In modern times, the expansive globalization of business data is one of the most crucial assets to the companies that aim towards making a mark in this new world. This implies the fact that the data analysis methods adopted by organizations are quite influential in enabling the achievement of internal goals. Organizations across the world are currently utilizing data maps in order to analyse data also on the basis of geographical locations. Power BI is also equipped with this ability. The maps in Power BI are one of the most advantageous ways of visualizing the data that is represented on the basis of locations. The easy to comprehend pattern and visually captivating Power BI Maps can help the user organization to derive better insights from the raw data.
Data analysis has depicted time as one of the fundamental dimensions of measuring and analyzing the raw organizational data including the sales rates, employee engagement rates, customer data and others. But, seldom has space or the geographical location been used in the process of analyzing the data or measuring the success and failures of certain companies. But, an attempt of combining geographical information with organizational data can provide several unknown opportunities to companies in the business arena.
What is a Power Map in Power BI?
The term ‘Power BI’ refers to a collection of applications and softwares that combine to transform unrelated raw data acquired by the user organization, into visually attractive and interactive insights. The group of services and connectors are capable of working with simple sources of data like Microsoft Excel and also complex on-premise or cloud based data warehouses. The services are quick and simple to connect to a local database and can also evolve into being enterprise grade in order to provide real time data analytics.
Power BI Maps: Supported Formatting Options
The formatting options enhances the Power BI map data ability. The supported formatting options include the following:-
- Changing colors used in the visual
- Applying a specific style
- Changing the Axis properties
- Adding data labels
- Adding total labels
How to Create a Power Map in Power BI
A user can create maps in Power BI by following the below mentioned steps:-
- Open the Visualizations pane.
- Select the create a basic map icon
- Then drag the field the user would like to put to use.
For instance, when the Postal code is used in the stores and dragged to the bucket named locations. Subsequently, the bubbles appearing on the screen are representative of the locations related to the data.
Special Tricks for creating Power BI Visualizations:
The important tricks for creating enhanced Power BI flow maps are as follows:-
- Using the latitude and Longitude values
- Using geographical hierarchical data to drill down several levels of location.
- Using more than one location column
Power BI Desktop: Custom Maps and Shape Map Visualizations
‘Shape Map’ is a feature that enables the user to create comparisons between regions using various colors. While the ‘Map’ visual is capable of depicting the specific geographical locations from where the data is acquired, the Shape Map feature cannot work with the same precision. Thus, the capability of the Shape Map feature can be enumerated through its capacity to provide relative comparisons between regions through different colors.
The process of creating Power BI custom maps with Shape Map Visualizations can be completed through the following steps:
- 1st step – Enabling the Shape Map Option
In order to enable the Shape Map option, the user needs to select File and click on Options and Settings. Here, the Options choice has to be selected and Preview Features have to be chosen. Next, the Shape Map Visual checkbox appears which has to be selected. Finally select OK. Then the Power BI Desktop has to be restarted.
- 2nd step – Creating a Shape Map
In order to create a Shape Map, the user has to click on the Shape Map icon which will depict a chart being created. Next a specific location on the Location shelf. This creates a map for that area. Then go to the format tab in the Visualizations pane and select Shape.
- 3rd step – The power BI custom maps in the Shape Map Visualizations support only TopoJSON format. This implies that the shape file has to be converted into that format by using Map shaper.
- 4th step – The final step involves the addition of customization regarding data color being added into the Shape Map.
Visualizations in Maps Power BI: The comparison of Visualizations in Bing Maps and ArcGis maps can be provided as follows:-
| Bing Maps | ArcGIS Map |
| Users can create hierarchical maps | Users cannot create hierarchical maps |
| Bing Maps are simple maps | ArcGIS maps are complex with options for formatting |
| Provide clean visuals in reporting KPIs | Helps in taking strategic initiatives that are based on geographical visualizations of data. |
Visualizations in Shape Map –
The Shape Map Visualizations are available in the preview format currently. These features can be enabled only through the Power BI Desktop. In order to enable Shape Map visuals, the following needs to be completed:-
- Click on file and select Options and Settings.
