SharePoint 2013 has one of the new capability that supports GeoLocation fields. The GeoLocation field helps us to build location- aware SharePoint 2013 applications. To keep it simple, SharePoint 2013 lists support a new column of type ‘Location’. where we can set or retrieve the latitude and longitude co-ordinates of a place in decimal. By default this Location column is not available to us.

The pre-requisite to enable this Location column is to install an msi package called SQLSysClrTypes.msi on every front-end server of SharePoint 2013 Farm. The SQLSysClrTypes.msi installer is available in the Microsoft SQL 2008 R2 SP1 Feature Pack

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26728

This installer is responsible for implementing geometry, geography and hierarchy ID types in SQL Server 2008. I’m going to use my Office 365 dev tenant for this demonstration, where this installer is already installed (by default available in SP Online).There are multiple ways of adding the Location columns. Here i would be leveraging the SharePoint 2013 Client Object Model to create location columns.

Uri oUri = new Uri("https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com");

MsOnlineClaimsHelper claimsHelper = new MsOnlineClaimsHelper(oUri, "yourid@yourtenant.onmicrosoft.com", "yourpassword");


using (ClientContext context = new ClientContext(oUri))
   {
     context.ExecutingWebRequest += claimsHelper.clientContext_ExecutingWebRequest;

     List oList = context.Web.Lists.GetByTitle("TestList");
     oList.Fields.AddFieldAsXml("<Field Type='Geolocation' DisplayName='VistingLocation'/>", true,

                                    AddFieldOptions.AddToAllContentTypes);
     oList.Update();
     context.ExecuteQuery();
                    

    }

when the above code is executed it creates the location column in the custom list.

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background-color: #f4f4f4;
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margin: 0em;
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.csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; }

I tried to create more than 2 location columns in the list, it threw an error like “There are too many columns of the specified data type. Please delete some other columns first. Note that some column types like numbers and currency use the same data type.”. I’ve learned that at this point of time, the a SP 2013 lists does not support more than 2 Location columns.

The next step is to add the desired locations to the list items. For the sake of demo, i will add the locations manually.

Basically you need to know the latitude and longitude of a place to be added to the GeoLocation field.

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.csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; }
.csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; }
.csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; }
.csharpcode .html { color: #800000; }
.csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; }
.csharpcode .alt
{
background-color: #f4f4f4;
width: 100%;
margin: 0em;
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.csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; }

It does not give a good user experience to view the locations in the latitude and longitude format. SharePoint 2013 provides map- view functionality of Lists which has GeoLocation fields associated with it. To enable MapView, the Microsoft Bing Map keys need to be registered with the respective SharePoint 2013 tenant. Here is the code snippet for registering Bing Map key with SharePoint 2013 instance.

Uri oUri = new Uri("yoursharepointurl");

 MsOnlineClaimsHelper claimsHelper = new MsOnlineClaimsHelper(oUri, "yourid", "yourpassword");

   using (ClientContext context = new ClientContext(oUri))
            {
                context.ExecutingWebRequest += claimsHelper.clientContext_ExecutingWebRequest;
                 Web web = context.Web;
                 web.AllProperties["BING_MAPS_KEY"] = "ArJrGcrUw_rcR65nsyG7Ahm1VkhOOt6h0eIdd7ai_g0ykyJsIPSfkfwmW_MwcPdr";
                web.Update();
                context.ExecuteQuery();
                              
            }

Create View –> Map View

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.csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; }
.csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; }
.csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; }
.csharpcode .str { color: #006080; }
.csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; }
.csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; }
.csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; }
.csharpcode .html { color: #800000; }
.csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; }
.csharpcode .alt
{
background-color: #f4f4f4;
width: 100%;
margin: 0em;
}
.csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; }

Now you can see the location field data rendered in the Map View format.

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SharePoint 2013 Client Object model has the capability to manipulate (Create/Read/Update/Delete) Taxonomy objects like TermGroup, TermSets and Terms etc.This is one of major improvement in SharePoint 2013. The objective of this post is to setup a sample Taxonomy and manipulate it using SharePoint 2013 Client Object Model.

For the purpose of the demonstration, i’m using my development tenant in Office 365 preview site

My dev tenant url is https://smartguru.sharepoint.com. You can sign-up for you own Office 365 preview site here

I’ve already created a Taxonomy group called ‘Pharma Taxonomies’ with the termsets like Cardiology, Opthalmalogy and Paediatrics.  I’ll be leveraging the Client Object Model of SharePoint 2013 to add terms under under these Term Sets.

I’ve created a C# windows application having set of textboxes to acquire the values for TermSets and Terms.

Performing active authentication to Office 365 and SharePoint Online

When the code-behind of the above form tries to access Office 365 developer preview site, it will not get the ClientContext by default. We need to perform active authentication to SharePoint online in Office 365. My fellow MVP Wictor Wilen wrote an excellent blog post on How to do active authentication to Office 365 and SharePoint Online. I’d be leveraging the logic provided  in this post and also the Code Snippet to complete the active authentication and get the ClientContext of my Office 365 developer preview site.

I’d be posting the code-behind of the above windows form in a short while. The logic inside this form is simple, i delete the TermSets (if it exists already), create the TermSets programmatically and create appropriate Terms under the TermSets.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Client;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Taxonomy;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Publishing.Navigation;
using System.Net;
using System.Security;
using System.Globalization;


namespace TaxonomyClientSideOM
{
    public partial class Form1 : System.Windows.Forms.Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();

            textBox1.Text = "Pharma Term Group";
            
            textBox2.Text = "Opthalamalogy";
            textBox6.Text = "Cardiology";
            textBox10.Text = "Pediatrics";

            textBox3.Text = "ContactLens";
            textBox4.Text = "LasikSurgery";
            textBox5.Text = "Cataract";

            textBox9.Text = "CalciumChannelBlockers";
            textBox8.Text = "BetaBlockers";
            textBox7.Text = "Amlodipine";

            textBox13.Text = "PneumoCoccal";
            textBox12.Text = "Dpt";
            textBox11.Text = "Typhoid";
           
        }
     

        private static void SetPropertiesforTermSets(TermSet termSet1, string Description)
        {
            termSet1.IsAvailableForTagging = true;
            termSet1.Description = Description;
            termSet1.Owner = "lavsunswe@smartguru.onmicrosoft.com";
        }

        private static void DeleteTermSets(ClientContext context, TermStore termStore, string sGuid)
        {
            TermSet existingTermSet;

            // Handles an error that occurs if the return value is null.
            ExceptionHandlingScope exceptionScope = new ExceptionHandlingScope(context);
            using (exceptionScope.StartScope())
            {
                using (exceptionScope.StartTry())
                {
                    existingTermSet = termStore.GetTermSet(new Guid(sGuid));

                }
                using (exceptionScope.StartCatch())
                {
                }
            }
            context.ExecuteQuery();

            if (!existingTermSet.ServerObjectIsNull.Value)
            {
                MessageBox.Show(" Deleting old TermSet");
                existingTermSet.DeleteObject();
                termStore.CommitAll();
                context.ExecuteQuery();

                MessageBox.Show("Deleted Old Term Set");
            }
        }

        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            Uri oUri = new Uri("https://smartguru.sharepoint.com");

            Office365ClaimsHelper claimsHelper = new Office365ClaimsHelper(oUri, "youruserid", "yourpassword");
                        using (ClientContext context = new ClientContext(oUri))
            {
                context.ExecutingWebRequest += claimsHelper.clientContext_ExecutingWebRequest;

                TaxonomySession taxonomySession = TaxonomySession.GetTaxonomySession(context);
                taxonomySession.UpdateCache();

                context.Load(taxonomySession, ts => ts.TermStores);
                context.ExecuteQuery();

                if (taxonomySession.TermStores.Count == 0)
                    throw new InvalidOperationException("The Taxonomy Service is offline or missing");

                TermStore termStore = taxonomySession.TermStores[0];
                context.Load(termStore,
                ts => ts.Name,
                ts => ts.WorkingLanguage);


                //Delete Opthalamalogy Term Set if already existing
                DeleteTermSets(context, termStore, "DB5FAD84-8868-433A-A18A-79B214F8DA00");

                //Delete Cardiology TermSet if already existing
                DeleteTermSets(context, termStore, "4D5493E6-FF8F-4CDF-931B-965920A7789D");

