10 Ways to Create Maps in Microsoft Power BI

10 Ways to Create Maps in Microsoft Power BI
Reading Time: 6 minutes

Update March 19, 2018:

There are now many more than 10 ways to create maps in Power BI. Get the free Exploring Maps in Microsoft Power BI whitepaper from BlueGranite, and view the companion webinar: 

Whitepaper: https://www.blue-granite.com/maps-power-bi-whitepaper

Webinar: https://www.blue-granite.com/maps-in-power-bi-mar-2018

 

Exploring Maps in Microsoft Power BI - BlueGranite - DataVeld

Original Post:

Last year, I wrote a post entitled 5 Ways to Create Maps in Microsoft Power BI. With the introduction of numerous mapping changes in Power BI since then, I felt it best to provide an update as of June 2017.

As I mentioned in last year’s post, each mapping method could have advantages in different circumstances. The following list is not a ranking, but I have included the newer maps toward the top. Like last year, I have intentionally left out methods such as plotting latitude and longitude on a scatterplot with or without an image background, or using SandDance. Alternatives like that can sometimes work, but distortion often comes into play, or it requires a large number of points to make the geography recognizable.

With the introduction of the ArcGIS Map and Shape Map, there are now four native maps that you can access directly in Power BI Desktop without having to import them. There are also four custom visuals available to import alongside two “develop your own” options.




1. Native – ESRI ArcGIS Map

ArcGIS Maps for Power BI was released in Preview back in September 2016. Its developer, ESRI, is a leader in geospatial software and spatial data with its ArcGIS family of products. There are several unique features such as drivetime radius and clustering that you currently cannot get with any other Power BI map. Since its introduction, there have been several improvements.

  • Pros
    • Created and maintained by ESRI, a leader in GIS software
    • Various backgrounds / basemaps such as Dark, Light, OpenStreetMap, and Streets
    • Options for drivetime and distance radii
    • Option for clustering as you zoom in or out
    • View as heatmap
    • Reference layers from ArcGIS Online
    • Built-in infographics with data that updates as you move around the map
  • Cons
    • No ability to add custom shapes unless they are first added to ArcGIS Online and shared publicly, then used as a Reference Layer in Power BI
    • Not available for embedding or Publish to Web

Power BI ESRI ArcGis Map




2. Native – Shape Map

The Shape Map for Power BI was released in July 2016. It displays polygon shapes on a blank background.

  • Pros
    • Brings custom polygons to Power BI — the only map to easily do so
    • Can use with any type of 2D shape, not necessarily geographical
  • Cons
    • Still in Preview (you must enable it in Power BI Desktop’s Options)
    • No option for a background / basemap to provide geographic context for the shapes
    • No labels on the map itself — you must hover over a shape and view the tooltip for details
    • Only supports the TopoJSON format and not more popular or readily available formats like GeoJSON or Shapefiles
    • Only draws polygons and not points or linestrings
    • Slow to load large, detailed TopoJSON files (~ > 1 MB)

Power BI Shape Map us-cartogram-2014-est-population




3. Custom Visual – Route Map

The Route Map custom visual was created by Weiwei Cui, an independent developer. It displays paths as lines on a map and is a great visual for showing movement along a route over time.

  • Pros
    • Someone in the Power BI Community creates a map that fills a gap in Power BI’s functionality. What’s not to like about that?
    • Currently the only way to display a route over time as a line in Power BI
  • Cons
    • Bing map is the only background with no alternative basemaps

Power BI Route Map




4. Custom Visual – Flow Map

The Flow Map custom visual was also created by Weiwei Cui. Like the Route Map, it is also a good way to show movement, or flow. Unlike the Route Map, it can display a complete network of points, or nodes, and show how movement converges to or diverges from these nodes.

  • Pros
    • Currently the only way to view a geographic network in Power BI
  • Cons
    • Bing map is the only background with no alternative basemaps
    • Format options have a few bugs

Power BI Flow Map




5. Native – Map

The Map visual displays points, which can optionally be sized as area bubbles. This is a good map for basic display but falls short when it comes to more advanced customization.

