Integrate Virtual Earth with SharePoint 2007
While there are a variety of WebParts out there for embedding Virtual Earth into your SharePoint site, there is a much quicker and easier solution that only requires out-of-the-box features – namely the Content Editor WebPart and the EMBED tag.
The next quick clip shows Virtual Earth embedded in a public site that I created that uses XML to dynamically control the LONG and LAT of the points of interest (known as pushpins).
So what are the quick steps?
Step 1: create a custom SharePoint ASPX page to host the map. The easiest way to accomplish this (and what’s demo’ed in the next video clip) is with SharePoint Designer. The code that is pasted in the clip is contained in the source zip. Make sure you paste the code inside the <form></form> tag.
Next Steps: if you would like a data-driven dynamic map (either XML or a SharePoint list), check out Microsoft SharePoint Designer Team Blog.
Thanks! This is helpful. But sorry…how/where do you reference Locations.xml to display the pushpins defined in it?
Sorry, I should have made the post clearer. In order to drive the map dynamically, the quickest way is through the combination of the DataFormWebPart and xslt to iterate and transform the xml nodes. I’ve used this approach several times and it works well.
Microsoft has an example of this approach at http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepointdesigner/archive/2007/05/23/plotting-your-data-using-virtual-earth.aspx
I hope this helps, let me know if you need more info.