                //Delete Pediatrics if already existing
                DeleteTermSets(context, termStore, "34CE7966-17E3-404C-ADBF-7B267A319F59");


                //Fetch the Pharma Term Group if already existing
                TermGroup siteCollectionGroup = termStore.GetGroup(new Guid("5c041ce0-f499-47f2-bff1-28f01b743bad"));

                CreateTermSets(termStore, siteCollectionGroup, context);
                                
                 termStore.CommitAll();
                context.ExecuteQuery();

                MessageBox.Show("Success");
                               
            }          


        }

        private void CreateTermSets(TermStore termStore, TermGroup siteCollectionGroup, ClientContext context)
        {
            TermSet termSet1 = siteCollectionGroup.CreateTermSet(textBox2.Text, new Guid("DB5FAD84-8868-433A-A18A-79B214F8DA00"),
         termStore.WorkingLanguage);
            SetPropertiesforTermSets(termSet1, "This is " + textBox2.Text + "termset");
            CreateNewTerms(termStore, termSet1, textBox3.Text, "5BDD72EF-822C-4E79-A1E6-0D838E68ADE7");
            CreateNewTerms(termStore, termSet1, textBox4.Text, "4BDBC3B5-0BA5-4049-BB07-DAFA119799C9");
            CreateNewTerms(termStore, termSet1, textBox5.Text, "D70E624A-DD03-4E5C-B946-B40EFD4EAEEC");

            TermSet termSet2 = siteCollectionGroup.CreateTermSet(textBox6.Text, new Guid("4D5493E6-FF8F-4CDF-931B-965920A7789D"),
        termStore.WorkingLanguage);
            SetPropertiesforTermSets(termSet2, "This is " + textBox6.Text + "termset");

            CreateNavigationTermSet(context, termSet2, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_blocker", textBox9.Text);
            CreateNavigationTermSet(context, termSet2, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_channel_blocker", textBox8.Text);
            CreateNavigationTermSet(context, termSet2, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amlodipine", textBox7.Text);

            TermSet termSet3 = siteCollectionGroup.CreateTermSet(textBox10.Text, new Guid("34CE7966-17E3-404C-ADBF-7B267A319F59"),
        termStore.WorkingLanguage);
            SetPropertiesforTermSets(termSet3, "This is " + textBox10.Text + "termset");
            CreateNewTerms(termStore, termSet3, textBox13.Text, "7B65ED31-25D4-4697-9B63-497411F358A5");
            CreateNewTerms(termStore, termSet3, textBox12.Text, "48A33AEE-85D1-4AC7-B413-69E580058F8D");
            CreateNewTerms(termStore, termSet3, textBox11.Text, "715EA04A-B547-46B8-84BE-D0BEB663FB36");
        }

        private void CreateNavigationTermSet(ClientContext context, TermSet termSet2, string navurl, string termname)
        {
            NavigationTermSet navTermSet = NavigationTermSet.GetAsResolvedByWeb(context,
                termSet2, context.Web, "GlobalNavigationTaxonomyProvider");

            navTermSet.IsNavigationTermSet = true;
            navTermSet.TargetUrlForChildTerms.Value = "~site/Pages/Topics.aspx";

            NavigationTerm navterm = navTermSet.CreateTerm(termname, NavigationLinkType.SimpleLink, Guid.NewGuid());
            navterm.SimpleLinkUrl = navurl;



        }

        private static void CreateNewTerms(TermStore termStore, TermSet oTermSet, string termname, string guidstring)
        {
            Term oTerm = oTermSet.CreateTerm(termname, termStore.WorkingLanguage, new Guid(guidstring));
            oTerm.Owner = "abc@smartguru.onmicrosoft.com";
            oTerm.IsAvailableForTagging = true;

        }       

    }
}

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{
font-size: small;
color: black;
font-family: consolas, “Courier New”, courier, monospace;
background-color: #ffffff;
/*white-space: pre;*/
}
.csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; }
.csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; }
.csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; }
.csharpcode .str { color: #006080; }
.csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; }
.csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; }
.csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; }
.csharpcode .html { color: #800000; }
.csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; }
.csharpcode .alt
{
background-color: #f4f4f4;
width: 100%;
margin: 0em;
}
.csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; }

To compile the above code, you need reference to the following assemblies.

Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll

Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll

Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Publishing.dll

Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Taxonomy.dll

System.ServiceModel.dll

To keep the demonstration simple, i leave the default values for the textboxes in the above form and hit ‘Create Termsets and Terms’ button. It creates the following taxonomy terms in my Office 365 preview taxonomy store.

The entire source code is available for download in SkyDrive

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The following is the list of articles that are published in microsoft.com during October-November 2012 period.

1. Show Off Your Style with SharePoint Theming

Theming in SharePoint 2013 makes it easier to drastically change the look of your site and make it your own. That said, the new look of SharePoint sites is great, so why would you want to change it?

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blog/Pages/BlogPost.aspx?pID=1043

2. Certain Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 installation scenarios are not supported

This article describes Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 installation scenarios that are not supported.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2764086

3. Global Solutions for SharePoint 2013

This model provides architectural guidance for geographically distributed deployments of SharePoint 2013.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34975

4. Backup and restore: SharePoint Server 2013

This model illustrates various ways that you can back up and restore a SharePoint environment.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30365

5. Databases that support SharePoint 2013 Preview

This model illustrates the databases that that support SharePoint 2013 Preview.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30363

6. Design Sample: Corporate Portal with Host-named Sites for SharePoint Server 2013

This design sample illustrates the use of host-named site collections with all sites deployed in a single web application on the farm. This method is highly scalable and is flexible in managing URLs.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30362

7. Design Sample: Corporate Portal with Path-based Sites for SharePoint Server 2013

This design sample illustrates the use of path-based site collections with sites organized into dedicated web applications and a single top-level site collection per web application.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30378

8. Design Sample: Extranet with Dedicated Zones for Authentication for SharePoint 2013

This design sample illustrates many top-level project sites with vanity URLs by using host-named sites for each project site (instead of organizing project sites underneath a top-level site collection).

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30368

9. Downloadable eBook: Deployment guide for SharePoint 2013

Download this free ebook to learn how to install and configure SharePoint Server and SharePoint Foundation.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30384

10. Downloadable eBook: Explore SharePoint 2013

Download this free eBook to learn more about what’s new in SharePoint 2013.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30368

11. Enterprise search architectures for SharePoint Server 2013

This design sample shows the search architecture for a variety of sizes of server farms.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30383

12. Incoming email planning worksheet

This worksheet helps you record information to help you plan for incoming email in a SharePoint deployment.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34805

13. Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Protocol Documentation

The Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies protocol documentation provides technical specifications for Microsoft proprietary protocols that are implemented and used in SharePoint Products and Technologies.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=25255

14. Multi-farm architectures with SharePoint Server 2013

This model provides architectural guidance for multi-farm deployments of SharePoint Server 2013.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34973

15. Search architectures for SharePoint Server 2013

This design sample shows the search architecture for a medium size server farm.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30374

16. Services in SharePoint Server 2013

This illustration provides information about services that are available in SharePoint Server 2013.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30402

17. SharePoint 2013 Upgrade Process

This model explains the process that you use when you upgrade from SharePoint Foundation 2010 or SharePoint Server 2010 to SharePoint Foundation 2013 or SharePoint Server 2013.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30371

18. SharePoint 2013: App Overview for IT Pro

The app model in SharePoint 2013 enables SharePoint environments to add functionality quickly and securely.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30373

19. SharePoint 2013: How to Test Upgrade

This model explains how to create a test environment to use when you upgrade from SharePoint Server 2010 or SharePoint Foundation 2010 to SharePoint 2013 Products

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30366

20. Test Lab Guide: Configure SharePoint Server 2010 in a Three-Tier Farm

This paper contains step-by-step instructions for creating a test lab containing a three-tier SharePoint farm.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29420

21.Topologies for SharePoint 2013

The versatility of SharePoint 2013 provides opportunities to develop a topology that satisfies your business goals.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30377

22.User profile properties and profile synchronization planning worksheets for SharePoint Server 2013

The following planning worksheets can assist you when planning user profiles or planning and configuring profile synchronization.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35404

23.White Paper: Office 2013–Access Services Setup for an On-Premises Installation

This white paper provides instructions that will help you configure SQL Server 2012 for Access Services in SharePoint Server 2013. It includes instructions for an on-premises installation and configuration of Access Services on a server that is running SharePoint Server 2013.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30445

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