  • Pros
    • Now includes an Aerial basemap in addition to the default Roads
    • Point size was adjusted this past year with a “Bubble” format option that allows much smaller points
    • Accessible, easy to use, and fully supported by the Microsoft Power BI team
    • Flexible in that it can geocode location data addresses or work with stored latitude and longitude coordinates
    • Good basic map for common uses
  • Cons
    • Basemap tiles – still no LightDark, or Grayscale options, which reduces the color selections for data (points more difficult to distinguish from the Road or Aerial background if they blend in)
    • Occasional Bing geocoding issues where points end up in the wrong location
    • No current support for standard geographic formats or custom layers (GeoJSON, ESRI Shapefiles, etc.)
    • Pie charts are used as points when displaying locations by category

Power BI Map




6. Native – Filled Map

The Filled Map visual displays shaded geographic areas. This is another good map for basic display but also falls short when it comes to more advanced customization.

  • Pros
    • Accessible, easy to use, and fully supported by the Microsoft Power BI team
    • Flexible in that it can geocode location data addresses or work with stored latitude and longitude coordinates
    • Good basic map for common uses
  • Cons
    • Basemap tiles – still no Light or Dark option, which reduces the color selections for data and may make polygons more difficult to distinguish from the Road or Aerial background
    • Basemap tiles – oddly did not receive the Aerial update that the standard Map did
    • Occasional Bing geocoding issues where polygons end up in the wrong location
    • No current support for standard geographic formats or custom layers (GeoJSON, ESRI Shapefiles, etc.)

Power BI Filled Map




7. Custom Visual – Synoptic Panel

The Synoptic Panel can be found in the Office Store and has a companion website (Synoptic.Design) that contains an editor and templates. For the latest version, always check the Synoptic Design website. While the Synoptic Panel allows for a broad and powerful range of different visualizations, it can be used for cartography. For example, my former BlueGranite colleague Jason Thomas (b/t) published a post detailing his use of the Synoptic Panel for a hex tile map of the United States.

  • Pros
    • Some templates available for common geographies in the Synoptic gallery
    • Fully customized areas for any image
  • Cons
    • No support for standard geographic formats, i.e. cannot import an existing GeoJSON file
    • Time-intensive compared to other Power BI map options (but end result is worth the effort)

Power BI Synoptic Panel Maps




8. Custom Visual – Globe Map

Another option from the Office Store is the Globe Map.

  • Pros
    • Whoever created this employed ThreeJS in a Power BI visual, which is a solid technical achievement
    • Provides small level of continuity for anyone who used Power Map for Excel (and also does not mind a reduced feature set)
  • Cons
    • 3D vantage point makes it difficult to simultaneously view and compare areas across the globe and may also cause perception issues
    • Has difficulty clearly rendering base tiles at low-level zoom
    • Lack of formatting options for bar and heatmap

Power BI Globe Map




9. Custom Visual – Create your own

For anyone who is truly ambitious, they can create their own custom visualization for Power BI. I went down this path to some extent in 2015, and I know of separate Leaflet visuals from various vendors that have not been publicly released. If any of the prior methods to map data in Power BI did not suit you, and if you have the time and expertise, a custom visual can be a great way to display your geographic data.

  • Pros
    • Extensive control over output
    • Can incorporate custom geography, GeoJSON, Shapefiles, etc.
  • Cons
    • The most time-intensive option of all
    • Difficult to use for anyone unfamiliar with TypeScript and JavaScript visualization libraries such as D3 or mapping libraries like Leaflet

Power BI Custom Visual Leaflet Map




10. R Visual – Create your own

For anyone who wants to go beyond the basics, Power BI also provides the ability to create visualizations with R.

