Joel's SharePoint Architect Blog

Top SharePoint Exam Tips for Passing Microsoft Exams 70-667, 70-668, 70-573 and 70-576

Joel Jeffery — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:14:09 +0000

SharePoint Exam Tips

Here’s a rundown of my best practice tips when sitting the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Exams. Hopefully there’s something here for everyone, whether you’re a SharePoint Administrator (70-667, 70-668), or a SharePoint Developer (70-573 and 70-576) – or just preparing for Microsoft Exams in general.

Before we start our list of practical exam tips, I’m going to give you an extra tip for free:

Practice, practice, practice! The exam syllabus states as pre-requisites around 3 months of product experience for the MCTS exams, and up to 2 years for the MCITP and MCPD exams. See here about booking Joel as a trainer with the online form.

Multiple Guess?

Next, a note on exam style: both SharePoint Developer exams and also the MCTS Administrator exam are based on multiple choice questions, usually around 50-60 questions per test. Each question will typically start with a paragraph or two of scenario, followed by some part-completed technical steps or code.

You will then be asked one of the following:

Select one best answer, where each choice represents a whole possible answer.
- e.g. One from a choice of A, B, C, D or E.
Select the two best answers, where each choice represents a whole possible answer.
- e.g. Two from a choice of A, B, C, D or E.
Select the two best answers, where each choice represents a part of a possible answer.
- e.g. Two from a choice of A, B, C, D or E.
Select the best appropriate N steps, where each choice represents a part of a possible answer.
- e.g. Three from a choice of A, B, C, D, E or F.
Select the best appropriate N steps in the correct order, where each choice represents a part of a possible answer.
- e.g. Three from a choice of A, B, C, D, E or F, where the order of the steps is marked too.

Case Study Questions

There are differences with the 70-668 MCITP SharePoint Administration exam. You may only be asked 10-15 of the above style of question. There are an additional 40 similar questions where instead of each one being a discrete scenario, there are a smaller set of stories, each of which is longer in length, to which may apply to 3 or 4 questions in a row. These are the so-called “case study” style questions. In total, this adds up to 50-60 questions for 70-668 as well.

Typically, the choices you will get (A – E or A – F etc.) will, in addition to the correct answers, include obviously incorrect choices, and also more devious “detractor” answers.

The Top Ten

Now we’ve covered the basics, on with the exam tips:

Pace yourself. You have a limited amount of time and a lot of questions to answer. Give yourself a time limit per question that you won’t go over, and watch the time remaining (displayed on screen). If you make good speed, feel free to re-jig your personal time limit per question.
Read the question. I know this sounds obvious, but the devil is in the detail. Read the question thoroughly. For the longer case studies you may need to make notes on the provided laminated cardboard sheets we get at Prometric testing centres. It’s easy to get carried away with notes though; don’t use all your exam time making notes!
Do you know the answer? If you know the answer, and you’ve checked the whole question, and you know what you’re doing, then obviously select the answer you know and move on. Hopefully most of the questions will follow this format. :)
Leave no question unanswered! There is no “negative” marking in Microsoft exams. In other words, you only accumulate points for correct answers; no additional marks are deducted for incorrect choices. Select your best guess (go with your gut, or use the tips below) and mark it for later review. Any time during the exam, you can review the ones you have marked, and change your mind.
Don’t change your mind! If you choose to review your choices at the end (and this is generally a good idea) do not be tempted to change your answer unless: you are absolutely convinced you got it wrong. You will kick yourself later if you failed because you changed an answer away from a correct one.
Look out for clues in later questions! Your exam can be a truly enlightening experience. I tend to sit exams early in their lifecycle, frequently before any courseware is actually available. Over the years I have learned quite a lot about .NET and the Microsoft platform from sitting the exams. Don’t know the answer the question 26? Then mark it for review, and maybe 29 and 37 will give you different clues in their question scenario that can help you logically work out the correct answer. It can be like a logic puzzle. In the past I’ve had 3 questions spread over the course of an exam that, when read together, can only have one logical combination of answers.
Eliminate the stupid choices. The quality of Microsoft exams has improved much over the last 5 years. In previous years, the detractor answers could include choices that are logically impossible or even utter nonsense. These days, all choices you will be presented with must at least be viable areas of SharePoint’s object model or platform. However, they still usually put in 1 or 2 daft choices that you can usually eliminate easily.
Look out for trick questions. Sometimes they put in choices that are more applicable to a previous version of a product or technology, but which would not work on the new platform. I’ve seen this tactic in both Administration and Developer exams before.
Think “What Would Bill Do?” Don’t go the trouble of tattooing WWBG onto your knuckles, but try and remember that products are meant to be easy to administer, and object models are meant to be expressive and easy to use. If you find yourself genuinely stumped, try and reverse the situation and ask yourself “using best practices, if I had to design an API or command line interface, how should I do it?” Often the most cumbersome-looking choices are incorrect. Beware though. Sometimes things are just difficult to do. In other words: it’s usually the simplest answer… except when it’s not!
Don’t forget everything you already know about IT! You walk in to the exam room with potentially many years’ experience as a developer or IT Professional. Principals of software development and IT infrastructure knowledge should not be knocked out of your head simply because we’re now building with SharePoint.

