Sunday, June 9, 2013

Mapping a Business on Bing Maps - IT Asset Mapping

Mapping a Business on the SharePoint Bing Mapper

IT assets mapped on the SharePoint
 Bing Mapper.


In this post we will be looking at mapping business assets on Bing Maps using the SharePoint Bing Mapper. This blog post will be building on the previous post, Mapping a Business on Bing Maps - Employee Mapping.  I will cover a few basics about using the tool and of course include a live demo.

Hopefully as I go through some of these features it will help spark ideas about how the mapper can help with business location information.  So far we have mapped the physical structure (the campus and the buildings), assigned employees to cubicals,  offices and work areas.  In this post we will be adding IT equipment to our map.  One point I want to stress is that the mapper has flexible data capabilities.  We could be adding power outlet locations, vending equipment or any other data to the map without ever going back to a developer.  

For this post I have added desktop computers and phone sets to the 2nd floor of building 1.  The same as with showing a person on the map, you can hover over the item to view the name and click it to get the detailed description.  Take a look at the included images to see how filtered views can be presented (for example, you might want to view only desktop computers over 3 years old).  And yes, you could use the mapped items to assign work orders (that would be slightly past out of the box capabilities but would by a fairly easy extension).  


Live demo of a filtered view showing phone systems at their installed location:



I have created a fairly simple demo, the detail popup as well as the Phone Systems table can be modified to include any desired data.

Here are a few more screenshots illustrating the features presented:
All persons and assets are
showing in this view.









A filtered view of IT assets showing
desktop computers.



A filtered view of IT assets showing
phone systems.

 

Adding a phone system to a IT
asset tracking list on the
SharePoint Bing Mapper.