- Next, select options and then the preview features. Finally click on the Shape Map Visual checkbox.
- Restart the Power BI Desktop after making the selection.
After enabling the Shape Map option, the Shape Map icon has to be selected from the Visualizations bar. This creates a Shape Map canvas where visual designs can be created in the Power BI maps.
In order to further create a Shape Map with visualizations, the following steps need to be adhered to:
- Within the fields pane, keep dragging the data field containing the names of the region on the Location bucket along with a data measuring field into the color saturation bucket.
- In the format setting page, select Shape to expand and select from the Standard Maps available to show the data.
- If required further, the Power BI mapping capabilities can be enhanced using options like default color, zoom and others.
Bubble Maps: Power BI Desktop
Bubble Maps are one of the types of maps in Power BI. It can be created using the map visual in Power BI that utilizes the Bing Maps to visualize the spatial data. The term ‘Bing Maps’ refers to a web mapping service that is provided as a part of the Microsoft Bing Suite consisting of search engines.
In order to create the Bubble Map using Bing Maps, the Map Visual has to be selected from the Visualizations panel. After the visual has been selected the hierarchical data needs to be populated with the right fields in order to create the best Power BI maps. It can be done in the following way:-
- Dragging and dropping the latitude to the Latitude value field.
- Dragging and dropping the Longitude to the Longitude value field.
- Dragging and dropping the Units Sold to the Size Value field.
- Dragging and Dropping the State to the Legend value field.
Accessing Hierarchy Data: A Bubble Map Visualizations Perspective
The Bubble Map is designed to provide several drilling up and down features when hierarchical data fields are added in the locations field. But the hierarchical data when accessed through the Bubble Map visualizations, it looks unclear and beyond anyone’s understanding. It has to be edited a little in order to gain insights from it. The State field can be dragged to the Location bucket. Also, the Map can be filtered through the filters option under the field’s options. Finally, a tool tip can also be added to the Map to make the hierarchical data more interactive.
Filled Map Visualizations:
The filled Map or Choropleths use shading, tinting or various patterns to display how a certain value differs in proportion across a region or geographical area.
Integrating Power BI with Bing Maps:
The Bing Maps can be integrated with the various Microsoft softwares including Power BI, SharePoint, Excel and Dynamics. It is associated as a dashboard that fulfills the purpose of creating interactive data visualizations.
Power BI Desktop Map Visualizations: A Bonus Tip
One of the bonus trips for getting better results while using the map visuals that has the potential to enhance the Power BI mapping capabilities is to use the latitude and Longitude fields. This means that if a certain dataset has these field values available, it should be used in order to enhance the process of data visualization.
Conclusion
Power BI Maps with their plethora of features are a game changing data visualization tool that can be used by organizations to analyze data and improve their productivity.
Yes, it is possible to map geographic data into the Power BI Reports.
Power BI is a cloud based service provided by Microsoft. It consists of five components that collectively form the Power Bi Services. Among these is the Power Map. It can be described simply as a 3D geo-spatial tool that is used to provide interactive data visualizations.
The process of adding ArcGIS maps in Power BI is completed through the following steps :
● Signing into Power BI and connecting to a data source.
● Opening an existing report or creating a new one. The Visualizations panel is available near the report
● Select the ArcGIS for Power BI Visualizations.
● The user has the option to access the ArcGIS content by signing in or continue to use the Standard Account.
The Microsoft Power Map for Excel is a three dimensional tool used by organizations to perform adept data visualization actions. It allows the user to search for information in new ways.
When a dataset already contains different location data levels, the user company can use Power BI to create geo-hierarchies. This can be done by dragging more than one field into the location bucket.
In Power BI maps, if an address is mentioned, the service hints at the Bing geo-decoding to transform it into an accurate position on the map. But, the service does not have the ability to convert it into latitude and Longitude data fields.
The Shape Map Visual can be changed to US Map only.
In a Map visual, there exists an option termed as category labels. When this option is turned on, the location values or the latitude and Longitude values are displayed. Here the values are added into the map.
In the process of using the Power BI maps geo-data is sent to Bing Maps.
