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Is there a preferred order in which to take the SharePoint exams? In which order did you take the exams?

For example is it good to know the admin stuff before attempting the deployment parts of the developer exams?

Alex Angas
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Shiraz Bhaiji
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    Good question shiraz. Please tag this kind of open questions as community content :) – Anders Rask Apr 10 '11 at 14:21
  • @Anders: Only moderators can tag questions as community content and our community haven't decided our approach to c-wiki yet. If you'd like to, please bring it up on Meta! :) – Alex Angas Apr 11 '11 at 04:49
  • @Alex, that explains why I could not find the wiki checkbox :) – Shiraz Bhaiji Apr 11 '11 at 06:09
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    The author can not mark their question a wiki anymore. If you believe the post should be wiki, flag it for moderator attention. In the case of this question, I don't see this thread (or it's answers) being overly collaborative (which is the definition of wiki), so I don't see the cause to convert it as such. – Robert Cartaino Apr 11 '11 at 20:28
  • A couple of people have now flagged this for being a community wiki, so I think it is fair game. – SPDoctor Nov 27 '11 at 12:45

4 Answers4

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If you know the platform, then there's no real requirement I'd say. I have done the SP2010 dev exams to MCPD level and not touched the admin exams yet, however I did do the admin exams for WSS3 & MOSS.

If you're new to SharePoint, I'd suggest doing the Admin courses & exams first as they'll give you a broader introduction to the platform, giving you greater understanding of the infrastructure, so that when you come to do the Dev stuff, you already have that background, and you'll stand a greater chance of passing.

James Love
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    I actually found the TS dev exam the toughest simply because of the level of detail they wanted - stuff I don't keep in my head. Intellisense has made us soft. – SPDoctor Apr 15 '11 at 10:41
  • Intellisense makes us soft, absolutely - found this even moreso with the WSS TS dev exam. – James Love Apr 15 '11 at 15:37
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It depends on your backgrouns i would say. Take the ones that are closest to your core competences first.

As a developer i first took the (beta) TS exam that primarily has api related questions. Shortly after i took the PRO dev exam that are mainly architecture related.

I am now preparing to take the ITpro exams, as i have been fiddling more and more with administrative and topology issues with sharepoint.

Anders Rask
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I did the admin exams before the dev exams and that seemed to work out well for me. Personally I found both of the second exams (the MCPD and the MCITP) to be easier than their MCTS prereqs, but if you plan on doing all four then definitely do both admins and both devs together so you stay in the same frame of mind.

Rob Wilson
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I just took the Admin exam first (70-668), and now I'm working towards the Config exam (70-667). Admin is a higher level, just asking general questions more architecture-oriented. ie - If you want to have a public site and intranet site, how many farms do you need? 70-667 is much more "click here, click there, enter this command to get that report".

After I finish 667, I'll have my MCITP in SharePoint. Next will be the dev exams.

Nathan DeWitt
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