Last week a new, preview version of Power Query was released to work with the Power BI public preview (John White, whose blog has a lot of good Power BI information, has the details here); today, a new version of Power Map was released too. You can download it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38395
Here are some of the new features, in no particular order:
- You can now overlay certain geographical regions onto a map. For example, with the following table in the Excel Data Model:
In Power Map you can create a new layer type of Region and see each country shaded by their sales value:
The Region shapes are sourced from Bing; you can’t upload your own shapes unfortunately. I have no idea what regions Bing does know about, but it clearly knows about English county boundaries (though it doesn’t know about postcode boundaries):
- You now have the option of seeing a ‘Flat Map’. Here’s the map above shown in flattened form:
- You can now control the colours used in a layer:
- You can add annotations with images in:
- You can now record tours from within Power Map and save them to an MP4 file.
- Calculated columns and hidden columns can now be referenced in a layer.
There are plenty of other changes – I’ll update this post if I’ve missed any other major ones – but in addition the app seems smoother and faster, as well as being (slightly) easier to use.
Thank you for MP4 Video saving.
With map services like Open Street Maps it is possible to enjoy other features which Bing does not support (yet). E.g. the mentionned post code boundaries.
Hi Chris
I was wondering if it is possible to use an SSAS Cube Pivot Table as source for Power Map? I didn’t manage to make it use that data. I had to copy it and then PowerMap would recognise the data.
Would you know anything about that?
Hi Lukas, no, it’s not possible at the moment, Power Map can only use data from Power Pivot.
Thank you. That would have been fun though.
Hi Chris, I’m trying to show UK counties with powermap – but for the life of me can’t get it to recognise regions like Cardiff and Swansea, and some of the london boroughs. Do you have any tips – or a link to a listing that PowerMap recognises?
Thanks
Simon
I don’t have a list of entities that it recognises, sorry. The only tips I can give are to make sure you include a country field as well as your county field, make sure county is called county, and maybe experiment with some of the names (perhaps if you go to Bing Maps and are able to search for the name then that will mean the name works in Power Map?)
Thanks Chris, we’re thinking on the same lines – I’ve tried some of those, and will do the BingMaps search as well. Cheers
Simon
Hi Chris, I need to map some data in excel to a UK map by postcodes. And for the data variation to have colors. Is it possible to use your Power Map for this?
Yes, you can use Power Map for this. However for the best results you will need a shape file for UK postcodes and to make sure that your data is clean (postcode data is notoriously dirty, unfortunately).