portal in two languages, English and French. How do you proceed?

In this situation, you first create a Publishing Portal, the standard template for Internet-facing sites. To make your site accessible in two languages, you first enable and set up Variations on your site. You then create labels for your languages, one named English and one named French. You must specify one of the sitesas the source site. The source site is where users initially create content. As content is created, it's automatically replicated on the other sites where it remains in the source sites language until someone translates it.

True or false: You only add controls to your page layouts that support text and rich text. You must use web parts for the display of rich media.

False. A variety of controls exist that may be added to a page layout including controls for rich media, images, and hyperlinks.

What is the difference between a file plan and a classification plan?

A file plan outlines the types of documents and information that exists within your organization as well as the rules that exist related to where the files must be stored and for how long. The classification plan focuses more specifically on the data that must be tracked related to each document type and is typically completed as a secondary step to the creation of the file plan.

How is In Place Records Management different than Archive-Based Records Management?

In Place Records Management focuses on the declaration and storage of records within the contextual location from which they are created and collaborated on whereas Archive-Based Records Management focuses on the copy or movement of a file to a Records Repository where it will be stored outside of its original context.

True or false: A file cannot be deleted if it has been declared a record.

Either. This is determined based on the Records Declaration Settings for the site collection as outlined in Chapter 14.

Can retentions schedules be applied to Folders or Content Types?

Both. When defining retention schedules, you must determine whether they are applied to the content type or the folder that the file is stored within.

Chris is in the company's marketing department. He has created a custom list on the departmental SharePoint site. He would like to create a lookup column in this list to show the list of the company's products. This data already exists in a SQL database. How can he go about creating this lookup?

Chris can create an external content type consisting of the SQL table he wants to reference. Then, in his custom list, he can create a new column of the type "External Data," and set it to look up that ECT.

Lori is a project manager and has created two external content types in SharePoint Designer. One ECT is a list of projects, and the other isa list of all tasks. Each task is related to one project. How can Lori create the relationship between the two lists in SharePoint?

Lori can create an association between the two ECTs. This is done from within SharePoint Designer, in the Tasks ECT, on the Operations Design View. Right-click on the Tasks table in the data source explorer, and choose New Association. This is where the Project ID in the Tasks table can be mapped to the Project ID in theProject table.

Charlotte would like to use a query string in a URL and pass this information to several Business Data web parts on a page. Which out-of-the-box web part will allow her to do this?

Charlotte would use the Business Data Item Builder web part. This out-of-the-box web part allows you to define the name of the query string parameter, and then you can add other web parts to the page. This creates web part connections between the Business Data Item Builder and each of the other web parts.

The project managers have a list of project tasks in a database. They would like to be able to view and work on these tasks from within Outlook, in the familiar interface. How can they accomplish this?

They can create an external content type and external list for the tasks table. When they first create the ECT, they will need to set the Office Item Type drop-down box to Task. Then, when they create the external list, it will contain the Connect to Outlook button in the List tab in the Ribbon.

The IT department would like to allow users to create change requests in a help desk ticketing system that exists in a SQL database. Each change request should go through an approval process before it can be entered in the database. What is a method that can be used to accomplish this?

IT can create the change request form as a custom list in SharePoint and create a workflow on this change request list. Insert a Start Approval Process actionin the workflow, set to run when an item is created. Add a Create List Item action that runs when items have been approved. Set up the workflow to create a new itemin the help desk ticket external list.

What site template comes preconfigured to support business intelligence content?

Business Intelligence Center.

True or false: In SharePoint 2010 Excel services content can be edited through the browser.

True. Content can be edited through the browser when the server is configured with the Office Web Applications.

What permission level would you need to apply so that users would only be able to open a snapshot of an Excel Services document?

If you grant someone the View Item permission to an Excel Services document then they will only be able to access the snapshot.

What type of content can be configured within a KPI indicator?

KPIs can be configured for the following types of data:

What are the limits to configurations made at the site collection level?

These configurations are only available within the current site collection and cannot be used within another site collection.

Where do you need to make configurations if they need to be accessed by every site within the farm?

Changes that are global in nature and need to be referenced by the entire farm should be made in Central Administration.

You have a group of users that wants to be able to quickly search within all documents of a certain type. How would you help them configure this?

A search scope could be created that would limit their search to only a specific type of document, such as presentations (PowerPoint) or spreadsheets (Excel).

What is a Best Bet?

A Best Bet is a keyword search result that is displayed whenever a user completes a search with the keyword in the query.

True or false: SharePoint supports the use of Boolean operations within a search query.

True. SharePoint search supports Boolean search queries.