So, whatever your chosen methods for preparing for SharePoint exams, whether it’s Accelerated IT Learning or experience from the field, I hope you’ll find these exam tips useful.

Technorati Tags: 70-563, 70-576, 70-667, 70-668, Exams, MCP, SharePoint 2010, Tips, Training

Auto Summary Slides for PowerPoint 2010 VBA Macro with Hyperlinks! Free!

Joel Jeffery — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 21:58:23 +0000

*UPDATE* Here’s the download link to a new version of my PowerPoint template with VBA Macro, updated to auto generate hyperlinks and summary pages for your PowerPoint 2010 slide decks.

In my first post on creating Auto Summary Slides for PowerPoint 2010, I gave you a VBA macro and PowerPoint template showing how to create summary slides based upon the titles of those selected with one mouse click.

By popular demand, I’ve added an extra feature to the Macro. You now have two choices: either have the original behaviour of a text-only summary page, or use the new extended version that makes every summary item a hyperlink to the original slide.

Once again, I’m making this free under the Creative Commons Public Domain license.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
''' InsertSummary()
''' by Joel Jeffery (http://joelblogs.co.uk) August 2010
''' Creates a Summary Slide for PowerPoint 2010
''' (and probably 2007 too!)
''' Depends: Requires QSortInPlace by Chip Pearson
''' Usage: Select Slides (e.g. in Slide Sorter) and run
''' this macro.
''' License: Creative Commons Public Domain 2010
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Sub InsertSummary(Optional CreateHyperlinks As Boolean)
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim strSel As String, strTitle As String
    Dim summary As Slide
    
    'Only run if we've got something selected
    If ActiveWindow.Selection.SlideRange.Count > 0 Then
        'Array to hold the order of the slides...
        'We do this or we build the ToC in the order
        'in which the slides were selected :)
        Dim slideOrder() As Integer
        
        'Size this to the number of slides selected
        ReDim slideOrder(1 To ActiveWindow.Selection.SlideRange.Count)
        
        'Collect all the IDs of the selected slides
        For i = 1 To ActiveWindow.Selection.SlideRange.Count
            slideOrder(i) = ActiveWindow.Selection.SlideRange(i).SlideIndex
        Next
        
        'Sort them with the QSort Algorithm
        'By Chip Pearson, www.cpearson.com, chip@cpearson.com
        QSortInPlace slideOrder
                
        'Iterate over the slides in Index order
        For o = 1 To UBound(slideOrder)
            If ActivePresentation.Slides(slideOrder(o)).Shapes.HasTitle Then
                'Build up the ToC Text
                strTitle = ActivePresentation.Slides(slideOrder(o)).Shapes.Title.TextFrame.TextRange.Text
                strSel = strSel & strTitle & vbCrLf
            End If
        Next
        
