Add map links to events

What you can learn in this topic:

• Overview: Add map links
• How to add map links to events
• How to update map links
• How to remove outdated map links
• What happens to map links when you subscribe or export

Overview: Add map links

People will be more likely to attend events you sponsor if they know exactly how to get to them.

By adding a map link to an event, you provide potential audience members with a map thumbnail and map link so they know exactly where the event venue is located and how to get there.

Tip If the you add map links to events, you can provide a Location Search control spud along with your main calendar. The spud lets visitors search for events that occur within a given radius of a specific location. Learn more about the spud.

You can include a map link with any event for which you can provide a verifiable location.

For example, you can search for:

• A place or landmark, such as Hamlin Park or Lincoln Memorial.
• A neighborhood, such as Capitol Hill, Seattle.
• A company name, such as Starbucks.
• A partial or complete address, such as 1200 5th Ave, Seattle.
• A zip code.
• Latitude and longitude coordinates.

Tips

• You can add only one map link to an event. If you want to link to other map locations, add the URLs either to the Notes or Web link fields in the Event Information form. For more information about links in the Notes field, see HTML editor.
• If you import events that include verifiable locations, map links are not added automatically. You have to open each event and manually add the map link. For more information about importing events, see Import events.

How map links work

Trumba® Connect uses the Microsoft® Bing Maps® Platform to verify addresses and points of interest. After an address is verified, Trumba Connect provides you with a choice of links from four Internet map services:

• Microsoft Bing™ Maps
• Google™ Local
• MapQuest®
• Yahoo!® Local

You can test each link and then choose which one of the four to add to your event. The map link does not control the map thumbnail for the event detail view. The thumbnail will always be a Bing map.

Each time you add a map link to an event, the link is added to a Recent Links list. This means that you don't have to add a map link from scratch each time you reuse an address. Instead, you can just select the link from the list. Note that the list order is determined by when a map link was added. The most recently added links appear at the top of the list.

Can I remove links that I no longer use?

Tips

• The Recent Links list can contain up to 50 map links.
• Map links are associated with accounts. When you add map links to events on one calendar, those links are available, through the Recent Links list, for use in events on other calendars in the same account. However, if you share a calendar with another account, map links from your account are not available to shared-calendar editors in the other account.
• Links you add using latitude and longitude coordinates are not included in the Recent Links list.

How calendar visitors use the links

When you publish a calendar, the location in the event where you added the map link will be hot. Clicking the link displays a map of the location provided by the Internet map service that you chose when you set up the link.

For example, a Google map link was added to the Robert Schumann: Selected Lieder event shown in a published calendar below.

In the main calendar, a visitor clicks the location link to display a Google map of the event location.

Or, the visitor clicks the event title to view the event details page where a thumbnail of the map appears. The thumbnail is always a Bing map. Clicking the location (or the View Full Map link under the thumbnail) displays the full Google map.

Tip Map links are also available to recipients of scheduled or one-time calendar email messages that you send. By clicking the titles of events in the email message, recipients open event detail pages similar to the one above.

How to add map links to events

1. Create a new event on any calendar that you can edit.

   Or, click an event description to add a map link to an existing event.

2. In the Add/Edit an Event form, for Location, type the place name or address where the event is taking place.

   Tips

   • Separate the elements of an address by commas or type them on different lines.
   • You can provide a descriptive label in the first line of the location and it still maps corectly.

     For example, to map Trumba Corporation, you can add the corporation name to the first line of the address:

     Trumba Corporation
     1200 Fifth Ave
     Seattle, WA 98101

   Want to map a location using latitude and longitude coordinates? Learn more here.

3. Click Add Map Link.

   Tip If you're adding a map link for an address you have mapped in the past, you don't need to add the address or link again from scratch. Instead, click Recent Links, and then select the link from the list.

4. What you see after you click Add Map Link depends upon whether or not Bing Maps Platform can verify the location from the information you provided:
   • If Bing Maps Platform finds what it thinks is an exact match, a Mapped location indicator appears along with a Map link type field, and Add Map Link changes to Update Map Link.

