ArcGIS for Power BI Blog - Page 2

ArcGIS Maps for Power BI brings the best parts of the ArcGIS platform together into one awesome package. When pieces of ArcGIS get better, the ArcGIS Maps visual that utilize those pieces get better too! That's exactly what happened last night when the ArcGIS world geocoding service updated - you now have better location matching in Power BI.  

What exactly got better?

The update last night was to the world geocoding service, which is used to provide points when you use the Location field well. Geographic boundaries (like states, ZIP codes, and other areas) are provided by Esri geoenrichment services and were not affected by the update last night.

What changes will I notice?

• You can now search for addresses in more countries than before. Previously the World Geocoding service boasted support for address-level geocoding in 109 countries. The list has expanded to an even more impressive 135 countries. We’ve also updated the reference data for most countries and added new authoritative address data sources for Australia (G-NAF) and Austria (BEV).
• We’ve enhanced the behind-the-scenes matching logic for better handling of poorly-formed address searches. Geocoding in the USA consistently yields high match rates, but your address database may include questionable addresses with misspellings or extra information that can’t be geocoded, such as person names. The enhanced service is capable of handling this type of incorrect information. Below are a few examples of how these improvements can boost geocoding match rates even higher.

• Our Defense and Intel users have always been able to easily search for MGRS (Military Grid Reference System) coordinates in ArcGIS Desktop. Unfortunately it wasn’t so simple to do the same in ArcGIS Maps for Power BI. For the first time, you will be able to search for MGRS coordinates – along with postal codes, addresses, populated places, and points of interest.  Additionally, you can now search for latitude/longitude coordinates in different formats, such as degrees-minutes-seconds (DMS), and can also find United State National Grid (USNG) coordinates (although we recommend you continue to use the Latitude and Longitude field wells when mapping coordinates).

• Another useful feature in the updated service is the ability to locate Point of Interest (POI) names. You may have tables that include both addresses and place names, and in the past when you tried to batch geocode them there were no matches for the place names. There’s no longer such a disconnect which means you can batch geocode addresses, postal codes, and POIs, or any combination of these in the same field.

Keep an eye on the blogs here on the GeoNet site for the latest updates to ArcGIS and the ArcGIS Maps visual!

1. It’s now a core part of Microsoft Power BI!

As of today, the ArcGIS Maps visual graduated from Preview to general availability in Power BI desktop. That means it is available out of the box by default. No more File > Options > Options > Preview > Enable visual - just look for the Esri globe alongside your other Power BI visuals and start using it. The ArcGIS Maps visual will be available by default in Power BI service very soon as well.

2. It’s so easy to map your BI data

After adding the ArcGIS Map visual to your report, just drag a location field from your dataset into the Location field well and we’ll do the rest! The Location field well has smarts built in and it will try to figure out what you’re trying to map, whether it’s an address or standard geography, like Postal codes or country boundaries (and if it can’t figure out what you’re trying to add, you can always help it out).

3. You can make your maps uniquely yours

Sometimes ‘easy’ means ‘limited’, but that’s not the case with the ArcGIS Maps visual. Based on our years of cartographic experience we provide some smart defaults, but we also understand that you are going to want to tweak things from time to time. After mapping your data you can enter edit mode (use the … menu in the upper right corner) to customize your map to your hearts’ content. You can pick the basemap that makes your data look great, change your point or area styling to one of the Power BI default data colors (or any custom color of your choosing, such as your corporate color scheme), and adjust transparency, border thickness, symbol size and more to get your map just how you like it.

4. See new patterns in your data using heatmaps and clustering

If you have too many points on a map it can be hard to understand what you’re seeing. It’s times like these when heat maps and clustering can help make sense of your data. By aggregating points together using either of these map themes, you can clean up your map and help draw the readers’ eyes to the important places on your map.

5. Create drive-time areas to always know who (or what) is nearby

Drive time areas can be used to simply visualize the areas that are nearby your important locations. More powerfully, they can be used as a selection tool to filter and highlight other reports based on data points close to your important locations, allowing you to see unique spatial patterns in your data and answer questions like ‘what are the trends among my local customers compared to all customers?’

There are many other cool features in ArcGIS Maps for Power BI (such as demographic layers, ArcGIS reference layers, infographics, etc.) – so what are you waiting for? Fire up Power BI and see how ArcGIS Maps for Power BI can add a new dimension to your reports! Join the community and let us know your favorite things about the ArcGIS Maps visual (or ask questions to the product team, watch videos, or give us ideas about what you want to see in the product next!)

Welcome and thanks for joining ArcGIS Maps for Power BI on GeoNet! To get started we invite you to first review the group features on the overview page and familiarize yourself with the group info, admins and GeoNet 101 information in the left column.

As you explore the group, you’ll also find tools to connect and collaborate so we encourage you to use them to share files, create blogs, ask/answer questions and read the latest blogs posts and join discussions.

Next, we’d like to get to know you, so we invite you to post a comment below to say “hello" and introduce yourself. If you'd like to share a cool report you’ve made with the ArcGIS Maps visual, we love seeing what people are up to!  

We’re excited to connect and collaborate with you and we look forward to seeing your contributions.