Announcing Community Kit for SharePoint: Virtual Earth Maps on SharePoint
Microsoft's Virtual Earth technology powers the maps on Live Search and many other web-based applications, but many people have wondered how to get VE maps to work on SharePoint. Several months ago, the SharePoint Designer team blogged about a way to integrate VE maps with a SharePoint list, and it was very well received. My buddy, Ian Morrish, was even inspired to put together a quick proof of concept.
However, there's a big difference between a POC and a full-blown business applications driven by maps. Microsoft's IT Information Services team uses VE maps to power a "Campus Maps" application that they've developed to run on our SharePoint-based corporate intranet portal. This app provides an easy, centralized way to find buildings and resources across Microsoft's numerous campuses around the world. Here's a screenshot of the Main Campus's Building 33, which is the Conference Center that many visitors are familiar with.
Notice that landmarks such as cafeterias, ATMs, and parking can be toggled on or off on the map. Even when depicted on the map, the Conference Center's nearest parking garage can be a challenge to find when you're in a car. Fortunately, VE's Bird's Eye View makes it quite obvious exactly where the garage is.
Countless customers, who have seen the Campus Maps application, have asked about obtaining the source code, so they can customize it for their own purposes. Well, I'm very pleased to announce that the MSIT Information Services team has donated this production quality source code to the Community Kit for SharePoint shared source project, and it's now available at https://www.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ProjectName=CKS&ReleaseId=7708. Please download and read the Implementer's Guide first. Also, be sure to read the Virtual Earth Terms of Use, which has restrictions for free use to which you must adhere.
The solution provides a map web part, which can be dragged and dropped onto a SharePoint page to display a variable size Virtual Earth map view. Users can also use the pushpin database to store different landmarks to be displayed on the map. The solution also provides an admin web part for managing the content of this database as well as an object model to manage content programmatically. In addition, if users want to use an existing data source to render pushpins in the map, a programmable interface is provided that can be implemented to integrate the existing data source with the map, which should significantly reduce the amount of additional custom code.
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