How I prepared for 70-488 Developing Microsoft Sharepoint Server 2013 Core Solutions
In late August and the beginning of September I prepared for the 70-488 Developing Microsoft Sharepoint Server 2013 Core Solutions. At work we used SharePoint, but I was not involved in any development, so when I started to prepare I had nearly no idea where to begin and now I would like to share with you what I did to pass the exam.
What skill should you have?
Like said before personally I had only “end-user experience”. I think a basic understanding in software development would be the only must have.
A big plus is, from my point of view after finishing the exam, experience in JavaScript, C# and PowerShell.
So where did I start with 70-488?
At first I tried to gather as much information as I could get from any source. I created a OneNote “Notebook” and added all “Skill measured” topics as “Sections”.
Next I added a lot of MSDN, TechNet articles and blog posts. A huge help was the following SlideShare from Mahmoud Hamed Mahmoud.
I managed to read the articles on my way to work and after work as well. I got familiar with the development parts, services and auth stuff, but unfortunately I had always the feeling not to understand the underlying architecture, the basics and I was very far away from the administrative stuff as well.
So, I searched for more information and found a lot of references to a book called “Exam Ref 70-488: Developing Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 Core Solutions.“. It was listed on a few Amazon pages, but never in stock. To save you the time looking for the book, it seems like this book was canceled before completion / publishing. The good side on this finding was the very good SlideShare for 70-488 hidden on that blog post.
Stuck without further stuff to read, I got into videos.
Stuff to watch
On PluralSight:
- Developer Ramp Up series from Andrew Connell
- SharePoint Fundamentals from Rob Windsor
- Using Windows Powershell with SharePoint from Gary Lapointe
- SharePoint Workflow Fundamentals from Andrew Connell again
Microsoft Virtual Academy:
There is also a nice course on the MVA: Developing Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 Core Solutions Jump Start
Last words
From my personal experience I would recommend to be very familiar with the SharePoint administration. There are a lot of questions aiming for developing different solutions, authentication and so on, but I would say, there were as many questions with no development involved at all.
Be very familiar with PowerShell, be also familiar with the settings pages and have an understanding for the SharePoint data structure.
Good luck to you!
