Geo-intelligence is becoming increasingly important in the world of BI. More and more companies want to visualize data on maps so they can see at a glance which regions may not be performing well.
MS Power BI Shape Map Visual
In Power BI, too, it has long been possible to add maps in various ways. However, it’s only recently become possible to actually define regions yourself to visualize the data. You can use the “Shape map” visual for this. This functionality is currently still a preview feature, so you’ll need to enable it separately in the options.
TopoJSON
To import customer-specific regions, the Shape Map visual uses TopoJSON files. These can be uploaded to Power BI as custom maps. There are various tools available to convert, for example, Shapefiles or KML files to TopoJSON. In addition to creating the regions, you can, of course, customize the usual properties within the visual—such as color, size, and outline—as desired.
Visualizing Data
Visualizing the data on the map is very simple. As soon as the names of the regions match the names in the data, the data will be visualized automatically. Please note that the custom map can only be created once the objects have already been added to the visual. But that actually applies to every visual in Power BI. The properties can only be adjusted once the data elements have been added.
Conclusion
With the Shape Map visual, Microsoft is taking a significant step forward in the field of geospatial intelligence. Provided the TopoJSON file is available, the visual is very easy to use and allows you to achieve great results quickly.
