I took and passed the exam today after five weeks of exam specific study. In the last week of January, I completed the 20489B exam at MAX Technical Training. It was a weeklong course taught by MVP Mike Smith and was an excellent course that mapped very well to what was actually covered in the exam. There were, however, a few holes as there always are. The major benefit that I got out of the course were the virtual labs. I was able to use them for review and experimentation throughout the month and I plan to reuse the VMs to assist with taking the 70-488 at the end of March. My motivation for taking the Advanced Solutions before the Core Solutions was based strictly on the fact that work was willing to pay for the 20489B course.
The exam itself was the hardest Microsoft certification exam that I have every taken. I went into the test feeling that I was very well prepared but came out with a 781. I was very surprised by my poor performance on the BDC related questions. But to be honest, I don’t know enough about the format of the XML in the BDC Models so maybe it’s one area where I think my skills are better than they in fact are. I certainly would not have thought it would have been my poorest performing area. Here is my report
With the exception of the BCS objective, I feel like my score was pretty representative of my study. I put a lot of time into the MMS, Search and UPS/Social objectives. I probably would have done better on the Search objective if I had spent some time studying FQL. I read about it in the study material and I paid attention to the Microsoft Virtual Academy when they covered it but I honestly don’t think I will be likely to use it in the real world. Considering that and the fact it’s deprecated I figured why invest the time?
Which resources did I find most useful?
The Microsoft Virtual Academy series on the exam was pretty useful although the presentation was a little on the scattered side. At least that was my opinion. But it was a very good review after taking the 20489B course.
Inside Microsoft SharePoint 2013
SharePoint 2013 Search Back To Front: SharePoint 2013 Search Overview - Matthew McDermott
SharePoint 2013 Search Development - Scott Hillier
Learning Search-driven Application Development with SharePoint 2013
If you can get work to purchase this for you, it’s a pretty good resource to have. My only problem with this and all of the PCKT books. They are too short and too expensive. At 106 pages and $35.99 on Amazon, I wouldn’t have read it if it wasn’t on Safari Books Online. Compared to Inside Microsoft SharePoint 2013, 776 pages and $35.25, it’s just not worth it from my own pocket.
SharePoint 2013 Business Connectivity Services Fundamentals - Scott Hillier
I have the same complaint about this course that I did about his Wrox Press book on the same topic. There is just too much focus on no-code solutions. That being said, it’s still excellent in what it covers.
Deep Dive on Integrating SharePoint Metadata with other Metadata Stores
SharePoint 2013 Search Development: Enhancing Content Processing
Customize the SharePoint 2013 search experience with a Content Enrichment web service
Creating a new profile property or linking an existing profile property to a BCS source.