        'Create the summary slide before the first slide in the selection
        Set summary = ActivePresentation.Slides.Add(slideOrder(1), ppLayoutText)
        'Add the title
        summary.Shapes(1).TextFrame.TextRange = "Module Summary"
        'Add the ToC text
        summary.Shapes(2).TextFrame.TextRange = strSel
        
        ' By popular demand...! ;)
        If CreateHyperlinks Then
            'Add Hyperlinks :)
            For o = 1 To UBound(slideOrder)
                If ActivePresentation.Slides(slideOrder(o) + 1).Shapes.HasTitle Then
                    'Build up the ToC Text
                    strTitle = ActivePresentation.Slides(slideOrder(o) + 1).Shapes.Title.TextFrame.TextRange.Text
                    With summary.Shapes(2).TextFrame.TextRange.Paragraphs(o).ActionSettings(ppMouseClick)
                        .Action = ppActionHyperlink
                        .Hyperlink.Address = ""
                        .Hyperlink.SubAddress = ActivePresentation.Slides(slideOrder(o) + 1).SlideID & "," & ActivePresentation.Slides(slideOrder(o) + 1).SlideIndex & "," + strTitle
                    End With
                End If
            Next
        End If
    End If
End Sub
  
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
''' InsertSummaryWithHyperlinks()
''' by Joel Jeffery (http://joelblogs.co.uk) August 2010
''' Creates a Summary Slide for PowerPoint 2010
''' (and probably 2007 too!) with Hyperlinks
''' Usage: Select Slides (e.g. in Slide Sorter) and run
''' this macro.
''' License: Creative Commons Public Domain 2010
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Sub InsertSummaryWithHyperlinks()
    InsertSummary CreateHyperlinks:=True
End Sub

To the extent possible under law, Joel Jeffery has waived all copyright and related or neighbouring rights to InsertSummary() and InsertSummaryWithHyperlinks() Macros for PowerPoint 2010. This work is published from United Kingdom. Why am I bothering to licensed this under Creative Commons? Because some folks are selling similar functionality as a PowerPoint Add-In and I think it should be free. Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Macro, PowerPoint 2010, VBA

Just Passed 70-668 – PRO: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Administrator!!!

Joel Jeffery — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:47:37 +0000

The 70-668 has been out a month, and I’ve only just got round to taking it. When I sat the 70-667 beta, Microsoft gave me the MCITP Administrator certification as well by mistake… A bit of googling showed me that this was a known bug in their certification database and they’d taking it away again by 1st of September from any MCPs who hadn’t really sat 70-668.

Well, they’re not taking mine back! :o)

Automatically Create Summary Slides in PowerPoint 2010 for Free!

Joel Jeffery — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:13:00 +0000

*UPDATE* Please see part two of this blog post for an updated version that creates a auto summary slides for PowerPoint 2010 with hyperlinks!

Download the Create Summary Slide Macro PowerPoint 2010 slide deck here.

Not strictly SharePoint Architect related, but I cooked this VBA script up whilst working on my latest SharePoint 2010 Developer courseware.

In PowerPoint 2003 and earlier there was a button you could press that would automagically create a Summary Slide or Table of Contents Slide for you based upon slides you’d selected in Slide Sorter.

It got taken away in PowerPoint 2007, and it’s still missing in 2010! So tonight I wrote this macro. Apologies for any errors. It’s very, very late.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
''' InsertSummary()
''' by Joel Jeffery (http://joelblogs.co.uk) August 2010
''' Creates a Summary Slide for PowerPoint 2010
''' (and probably 2007 too!)
''' Depends: Requires QSortInPlace by Chip Pearson
''' Usage: Select Slides (e.g. in Slide Sorter) and run
''' this macro.
''' License: Creative Commons Public Domain 2010
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Sub InsertSummary()
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim strSel As String, strTitle As String
    Dim summary As Slide
    
