SharePoint 2010 Learning Paths

Tags: SharePoint 2010, Training

Monday, May 9, 2011 6:55:00 AM

I wanted to take a few minutes to outline the learning paths for SharePoint 2010 that we have available here at Directions Training. These paths are based on your job responsibilities, but you can selectively choose different courses if you wish to target a specific topic. There are essentially two paths: one for Developers and one for IT Pros (Admins).

The table below actually provides a full listing of all of our currently-offered SharePoint 2010 courses. I’ve highlighted the Microsoft Official Curriculum (MOC) courses in blue. A MOC course is simply a course that was written by someone at Microsoft, though often we find contributions in MOC courses that come from folks who don’t work directly for Microsoft. Since SharePoint 2010 is a Microsoft product, these courses are more popular and you’re more likely to attend them versus a non-MOC course. That said, many of the non-MOC courses listed below are still valuable. For example, none of the MOC courses for SharePoint 2010 spend a great deal of time on working with SharePoint Designer 2010, but the non-MOC course number 50354 focuses solely on working with SharePoint Designer 2010 to customize SharePoint 2010 web sites.

I’ve built this guide to assist in you with determining those courses that you will want to take versus those courses that you will not want to take. The final decision is up to you. I’ll begin by covering the “entry-level” SharePoint 2010 courses.

Before I get into any detail about the courses, here’s a listing of the full learning path for either a Developer or an IT Pro. This table is only a summary of the courses you would take if you wanted to take all of the courses that we currently offer. It only lists the course numbers, but that’s really all that you need. For more detail on each course, scroll down and read through the rest of this post.

Developer Path Summary	IT Pro Path Summary
50352	50352
50470	50470
50351	50353
10175	10174
50354	10231
10232	50429
50429	50433
50433

Entry-Level Courses (everyone should take these or have these skills)

50352: SharePoint 2010 Overview – End User (Course Outline)
This course is ideal for someone who has little to no SharePoint experience. Regardless of whether you’re a Developer or an IT Pro, I would highly recommend that you take this course if your knowledge of SharePoint is not yet beyond a basic level. The core concepts in this course include:

1. What is SharePoint?
2. What is a SharePoint site?
3. What is a List?
4. What is a Library?

If you can answer these four questions, then you do not need to take the 50352 course and should move forward.

50470: SharePoint 2010 for the Site Owner/Power User (Course Outline)
This course is ideal for someone who has a fair amount of SharePoint experience and is ready to be in charge of a particular SharePoint site or sites. A “Site Owner” or “Power User” is someone who has higher privileges than a standard SharePoint content contributor; someone who needs the ability to create new sites, manage lists, manage permissions, etc. The core concepts in this course include:

1. What is a SharePoint site?
2. What is a SharePoint site collection?
3. Managing Users, Groups, and Permissions.
4. Modifying Site Collection and Site settings.
5. Working with Site Columns and Site Content Types.
6. Modifying List and Library Settings.
7. Working with and Configuring Web Parts.

If these concepts all sound familiar and you feel comfortable with them, then it’s time to pick a learning path from the two below to move forward with your SharePoint 2010 education.

IT Pro Path (if you’ll be installing, configuring, or maintaining SharePoint)

50353: SharePoint 2010 IT Pro Overview (Course Outline)

This course provide high-level detail on what’s changed in SharePoint 2010 from SharePoint 2007.

10174: Configuring and Managing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 (Course Outline)

This course is the one in which we install and configure SharePoint 2010 as a single-server farm. This course covers the core “Skills Measured” on the 70-667 exam.

10231: Designing an Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Infrastructure (Course Outline)

This course is a high-level design course for implementing a SharePoint 2010 infrastructure. Attendees will become familiar with considerations that need to be made prior to implementing SharePoint 2010. This course covers the core “Skills Measured” on the 70-668 exam.

Developer Path (if you want to write code to customize SharePoint)

50351: SharePoint 2010 Developer Overview (Course Outline)

This course shows off some of the advantages of using Visual Studio 2010 to customize and extend SharePoint 2010.

10175: Developing and Customizing Applications for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 (Course Outline)

This course is an introduction to SharePoint 2010 Development. It allows any .NET developer to become familiar with the basics of the SharePoint 2010 API to extend SharePoint’s built-in functionality. This course covers the core “Skills Measured” on the 70-573 exam.

50354: SharePoint Designer 2010 (Course Outline)

This course is for anyone interested in using SharePoint Designer 2010. It’s the only course we currently offer that covers SharePoint Designer 2010 in great detail.

10232: Designing Applications for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 (Course Outline)

This course is a high-level design course for developing customizations and extensions for SharePoint 2010. Attendees will become familiar with considerations that need to be made prior to developing a custom solution with Visual Studio 2010. This course covers the core “Skill Measured” on the 70-576 exam.

Additional Courses (take these if you think they’ll benefit you)

50429: SharePoint 2010 Business Intelligence (Course Outline)
This course gives attendees the opportunity to explore the different features of Business Intelligence as it relates to SharePoint 2010. Topics covered in this course include exploring the Business Intelligence Center site definition, SQL Server Analysis Services, Excel Services, Business Connectivity Services, Visio Services, Access Services, PowerPivot, and PerformancePoint Services. This course is one that I would consider to be optional. If you’re going to be using any of the services in the list above, then this course may come in handy.

50433: PowerPivot for End Users (Course Outline)
This course gives attendees the opportunity to explore the different features of PowerPivot within Excel 2010. In addition, attendees will gain valuable hand-on experience with PowerPivot for SharePoint 2010. This course is one that I would consider to be optional. If you’re going to be using PowerPivot, then this course may come in handy. This course will give you experience working with PowerPivot as well as installing and configuring PowerPivot for SharePoint.

Lastly…

These are only my suggestions, so take this entire post with a grain of salt; you may be an IT Pro and want to take courses that are in what I’ve listed as the Developer Path. It’s all relative to you and what you need to do. We’ll certainly work with you to get you registered for any course you want to take. If you’ve read this post and still have questions regarding which SharePoint 2010 courses you should or shouldn’t take, I strongly urge you to contact us at sales@directionstraining.com or give us a call at 855-575-8900.