  • Pros
    • Extensive and detailed control over output
    • Can incorporate custom geography, GeoJSON, Shapefiles, etc.
  • Cons
    • R visuals currently require static images as output, which does not take advantage of R’s full capabilities
    • Difficult to use for anyone unfamiliar with R
    • Not available for embedding or Publish to Web

Power BI R Visual Map

 

Follow DataVeld on Twitter @dataveld




24 Comments

  1. I’m constantly frustrated that none of the native BI mapping tools work with SQL Server spatial types whether geometry or geography. I can understand that MS might not want to develop a GIS, but not to be able to view lines, points or polygons held in tables seems odd. There can be legal/data reasons not to go via ESRI, in effect a third partty. It should be possible to update reports live from data, not to have to go through thirds party programs to convert a set of records to a TopoJSON (not exactly a common format) file. I’d really love to know why MS don’t want to display some data held in their own software. Rant over. 🙂

  2. ESRI isn’t going to go very far with functionality in PowerBI because they want to push their own Spatial Analytics tool called Insights….

    1. I totally agree, and its totally disfunctional. I work for a company where mapping is very important, and we all use SpotFire because of its native mapping. That’s why I created powerbilayeredmap.com – would love to know your thoughts!

    1. No map loaded in de demo’s unfortunately. I see de Power BI frame, Heather en table. Left side is blank.

  3. Which example are you looking at? All examples open for me on test computers. Note that you will probably need a real computer/laptop with >= 4 GB RAM, these maps use a lot of libraries and use a bit of RAM.

  4. I’m looking at the 7 Live Demos on http://www.powerbilayeredmap.com. I can see you refreshed them yesterday, but still no maps to be seen. All map-frames load for 2 seconds and then stay blanc. The table is showing correctly.
    My laptop has 8MB RAM. Shouldn’t be the problem.

    1. Thank you. I was using IE. Did not work. Now tried Firefox en the maps are shown. Although it took a while before they were loaded. Firefox asked me two times what to do with the slowdown of responding,
      Maybe it is because my wifi isn’t that fast, but it could happen to other users too.

      While this is the case, I can’t use the maps in public dashboards/reports. Is there a solution to speed up the load and response of the maps?

  5. HOW DID IT WORK FOR E V E R Y O N E FOR ME ITS NOT WORKING!!!!!! I TRIED DOWNLOADING TOPOJSON AND IT DIDNT WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111111111111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111111111111

    1. Could you provide more detail on what you’re trying to do, or perhaps you could post to the Power BI community site for additional help?

      1. David, I’m new to this site/solution and have been trying to download/save your file with the united states with counties map without luck. Trying to build a custom set of state maps for my companies footprint and have been unable to create or find any. I’m looking for Alabama, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri. If you could provide some guidance that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

  6. Thanks as this is very helThanks as this is very helpful.
    What I need to do is to combine a Route map and display Polygone POI onto the same map.
    Im in vehicle tracking and therefore need to verify the vehicle movements with the Route map but at the same time have an indication on the map wether the vehicle passed a Customer either via Poligone points or normal Lat / Long Customer Location.
    Any solution?
    pful.

  7. Have you looked at powerbilayeredmap.com? Its meant for this kind of display, assuming you have WMS/WFS available.

  8. Hi I need the map Topojson:spain-province-with-canary-islands.json

    How I can obtain the file?

    thanks

  9. hi, I had data with only latitude and longitude and to add countries where they are available (some coordinates are in the ocean) I made a bing API function. unfortunately I cannot save the query with invoked function due to error, though the query from whcich I made the function works (it shows “not found” for missing data), is there any workaround?
    the error message is “Failed to save modifications to the server. Error returned: ‘Expression in partition ‘n/a’ in table ‘n/a’ references an unknown entity.’.”

  10. David, I’m new to this site/solution and have been trying to download/save your file with the united states with counties map without luck. Trying to build a custom set of state maps for my companies footprint and have been unable to create or find any. I’m looking for Alabama, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri. If you could provide some guidance that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: