Today’s experiment will involve loading a custom set of POI’s, stored as a MOSS 2007 list, onto a Garmin nüvi 660 GPS device through our Visual Fusion for SharePoint (VFSP) product.

The POI set which will be used in this experiment is a list of all In-N-Out Burger locations. Since the GPS unit needs geocoded POI’s, I set up a VFSP Geo Custom List in SharePoint which geocoded the addresses of the In-N-Out Burger locations.

To transfer the POI set to the GPS unit, we will use Garmin’s POI Loader utility (available for download here). POI Loader is used to export POI sets in either a .gpx or .csv file to a compatible Garmin device. For this experiment, we will use a .csv file format due to the redundant nature of our data set. If your POI’s are strongly dissimilar, you may want to work with a .gpx file.

The GPS unit expects the records in the .csv file to be ordered as such: longitude, latitude, title, and details. By creating a new view for the list we can order it in this manner.

Create a standard, public view and position the columns in the correct order. You might also want to hide unnecessary columns, as I did.

You should now see the list in the view you just created. Export the list to Excel by selecting Export to Spreadsheet from the Actions menu, this will launch Excel and open the list as a workbook. Save the workbook as a .csv file.

If you choose, you can create a custom 24 px x 24 px icon to be associated with your POI’s. The icon must be a .bmp file with the same file name as your .csv file (for example, “xyz.csv” and “xyz.bmp”) and reside in the same directory. I created the icon below to indicate the In-N-Out Burger locations.

Now that we have our .csv and custom icon, make sure the GPS device is connected to the computer and then run Garmin POI Loader. When prompted, select the option to “Install new custom POI’s onto your device”. On the next screen, specify the directory which contains your .csv file and icon bitmap, select either metric or English measurement, and select “Manual” mode, which will allow us to specify a proximity alert for our POI set.

On the next screen, check “This file contains proximity alerts points” when prompted regarding the correct .csv file. Then specify an alert distance. This will cause the GPS unit to alert you whenever you come within your specified distance of a POI.

Now that the points are loaded, it’s time to try it out. When you are within the specified distance of a POI, the unit should raise an alert.

Touching the alert banner will bring up the details of the alert and enable you to set that POI as your destination.

You should be able to see the custom POI icon as you approach your destination.

If you are getting hungry and have not received a proximity warning recently, you can go to Extras > Custom POIs on your nüvi 660 and you will be presented with a listing of the 52 closest of your custom POI’s. You can select any of the entries to set it as your destination.

I don’t know about you, but this is making me really hungry.

Thanks to Eric Hunt at Microsoft Consulting for the idea behind this experiment.

P.S. You can download a zip file containing the .csv file and .bmp file I used in this experiment here.

Today, we’re going to do an experiment in which IDV’s Visual Fusion for SharePoint (VFSP) for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is used to generate content that can be viewed on the hottest phone on the market. No, I’m not talking about Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone, I’m talking about Apple’s iPhone.

The iPhone features an application called Maps which allows a user to search for addresses, obtain driving directions, and store a list of “bookmarked” locations. OS integration enables the user to map the location of an address within their Contacts list at the tap of the screen.

As has been reported elsewhere, the iPhone supports basic GeoRSS and KML. I have not yet tested its KML capabilities, but as far as GeoRSS is concerned, Maps can only display points. The more complicated geometries of polygons and polylines are not currently supported.

So for labs.idvsolutions.com’s inaugural experiment we will use VFSP to generate a GeoRSS from a SharePoint list and load the resulting feed into Maps on the iPhone.

First, assuming that VFSP is installed on your SharePoint server, you will need to create a new VFSP Geo Custom List.

Then add the data points you are interested in. For this particular experiment, we will be using the locations of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

When you are finished adding your locations, select View GeoRSS Feed from the Actions menu.

Copy the URL to the GeoRSS that is generated. The URL will look something like this:

http://wondersoftheworld.idvsolutions.com/GetList.vfsp?
ListGuid={2d66d614-1130-4548-96b9-c20068e18c0b}
&outputformat=grss

If you attempt to access the above link from your iPhone, the GeoRSS will be treated as though it were an RSS and will open in an RSS reader. For the feed to load in the Maps program, append the URL to the end of a Google Maps request, like so:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=
http:%2F%2Fwondersoftheworld.idvsolutions.com%2FGetList.vfsp%3F
ListGuid%3D%7B2d66d614-1130-4548-96b9-c20068e18c0b%7D
%26outputformat%3Dgrss

(Note: For this to work, you must URL-encode the address of the GeoRSS that you are passing to Google Maps. Go here for information on URL-encoding as well as a tool which can encode the URL for you.)

Since the iPhone has no copy/paste functionality, you can either type the entire URL into the search field in the Maps application, or go the much easier route and email yourself the URL.

Clicking on that nasty looking link above should open the GeoRSS feed in the Maps application. Let’s see Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone do that!