NetAdvantage for SharePoint Product Changes in 2011 Volume 2

With NetAdvantage for SharePoint 2011.2 on the way we have a few neat features such as support of shapefiles for the Map web part and auto-refresh feature. But for now let's go step-by-step and see what we are cooking.

Shapefiles Support

With the new release we've prepared a complete shapefile support for the Map web part. Now you can insert any shapes described by a shapefile – workflows, polyline-described geometries and more. All you need is a standard shapefile (SHP format).

Another nice possibility for the shapefile support is the possibility to add additional data – numeric values to the shapes (indicating temperature, sales for the different regions, region population, or any other index), and caption for the described region. The numeric value would color each described region with a specific color based on your settings for Min Color and Max Color. This data is stored in an interconnected DBF file or SharePoint List or Excel.

Now you might get to worry that you need to select the DBF file, don't you? Fear not, the Map web part automatically retrieves the data from the interconnected DBF file without your interaction – all you need to do is to have the SHP and DBF file uploaded in the same location (for example, in a standard SharePoint Documents library).

Auto-refresh Data

Let's say you are retrieving your data from a service (using SharePoint BDC services) that updates every few seconds with new rows of data and you need this data processed fast to your Gauge web part or Chart web part as KPIs or financial stock data.

We are presenting a new feature which will update your web part automatically at a set interval of time. To get idea what we mean, check the sample short movie below:

The web parts which will support this feature are the Gauge, the Chart, and the Map.

So when do we ship?

We all know this is nice and useful for the business users. Now, if I say we will ship next year, I am risking our offices to be stormed by the customers, so we are aiming for the beginning of December. To make you even more eager, we are preparing other nice tweaks such as icons for the web parts, new and improved documentation and samples.