Just Passed 70-541 - Technical Specialist: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 – Application Development

After the success of last week's exam (see http://ddkonline.blogspot.com/2009/01/just-passed-microsoft-exam-70-630-ts.html), I followed up with the Windows SharePoint services application development (WSS 3.0 development) exam. One of the main differences between the format of the 70-541 and 70-630 exam is that there is first a survey about (basically) how good you think you are at different areas of WSS development. I don't know if these affect the questions you are asked in the exam proper - but it is possible they use it as a way to choose the set of questions you recieve. Your guess is as good as mine, unless the folks at Microsoft/Prometric want to let us know how the application works...

The exam itself was slightly longer than the MOSS 2007 one (59 questions vs 51 questions) and as is typical for development exams - the difficulty level was a lot higher. You have to know some of your configuration basics PLUS the coding side of things. I came out of the exam after I got my score (900/1000) and was a little miffed that I answered the way I did for some of the questions. Many of the questions try to lead you up the garden path - and I probably was trying to anticipate what the exam creators were thinking a little too much.

I am considering Performance Point (70-556 - Technical Specialist: Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, Applications) next as Oakton has some clients who are interested in using it - and skills in the area seem to be in short supply. One problem is that there are no recommended readings for the PeformancePoint exam, so it will largely be a Technet and MSDN study effort. I was in a similar situation for the ASP.NET 2.0 beta exams as well - so I should be OK.

ABA bank payment file format (Australian Bankers Association) - Field Definitions and Sizes

I'm currently working on a payroll application for a large Australian engineering firm. As part of this, I need to export files for processing in the Australian defacto standard for Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) files - the ABA format. If the file doesn't go through, hordes of angry engineers and mine workers won't get paid - so it is important that the file format of these files is in order.

So where does this fixed width .ABA file format come from? The Australian Bankers' Association is the national organisation of licensed banks in Australia, ranging from traditional retail, trading bank-style organisations to regional banks, foreign and wholesale banks.

These Banks (including the "Big Four", namely National Australia Bank (NAB), The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) and Westpac Banking Corporation (WBC)) reached agreement on a file format for Electronic Funds Transfers (EFT).

I presume for legacy reasons that the chief solutions architects at the banks chose a fixed width file format rather something more advanced like XML with XSD schema definitions (which would allow a simpler process for file format validation and improved readability). I suppose that readability isn't one of the primary goals for these "system generated" files.

Seeing as we are stuck with the format for now, I often have a hard time finding format definition for these files. e.g. the main ABA website doesn't seem to have it documented in any part of their site - http://www.bankers.asn.au/. Instead, for future reference, I've detailed the (.ABA) file format below with a list of the fields and dimensions of these fields:

1. Definitions

Commonly used terms associated with file formatting and their definitions are as follows:

1. Left justified - start input in the first character position of that field
2. Right justified - end input in the last character position of that field
3. Blank filled - fills the unused portion of that field with blank spaces
4. Zero filled - fills the unused portion of that field with zeros
5. Unsigned - used in amount fields. Amounts will not be specified as debit or credit.

2. Header Record Definition ('0' record) (just the first line):

Character Position	Field size	Field description	Specification
1	1	Record Type 0	Must be '0'
2-18	17	Blank	Must be blank filled.
19-20	2	Reel Sequence Number	Must be numeric commencing at 01. Right justified. Zero filled
21-23	3	Name of User's Financial Institution	Must be approved Financial Institution abbreviation. Westpac's abbreviation is "WBC".
24-30	7	Blank	Must be blank filled.
31-56	26	Name of User supplying file	Must be User Preferred Specification as advised in Application. Left justified, blank filled. All coded character set valid. Must not be all blanks.
57-62	6	Number of User supplying file	Must be User Identification Number which is allocated by APCA. Must be numeric, right justified, zero filled.
63-74	12	Description of entries on file e.g. "PAYROLL"	All coded character set valid. Must not be all blanks. Left justified, blank filled.
75-80	6	Date to be processed (i.e. the date transactions are released to all Financial Institutions)	Must be numeric in the format of DDMMYY. Must be a valid date. Zero filled.
81-120	40	Blank	Must be blank filled.

