Finally, I passed my 70-346 exam! Let me confess, I didn’t pass the Deploying Office 365 Desktops & Enterprise Applications certification exam at my first attempt. The first thing I wanted to tell that you have to earn at least 700 to pass this test. Well, the second time I scored 850. But when I first wrote the 70-346 exam I failed; I guess I was pretty confident and I felt I am able to clear the test on my first try. Well, I was far from it: I scored only 625.

Microsoft 70-346 Exam Details

It is important to know that the exam consists of different scenario-based questions. Each of the scenarios shows some organization with its specific infrastructure, challenges, requirements, and planned changes. There are about 8-10 questions on each case study. For instance, a scenario-based question might be presented as a situation when a company with many offices in various locations have numerous networks in each of the offices. The questions will test the depth of your knowledge on technology related to this particular issue. For instance, you will come across the case studies focusing on a situation when a Configuration Manager integrates with MDT, or when the Configuration Manager stands alone. Some other case studies may focus on the situation when the Operating System deployment is carried out using Office 365 Deployment Services. It is important for you to fully understand what are MDT, Configuration Manager, and Office 365 Deployment Services. You might want to study different resources about customization and deployment of Office 365, packages, and Office 2013/2016. You should also expect questions on RemoteApp, and it is recommended that you know when and how to use it.

Skills Tested During Microsoft 70-346 Exam

Let me state that beyond the skills listed by Microsoft, it is important to check information from other candidates who have written and passed the test. This is because the exam questions usually come from unexpected areas. It is highly recommended that you take sample questions to know what to expect during the actual test. According to Microsoft, the test areas include the following topics:

Implementing Operating System Deployment Infrastructure (20-25%) covering:

• Assessing Computing Environment: This section consists of questions about configuration and implementation of Microsoft Assessment & Planning Toolkit, assessing Configuration Manager reports, integrating MAP using Microsoft Centre Configuring Manager, and determining the load capacity of the network.
• Planning and Implementing User State Migration: This block covers design considerations such as how to determine user data, as well as setting to preserve. Other focus areas include mitigation plan for other non-migrated apps, remote storage vs. hard link, side by side migration vs. wipe and load migration, estimation of migration store size, creation of USMT (User State Migration Tool) package, securing migrated data, deployment of Microsoft 70-346 Test Questions as compact operating system, selection between migration, and in-place upgrade.
• Configuration of Deployment Infrastructure: This subset covers configuration of WDS (Office 365 Deployment Services), installation and configuration of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, selection of configuration manager circulation points, identification of network services supporting deployment, and supporting BitLocker.
• Configuration and Management Activation: This section covers configuration of Active Directory activation, MAK, and KMS.

Implementation of Lite Touch Deployment (15%-20%) covering:

• Installation and configuration of WDS: This segment focuses on configuration of unicast and multicast, configuration scheduling, adding images to WDS, and restricting those who can accept images.
• Configuration of MDT: This part covers topic areas, such as configuration of deployment shares, configuration of task sequences, management of driver pool, and configuration of a custom setting.
• Creation and Management of answer files: This focuses on subtopics, such as identification of suitable station for answer files, identification of correct setup phase for answering files, identification of the necessary quantity of answer files, configuration of answer file settings, usage of Office 365 Imaging & configuration designer, creation of autounattend.xml on answer files.

Implementation of Zero Touch Deployment (20%-25%) covering:

• Configuration of Manager for OSD: This section covers configuration deployment packages & applications, management of driver pool, configuration of task sequences, and management of deployment images.
• Configuration of distribution points: This block focuses on configuration of PXE, configuration of unicast and multicast, configuration of deployment to allocation points and point groups.
• Configuration of MDT & configuration manager integration: This part covers creation of MDT boot images, usage of MDT components, and creation of custom task sequences.

Creation and Maintenance of Device Images (20%-25%) covering:

• Plan Images: This segment covers design consideration, such as thick, hybrid, and thin images, image formatting (WIM or VHD), WDS image types, quantity of images which are based on hardware platform or OS, and operating features like desktop, IoT, and mobile.
• Capturing Images: This section covers preparation of OS for capture, creation of capture images with WDS, capturing of OS image with a Configuration Manager, capturing image to new or existing WIM file.
• Maintenance of Images: This unit covers updating images with DISM; apply drivers, settings, files, and updates to offline and online images; applying service sets to different images, management of embedded applications.
• Modification of Office 365 Installations: This part focuses on building packages, providing packages for modification to existing Office 365 installations.

Preparation and Deployment of Application Environment (20%-25%) covering:

• Planning and Implementing application remediation and compatibility: This segment focuses on planning considerations, which include Hyper V, VDI, RDS, and 32bit vs. 64bit, usage of application compatibility toolkit, planning for co-existence application version, and deployment of compatibility fixes.
• Deployment of Office using MSI: This section comprises of the customization of deployment, management of Office settings, management of Office activation, integration of Lite Touch deployment, provisions of slipstream updates, and re-arm of Office.
• Deployment of Office using C2R (click-to-run): This unit focuses on configuration licensing, configuration updates, monitoring usage with Telemetry Dashboard, and customization of deployment.

Resources that Helped Me with My Preparation

• Official Microsoft book Exam Ref 70-346 Deploying Office 365 Devices and Enterprise Apps (MCSE)
• Microsoft Ignite 2016 Exam Prep
• Microsoft Virtual Academy video tutorials

The Bottom Line

There are many resources that have been developed for the 70-346 certification exam, but during my preparation, I only focused on the materials mentioned above.These study tools really helped me to achieve my study goal and pass the test with success.