    'Only run if we've got something selected
    If ActiveWindow.Selection.SlideRange.Count > 0 Then
        'Array to hold the order of the slides...
        'We do this or we build the ToC in the order
        'in which the slides were selected :)
        Dim slideOrder() As Integer
        
        'Size this to the number of slides selected
        ReDim slideOrder(1 To ActiveWindow.Selection.SlideRange.Count)
        
        'Collect all the IDs of the selected slides
        For i = 1 To ActiveWindow.Selection.SlideRange.Count
            slideOrder(i) = ActiveWindow.Selection.SlideRange(i).SlideIndex
        Next
        
        'Sort them with the QSort Algorithm
        'By Chip Pearson, www.cpearson.com, chip@cpearson.com
        QSortInPlace slideOrder
                
        'Iterate over the slides in Index order
        For o = 1 To UBound(slideOrder)
            If ActivePresentation.Slides(slideOrder(o)).Shapes.HasTitle Then
                'Build up the ToC Text
                strTitle = ActivePresentation.Slides(slideOrder(o)).Shapes.Title.TextFrame.TextRange.Text
                strSel = strSel & strTitle & vbCrLf
            End If
        Next
        
        'Create the summary slide before the first slide in the selection
        Set summary = ActivePresentation.Slides.Add(slideOrder(1), ppLayoutText)
        'Add the title
        summary.Shapes(1).TextFrame.TextRange = "Module Summary"
        'Add the ToC text
        summary.Shapes(2).TextFrame.TextRange = strSel
    End If
End Sub
  

To the extent possible under law, Joel Jeffery has waived all copyright and related or neighbouring rights to InsertSummary() Macro for PowerPoint 2010. This work is published from United Kingdom. Why am I bothering to licensed this under Creative Commons? Because some folks are selling similar functionality as a PowerPoint Add-In and I think it should be free. Enjoy!

You’ll also need the QSortInPlace method by Chip Pearson.

To use, simply select all the slides you want to use for your summary (for instance, in Slide Sorter view) and run the InsertSummary() macro.

Here’s the result:

One bullet point bearing the title of each slide you include.

Enjoy!

Auto Summary Slide PowerPoint

Technorati Tags: Macro, PowerPoint 2010, VBA

Microsoft Azure Cloud Services and Mobile Applications

Joel Jeffery — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:48:58 +0000

I’ve just come across another great video from Jason Zander at the UK Tech Days event in Reading. This time it’s about mobile applications and the Azure platform.

I’ve been following the Microsoft cloud service offerings for a couple of years since the Microsoft Architect Insight Conference 2008. What started as SQL Server Data Services and the nascent BizTalk Services, has now grown into an offering that in my opinion does not just complete with Amazon and Google cloud services, but far exceeds the capabilities of their model.

Here’s a screenshot of a really simple ASP.NET page that I’m going to run in the local Azure test harness. You need to make sure it’s running as Administrator, or you can’t launch the Azure Simulation Environment.

If I’ve done all that, I can hit F5 and get this:

Shortly followed by the web application as if it were running in the cloud:

In the video, Jason builds a quick application connecting some .NET entity classes to a SQL Azure instance and shows how quickly a simple web service can be deployed to the cloud.

You also get to see the developer tools for Visual Studio 2010 and Azure, including local simulations of the App Fabric and Dev Fabric infrastructure of Azure. In other words, you can test your Azure apps by running them on your local machine without needing to actually deploy them.

Instead of deploying an ASP.NET Web Application like I did above, Jason shows you the newly released Visual Studio Express and he walks through the steps to build a Silverlight mobile application to consume the service he just deployed on Azure.

The key takeaway here is just how easy it is to build and consume cloud services and applications across a broad spectrum of platforms. Follow this link for more information about Microsoft Azure, or give us a call a JFDI Phoenix in the UK.

Technorati Tags: Cloud, Mirosoft Azure, Mobile, Videos, Visual Studio 2010

SharePoint 2010 Developer Courses and Business Intelligence in SharePoint 2010

Joel Jeffery — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:22:33 +0000

Over the next few weeks I’m building the new SharePoint 2010 Developer Course for Firebrand Training. These are exciting times for SharePoint 2007 (MOSS and WSS 3.0) developers looking to acquire new skills.

The Microsoft SharePoint 2010 platform has really come of age. In my three recent video podcasts, I showed some of my favourite features in SharePoint 2010:

But there’s so much more for the SharePoint Developer to enjoy!

Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint Projects and Project Items
Client Object Model (for .NET, Sliverlight and JavaScript)
LINQ to SharePoint
Solution and Feature Lifecycle with the Versioning and Upgrade Framework
SharePoint Designer 2010 and Visio 2010 Integration
InfoPath 2010 Forms
Claims Based Security
SharePoint Powershell Integration
Lists and Libraries Enhancements
Branding Improvements
Enterprise Content Management Improvements, Taxonomies
Search Improvements
Excel Services, PerformancePoint Services, PowerPivot for SharePoint
Access Services
Office Web Access
…More! More! More!

To round off my week as the Firebrand Blog guest blogger, I’ve made a high level video overview of some of the new Business Intelligence features in SharePoint 2010. A quick look at the Business Intelligence Center site definition, a look at Excel Web Access and the Excel Web Access Web Part, and finally a peek at the REST API for Excel Services.

Don’t forget you can find all my videos as podcasts on iTunes! Just search for “joelblogs tv” and you’ll find them.

Technorati Tags: Business Intelligence, Charting, Excel Services, Excel Web Access, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Videos, Training, Videos

SharePoint Certification for Information Workers?

Joel Jeffery — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:49:22 +0000

I’ve just read a really thought-provoking blog post from Patrick Sledz (@patman2520) on Microsoft’s approach to bringing SharePoint to market.

SharePoint Comes of Age

It strikes me that SharePoint is a product that’s taken a while to mature, but mature it certainly has. The several first iterations of the technology stack didn’t really have very much in the way of targeted Developer or IT Pro learning.

In fact, looking back at WSS 3.0 and SharePoint 2007, the only real, official Microsoft courses were for the IT Pro community (courses 5060 and 5061). I don’t think it’s a matter of Microsoft leaving things up to the community, but more the case that even with Microsoft’s man-power and financial might, SharePoint was a comparatively niche product and Microsoft simply couldn’t get the support and training to all the different groups who needed it, and remain cost effective.

Microsoft Courseware Library

But what they did do for learning in the SharePoint community was to make use of the already growing Microsoft Courseware Library. The Microsoft Courseware Library programme allows 3rd party vendors of training courses of sufficient quality to get a Microsoft seal of approval, and achieve a semi-official status.

Through this channel there have been some great training courses (and some not so good). Some of the good ones covered:

SharePoint 2007 Advanced Development (e.g. from Architecting Connected Systems or MindSharp)
SharePoint 2007 Business Intelligence Training
SharePoint 2007 Branding and Content Management
and
SharePoint End Users and Information Workers (or "Functionals" as Patrick calls them.)

To teach these courses to a paying audience, you’d need to be a Microsoft Certified Trainer /* like me! :o) */ but there is also a thriving community of other training companies who make terrific SharePoint courses outside of the Courseware Library programme (e.g. Ted Patterson / Critical Path).

As always, Microsoft leaves gaps for Microsoft partners to fill. Big partners like Firebrand Training, and not-so-big partners like JFDI Phoenix. /* my company! :o) */

Who Wants SharePoint Certification?

But possibly there is a case for certification for Information Workers – maybe a SharePoint equivalent of the Office User certification.

However, I’m not convinced everyone who wants training also wants certification. I assert that the Venn diagram of Set A: "SharePoint Information Workers", Set B: "SharePoint Developers/Administrators/Architects" and Set C: "People Who Want SharePoint Certification" probably has those last two sets almost entirely overlapping, and only slightly intersecting the first.

