SharePoint 2013: Frequently Asked Comparison Interview Questions

SharePoint 2013

SharePoint 2010

Branding - Design Manager is a new feature introduced in a publishing site which minimize the amount of SharePoint knowledge that is required to successfully design and brand a SharePoint site.

Significant SharePoint knowledge required to design the user interface for SharePoint sites.

Device channels - You can render a single published SharePoint site in multiple designs to accommodate different device types.

Teams can create mobile views for sites but not necessarily for different types of mobile devices.

Business intelligence -SharePoint Server 2013 enables a user to view certain kinds of dashboard content. This includes PerformancePoint reports and scorecards, and Excel Services reports in iOS 5.0 Safari browsers on iPad devices.

No such facility available here.

Follow people to see updates based on their Newsfeed posts and what they are publishing.

Users define core areas of expertise in the “Ask me about” column.

Activity posts are saved for as long as you decide to retain them (most organizations align this policy with email retention) and are searchable.

Users can post a single status that is not retained and not searchable.

Workflow – Significant enhancements, including new ways to create and visualize workflows.

Several “built in” workflows with additional options available in SharePoint Designer.

App web

Host Web

Sharepoint 2013 apps host its component into isolated domain called App Web.

Host web is not an isolated domain.

Site on which the App is deployed.

Site on which the App is installed.

Blocking cross site scripting attacks.

No direct provision for blocking cross site scripting attacks.

App web is default. CSOM ClientContext refers to the app web context environment by default.

In order to refer Host Web via ClientContext, we need to add proxy or cross domain call using CSOM.

Seattle Master

Oslo Master

It is Advanced form of master page.

Oslo is basic version of Master page. Oslo has a wider layout for your content.

Seattle is design for intranet site with more feature like social, site navigation etc.

Oslo design for published site which focus on page layout and content rendering.

Seattle layout is having Left navigation enable for site.

Oslo layout left navigation is disabled.

Seattle references corev15.css file.

<SharePoint:CssRegistration Name="Themable/corev15.css" runat="server" />

Oslo master references oslo.css file with EnableCssTheming set to true.

<SharePoint:CssRegistration Name="Themable/oslo.css" runat="server" EnableCssTheming="true" />

No security trimming control available here.

Oslo has SPSecurityTrimmedControl which is configured to hide the contents from the search crawler.

Top ribbon kept as it is.

<SharePoint:AuthenticatedUserDiv /> tag not present here.

The Oslo handles anonymous users differently. The top ribbon is completely removed for anonymous users.

<SharePoint:AuthenticatedUserDiv /> tag play important role in hiding content on page.

Visual WebPart

WebPart

Visual WebPart is combination of user control (.ascx) and assembly (dll).

WebPart is not having user control file included into it. We need to refer existing user control file inside WebPart to render UI.

Visual WebPart support localization. Mapping to resource folder under 14hive. Add new resource file and reference it in project.

No localization support.

Code separation makes it easy to maintain the functionality.

No code separation.

It gives greater productivity if we develop complex UI using user controls.

It provides flexibility.

ExecuteQueryAsync

ExecuteQuery() is part of server side object model.

ExecuteQueryAsync() is part of ECMAScript object model.

ExecuteQuery() is synchronous call. User code waits until SharePoint sends a response back.

ExecuteQueryAsync() is asynchronous call .

Syntax : ExecuteQuery();

Syntax: ExecuteQueryAsync(successCallback, failCallback) : method takes two callback parameters, which specify methods to execute if it succeed or fail.

SharePoint-hosted apps

Provider-hosted apps

App components are hosted on either on premise or Office 365 SharePoint farm.

App components are deployed and hosted outside of SharePoint farm.

It is good only for smaller apps & resource storage.

It is good for large commercial application which deals with large data and lot of resources.

SharePoint hosted app depend on premise infrastructure to run successfully.

Provider hosted app has its own infrastructure to run it properly.

it is sharepoint hosted so no server side coding.

It deals with client side and server side coding to perform any operations.

Business Connectivity Services

Business Data Connectivity (BDC) Service

It is part of SharePoint Server 2010, Also available in SharePoint Foundation 2010.

BDC (2007 feature) was available only with Enterprise License.

BCS can be used for updating, fetching, deleting data from external data sources.

Using BDC we can create read only solutions that display data inside Business Data List WebPart. We cannot write back to external data source.

You can create lists of external content types.

You can’t create lists of external content types.

Support for WCF. New APIs are provided for synchronous communication between client and server.

No WCF support.

SharePoint 2013 workflow

SharePoint 2010 Workflow

Two platform types are available here for workflow creation: SharePoint 2010 workflow and 2013 workflow.

SharePoint 2010 workflow, it is only one platform type supported.

Backward compatibility is a nice feature we have. Sharepoint 2010 workflow runs properly in 2010 Site as it run in 2013 site.

No backward compatibility feature available here.

Support for calling Web Services.

No support for calling Web Services.

Each stage has entry point and gate. Gate is conditional transition point where workflow exists.

Stage concept do not exist here.

Improved Email Editor. Rich formatting is provided here.

Standard Email Editor provided.

List of available actions and activities within workflow in 2013will likely satisfy todays demands.

Limited actions and activities are provided.

For local variables category – Dictionary type is added advantage.

Dictionary type is not available for local variable.

Use new data type DynamicValue to submit and receive service response.

No such facility available here.

Workflow

Event Receiver

Workflows are always synchronous.

Event Receiver can be synchronous and asynchronous.

Workflow can be started manually or automatically.

Event receiver initiated automatically only.

Workflows leave “workflow history” as logs which can be reference for debugging.

There is no log available for Event Receiver.

Workflows are better for small volume of data.

Event Receiver is better for large volume of data.

Workflow created using Designer, Visual Studio and visio.

Event Receiver created using Visual Studio.

Timer Job

Event Receiver

Timer job are triggered at specified time only.

i.e it run on specified schedule.

Event receiver get trigger upon the event.

i.e synchronous and asynchronously

Timer job is executed via TimerService.

Event Receivers are executed in W3WP process.

Timer Job executed by any server at Farm Level.

Event Receiver executed at list, document library level.

Custom timer job provides the power to specify Job Locktype( i.e SPJobTypes ) which guarantees that multiple instance of same job will never run at same time

Feature Receiver is a special kind of Event Receiver, it responds to feature being activated or deactivated. This is also called feature stapling. Perform additional task on demand.

No specific property of Timer Job represents order of events.

SequenceNumber property of event receiver that represents relative order of events.

Timer job can be deployed using Standard WSP solution.

No standard build in deployment method.