Groove Certification Exam

R

Revett

Has anybody else taken the certification exam? I did and I was a little
surprised that it is directed almost entirely at deploying and managing
Groove in a large enterprise environment. Of 65 questions, only about 15
were about the Groove client; the rest were all to do with Server Manager,
Relay, and Data Bridge, and their integration into and communication with
existing infrastructure. Nothing wrong with that, but Microsoft really ought
to make sure that it is clear that the certification is not for one's
knowledge of Groove per se, but rather for one's ability to roll it out and
manage it if you work for Exxon. Nothing in the exam at all about Enterprise
Services, which most small and mid-size organizations will use if they don't
run completely unmanaged, and virtually nothing about Groove Forms, which I
think is the most powerful part of the product. I hope Microsoft sees fit to
develop two exams, one for big-IT-department network gurus (which is what
most of the current exam is) and another for "Groove experts" who can make
the client product hum. I suspect that many of the people who are currently
regarded as true Groove experts on this and other forums would actually fail
the current exam. I'm sure I did, although I won't find out for a few weeks.
If you are planning on taking the exam, make sure you study up on all the
material at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/bb267352.aspx, the
Groove Server homepage.

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
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http://www.microsoft.com/communitie...-be40-806708abd039&dg=microsoft.public.groove
 
F

Fabrice BARBIN

This certification exam is called : "71-555 - TS : Microsoft Office
Groove 2007, Configuring". By "TS", understand "Technology Specialist".

So, you're 100% right. The goal of this exam is to evaluate operational
skills applied to Groove architecture set up : Groove client deployment
and administration, servers (Relay, Manager, Audit, DataBrige)
installation and configuration

--
---------------------------------------------------------------
Fabrice BARBIN
fbarbin.spaces.live.com
Hommes & Process (www.hommesetprocess.com)
GrooveIT! for Microsoft Office Outlook (www.grooveit.biz)
---------------------------------------------------------------

Revett a écrit :
Has anybody else taken the certification exam? I did and I was a little
surprised that it is directed almost entirely at deploying and managing
Groove in a large enterprise environment. Of 65 questions, only about 15
were about the Groove client; the rest were all to do with Server Manager,
Relay, and Data Bridge, and their integration into and communication with
existing infrastructure. Nothing wrong with that, but Microsoft really ought
to make sure that it is clear that the certification is not for one's
knowledge of Groove per se, but rather for one's ability to roll it out and
manage it if you work for Exxon. Nothing in the exam at all about Enterprise
Services, which most small and mid-size organizations will use if they don't
run completely unmanaged, and virtually nothing about Groove Forms, which I
think is the most powerful part of the product. I hope Microsoft sees fit to
develop two exams, one for big-IT-department network gurus (which is what
most of the current exam is) and another for "Groove experts" who can make
the client product hum. I suspect that many of the people who are currently
regarded as true Groove experts on this and other forums would actually fail
the current exam. I'm sure I did, although I won't find out for a few weeks.
If you are planning on taking the exam, make sure you study up on all the
material at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/bb267352.aspx, the
Groove Server homepage.

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/communitie...-be40-806708abd039&dg=microsoft.public.groove


--
---------------------------------------------------------------
Fabrice BARBIN
fbarbin.spaces.live.com
Hommes & Process (www.hommesetprocess.com)
GrooveIT! for Microsoft Office Outlook (www.grooveit.biz)
---------------------------------------------------------------
 
M

Mark Smith

Hi Revett -

Voted "Yes" on your suggestion - I'm also hoping they do an exam for Groove
Forms. I suspect that it will include Groove Web Services as well, though...
 
F

Fabrice BARBIN

Hi Mark,

An exam related to Groove Forms developement or more generally related
to Groove development skills (integration, Databridge, Web Services,
InfoPath forms, Groove Forms...) would be a great idea...

Fabrice

--
 
S

smonson

I just completed this test and it is just as Fabrice states below. Results
from test betas are sent out (not instant) so it will be a few before I know
if I passed or not. I'm glad I read this post at least a few hours before I
took the exam. I was focusing my preparations on client as well as
architecture for enterprise and server installs and configurations. With
that I still had lots of guess's on the test. I spent a lot of time on
Technet that has plenty of technical Groove matierial but to be truly
prepared you need to have experience installing Groove server, Server
Manager, Relay Server and Data Bridge Server in a med to large environment.
That or we need some Transcenders or the like to help us out. Very little
was on installing and using the client side. To pass you'll need to know
stuff like Grooves ports and protocols, try and get your hands on Groove
Server Manager, install it and become familiar with all the different
configuration options. Deploy a Relay server and Data Bridge server and get
them all talking. Know auditing and the auditing commands. Know permissions
and granting and removing members with and w/out losing their profiles and
workspace. Know how Sharepoint and Infopath intigrate with Groove. Know how
AD / LDAP etc interacts with Groove. Know the benefits of setting up Groove
in it's own domain. blah blah blah. That's all I can remember from the test
and I wanted to get it out there before I forget it all. If you've got a few
machines and you can set up a test bed wih the above servers, then you'll do
alright I think. 90% of what I studied wasn't on the test so know the system
administrator side of Groove before signing up. 65 Q's, I guessed on 16,
felt pretty good on ~20, narrowed it down to two on the remaining. We'll
see. Good luck.
 
N

Nigel Holleran

I took the exam last week, thinking it would now be out of beta. (wrong -
but you only find out at the end of the exam ...) so it was a bit of
anti-climax to be told I would be notified by email in about 8 weeks time ...

Will query Microsoft up on this, as it should have been made clear at time
of booking.

Comments on the exam itself ...

Some way to go in my view ...

Many questions had several possible answers which would have resolved the
scenario, but you had to choose only one.

Far too many questions about Audit Server and Active Directory integration
and not enough about client configuration in my opinion.

In reality, I would think the installed user base for the audit server is
pretty low, given that you are actively discouraged from using it in the
implementation instructions!!

I was troubled by the Active Directory integration questions, of which there
were at least 5 (out of a total 65 questions), because its something only
large installations have to tackle ...

The other area to make sure candidates revise on in future, is which
policies are in the "identity" and which in the "device" as there were a
number of questions where you had to choose!

There were also obscure questions about how to resolve presence problems,
involving adding RAM or Disk space to the relay server as a possibile answer.
I can't recall ever seeing anything about that in the documentation ...

Also things which effect how many days invitations are retained on the Relay
Server - this (apparently) is either controlled by a device or identity
policy, or by adding more RAM or Diskspace to the Relay Server.

In summary, a very technically challenging exam, but you get the feeling the
people setting the questions don't really know Groove that well, in that it
appears they are looking for tough questions to ask - and that many of the
questions cover obscure eventualities that most Groove users and support
personnel will never have to address ...


I think that the Exam should be split along client / server lines.
The magnitude of complexity goes up enormously when you have to consider the
server installations.

So I would go for Implementing Groove - Entry Level / Intermediate -
covering client rollouts, and Hosted enterprise services and a separate exam
"Implementing Groove Server Infrastructure - covering the installation of the
3 server types. I would seek advice on how many people have actually
installed the Audit server to decide whether questions on that subject should
be included, or at least kept to a minimum.

I would say there is scope for a third exam, in the MCSA strand perhaps,
covering skills needed to ensure a successful Office Groove Client
implementation, where the focus is on workspace management, best practices,
communication with members, and in depth test on the tools ?

and finally developer exams for Office Groove 2007 forms, and maybe
"Developing Web Services for Microsoft Office Groove Clients and Data Bridge"


Nigel Holleran @ D2i Solutions
 

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