     

   • If Bing Maps Platform finds more than one potential match, you see:

     

   • If Bing Maps Platform is unable to verify the location, you see:

     

     In the Location text box, provide additional location information, and then click Add Map Link again. When Bing Maps verifies the location, go to step 5 below.

5. After a map link is verified, it's automatically added to the Recent Links list. This means that you can quickly reuse mapped addresses without providing the same information for multiple events. The Recent Links list can hold 50 links and the links you added most recently always appear at the top.
6. For Map link type, select the Internet map service link that you want to add to the location text in your event. Click Test Link to compare map service results.

   Tip The map link is the link associated with the event location and with View Full Map (outlined in red). In main calendar or event detail view, clicking the location or full-map link opens a map provided by the Map link type service you selected. The map link is not the same as the map thumbnail. If you include a map thumbnail in event detail view, that thumbnail (outlined in green) is always a Bing map.
   
   

7. Click OK to add the map link to the event.

Use latitude and longitude coordinates to add map links

If you want to provide a map link to a relatively remote area or if you're trying to link to an address that the Bing Map Platform can't verify, you might want to use latitude and longitude coordinates. (Typically, a location's coordinates are easy to find using Internet search.)

When you enter the coordinates, use the Decimal Degrees format where the N-S and E-W designators are omitted. Instead, to indicate direction, use the:

• Plus sign for latitude values north of the equator and east of the Prime meridian.
• Minus sign for latitude values south of the equator and west of the Prime meridian.

For example, to add a map link to Hamlin Park in Shoreline, WA, use these values for latitude and longitude respectively: +47.7470422 and -122.3087386.

Tip Latitude values that omit the plus sign are assumed to be north of the equator.

To add a map link using latitude and longitude coordinates

1. In the Add/Edit an Event form, in the Location section, click Enter Lat/Long.
2. In the window, type or paste the latitude and longiture coordinate values, and then click OK.

   

3. For Map link type, select the Internet map service that you want to use for the link, and then click Test link.

   

   The coordinates appear beside Mapped Location.

4. In the Location text field, type the name of the location.
5. Click OK to save the event.

Tip Map links you add using latitude and longitude coordinates do not appear in the Recent Links list.

How to update map links

If the location for an event changes, you may need to update the map link associated with the event.

Tip Updating a map link means changing the location and link associated with an event. Updating has no effect on the Recent Links list. The original map link and the new one remain in the list until you remove the outdated one.

1. Display the calendar that contains the event that you want to update and click the event title.
2. In the Edit event form, in the Location field, replace the old address information with the new information, and then click Update Map Link.

   If Bing Maps Platform finds more than one location, for Locations found, choose the location you want.

   If Bing Maps is unable to verify the location, in the Location text box, provide additional location information, and then click Add Map Link again.

3. For Map link type, choose the Internet map service link that you want to add to your event.

   Tip Choose a service and then click Test link to compare map service results.

4. Click OK to add the new map link to the event.

   Tip Before you click OK, you might want to do one more thing. If you're not likely to ever again use the outdated link you just updated, read on to learn how to remove it from the Recent Links list.

How to remove outdated map links

Over time, some of the map links you add to the Recent Links list may become outdated. To keep the list as compact and usable as possible, it's a good idea to remove outdated links.

Tip Events that use a particular map link are not affected if you remove that map link from the Recent Links list.

To remove links from the list

1. In the editing environment, select a calendar. Click an event description to edit an event.
2. In the Edit Event form, in the Location section, click Recent Links.
3. In the links list, click the red x to the left of the map link you want to remove.

   

   Click the red x to the left of a map link to remove the link.

4. Click OK.

What happens to map links when you subscribe or export

Map links you create in Trumba Connect are not available:

• In a calendar in Apple iCal after you subscribe to a Trumba calendar.
• In iCalendar (.ics) or Comma Separated Values (.csv) files that you export from Trumba Connect.

Tip Map links are available when you subscribe to an RSS feed of a published calendar. Clicking the event title in the RSS reader opens event details, where you can click the location or map thumbnail link to display the map.