The Changing Face of SharePoint Certification

The training landscape is definitely changing with SharePoint 2010:

If you’re an Administrator or Developer, the certifications are aligned to the MCITP and MCPD tracks respectively – that’s got to be better than the ragtag collection of 4 MCTS certifications we had with SharePoint 2007!
Microsoft are releasing Official Courses for Administrators and Developers alike! Look out for courses 10175 and 10232 for Developers, and 10174 and 10231 for IT Professionals.
If you have the MCITP and MCPD certifications for SharePoint, you could consider going for the SharePoint Certified Master certification… but that takes three weeks of your life and earning ability and about $15,000 and you have to pass a CV screen and interview before gaining a place on a course that only runs in the States.
And STOP THE PRESS! It seems that there may be Information Worker training in the near future!

The Microsoft ‘Get The Point’ Blog mentions an upcoming List training course.
Microsoft’s guide to End User training resources (OK, not classroom based)
Great free, third party End User SharePoint 2010 training videos.

Technorati Tags: Certification, Information Workers, Opinion, SharePoint 2010, Training

Windows 7 Applications with WPF, C# and MFC/C++

Joel Jeffery — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 23:59:12 +0000

Since managed code made its appearance about a decade ago, I’ve not touched MFC or C++. For business applications or just for applications that look great, writing code in MFC/C++ seemed to be doing things the hard way. A few weeks ago at a TechDays event, I got the chance to see that the unmanaged code world hasn’t been standing still either.

We’ve had Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight for a few iterations now. Windows 7 comes with even more of these APIs as standard, which you can use to give your applications the distinctive Windows 7 look and feel.

Whilst managed languages in .NET have had excellent support for developing shiny applications for a while (Paint.NET is a great example of this, go ahead and download the Paint.NET source code!), unmanaged C++ and MFC has lagged behind in the tools department for too long.

Visual Studio 2010 changes this.

If you’re a C#, WPF or Silverlight developer, then you’ll be anxiously awaiting the WPF 4.0 Windows 7 and Office Ribbon Control, which is not yet released. Scott Guthrie as a long-standing article on the out-of-band WPF 4.0 controls package.

At a Microsoft TechDays UK event at Reading last month, Jason Zander the Visual Studio 2010 general manager, went through many of the new features in the platform.

In the video below, Jason walks through the steps to upgrade an old MFC application, with a distinctly 1990′s feel, to use the up-to-date look and feel of Windows 7.

There’s a lot of copy and paste of MFC and C++ code in this video. Looking at all the steps MFC and C++ guys have to go through, I’m quite happy my C++ days are over. Even though there’s a lot more help for C++ in the IDE these days, it’s still seems a very pedestrian way of cutting code. At least you’ve got Ctrl-Comma to launch Intellisense in the IDE.

One feature missing that was removed in the 2008 release of Visual Studio was the MFC class wizard, so you can’t say they don’t listen!

Jason also shows how you can access some of the animation subsytem in unmanaged code. This is so much easier in WPF and C#.

The nice people at VivaMind have build this splendid WPF sample to show the tree of WPF documentation samples available on MSDN.

Click on the image below to install Microsoft Silverlight 4.0 and have interactive experience.

Technorati Tags: C#, MFC, Videos, Visual Studio 2010, WPF

Just Passed 70-576: Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Applications

Joel Jeffery — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 18:56:57 +0000

I sat the second of two SharePoint 2010 Developer exams today and passed. That means I now have the “PRO: SharePoint Server Developer” certification. Is it an MCTS or an MCPD qualification? I can never remember….

EDIT: It’s the MCPD :)

Technorati Tags: Certification, MCP, SharePoint 2010

Just Passed 70-573 – SharePoint 2010 Application Development

Joel Jeffery — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 07:01:12 +0000

The exam was released on 12 July. Once again, I sat this last month whilst it was in beta, and I found out this morning that I passed it!

I’ll try and sit the rest of these over the next few weeks.

Don’t forget to check out my MCP transcript online.

Technorati Tags: Certification, MCP, SharePoint 2010