3. Detail Record ('1' record)

Character Position	Field size	Field description	Specification
1	1	Record Type 1	Must be '1'
2-8	7	Bank/State/Branch Number	Must be numeric with a hyphen in character position 5. Character positions 2 and 3 must equal valid Financial Institution number. Character position 4 must equal a valid State number (0-9).
9-17	9	Account number to be credited/debited	Numeric, hyphens and blanks only are valid. Must not contain all blanks or zeros. Leading zeros which are part of a valid account number must be shown, e.g. 00-1234. Westpac recommends that (except in the above example), ALL hyphens are edited out. Where account number exceeds nine characters, edit out hyphens. Right justified, blank filled.
18	1	Indicator	"N" -for new or varied Bank(FI)/State/Branch number or name details, otherwise blank filled. Withholding Tax Indicators: "W" -dividend paid to a resident of a country where a double tax agreement is in force. "X" -dividend paid to a resident of any other country. "Y" -interest paid to all non-residents The amount of withholding tax is to appear in character positions 113-120. Note: Where withholding tax has been deducted the appropriate Indicator as shown above is to be used and will override the normal indicator.
19-20	2	Transaction Code	Must only be valid industry standard trancodes (see list). Only numeric valid.
21-30	10	Amount	Only numeric valid. Must be greater than zero. Shown in cents without punctuations. Right justified, zero filled. Unsigned.
31-62	32	Title of Account to be	All coded character set valid. Must not be all blanks.
		credited/debited	Left justified, blank filled. Desirable format: - surname (period) blank
			- given names with blank between each name
63-80	18	Lodgement Reference	All coded character set valid. Reference as submitted by the User indicating details of the origin of the entry e.g. Payroll number, invoice, contract number.
			Left justified, blank filled. Must not contain all blanks.
81-96 (81-87)	16	Trace Record (-BSB Number in format XXX-XXX)	Bank(FI)/State/Branch and account number of User to enable retracing of the entry to its source if necessary. Only numeric and hyphens valid. Character positions 81 & 82 must equal a valid Financial Institution number. Character position 83 must equal a valid State number (0-9). Character position 84 must be a hyphen.
(88-96)	9	(-Account Number)	Right justified, blank filled.
97-112	16	Name of Remitter	Name of originator of the entry. This may vary from Name of the User. All coded character set valid. Must not contain all blanks. Left justified, blank filled.
113-	8	Amount of	Numeric only valid. Show in cents without punctuation.
120		Withholding Tax	Right justified, zero filled. Unsigned.

4. File Total Record ‘7’ (Trailer)

Character Position	Field size	Field description	Specification
1	1	Record Type 7	Must be '7'.
2-8	7	BSB Format Filler	Must be '999-999'.
9-20	12	Blank	Must be blank filled.
21-30	10	File (User) Net Total Amount	Numeric only valid. Must equal the difference between File Credit & File Debit Total Amounts. Show in cents without punctuation. Right justified, zero filled. Unsigned.
31-40	10	File (User) Credit Total Amount	Numeric only valid. Must equal the accumulated total of credit Detail Record amounts. Show in cents without punctuation. Right justified, zero filled. Unsigned.
41-50	10	File (User) Debit Total Amount	Numeric only valid. Must equal the accumulated total of debit Detail Record amounts. Show in cents without punctuation. Right justified, zero filled. Unsigned.
51-74	24	Blank	Must be blank filled.
75-80	6	File (User) count of Records Type 1	Numeric only valid. Must equal accumulated number of Record Type 1 items on the file. Right justified, zero filled.
81-120	40	Blank	Must be blank filled.

5. Direct Entry Transaction Codes

13	Externally initiated debit items
50	Externally initiated credit items with the exception of those bearing Transaction Codes 51-57 inclusive
51	Australian Government Security Interest
52	Family Allowance
53	Pay
54	Pension
55	Allotment
56	Dividend
57	Debenture/Note Interest

Just passed Microsoft Exam 70-630 Technical Specialist: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Configuring with Full Marks

Yesterday, I just passed my first SharePoint 2007 exam (70-630) with a score of 1000/1000. I've done many Microsoft exams but this is the first that I received full marks for. It was a bit of a shock!

Funny thing was, I almost didn't get to do the exam because the Prometric testing site @ North Ryde (in Sydney) didn't have my name registered (and the name of 3 other guys who arrived at the testing centre). This was because I rescheduled the exam online (at http://www.register.prometric.com/Index.asp) the day Prometric closed over the holiday period. I had to wait around for an hour before the Prometric help desk opened up and did a data synchronisation. Why the process isn't just a scheduled SQL job is beyond me.

Without violating the Non-Disclosure Agreement (these are all in the preparation guide at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exams/70-630.mspx), here are some of the things to look for:

1. Content types, Content types, Content types
2. Security, Audiences and how to enable/disable Personalisation functionality
3. Business Data Catalogs
4. Know all the stsadm command line parameters inside out - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263384.aspx
5. Know the innards of the logging and diagnostic functionality of MOSS.

My primary sources of information were the 1200 page corker named "The Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Administrator's Companion", SharePoint 2007 Central Administration online help and, of course, TechNet for SharePoint - see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/office/sharepointserver/default.aspx