Supplier Quality Analysis Sample - Broken Bing Maps Integration

[mhous]

This issue seemed to surface a few weeks ago.  The PowerBI sample of "Supplier Quality Analysis" has an pre-baked dashboard with a Bing Maps visualization.  The visualization used to work and show dots on the map, but no longer does.  Any Q&A query on that sample also does not yield anything on the Bing Maps visualizations, in spite of there being data to display.

I have deleted and reinstantiated the sample on multiple accounts and multiple machines, to no affect.

[v-haibl-msft · Accepted solution]

@mhous

The Bing Maps team is forcing a two-fold change for Power BI; they are deprecated the Bing Maps v8 Control, and are also switching to a new geocoder. Please refer to https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-desktop-june-feature-summary/#maps.

To take full advantage of this, you'll need to set the Data Category for each column correctly. If you are using comma separated strings as a workaround to the earlier geocoder limitations, you should change to use a hierarchy. For example, create a column called "Country", set data category to Country / Region, and add it above the State and City in the hierarchy. Then Drill Down via Hierarchy Drill (fork icon).

Users with comma separated concatenated values may see breaks, changing Data Category of this column to Place should work, and it is actually be design.

For the sample you mentioned above, I've sent mail to related team to correct it later.

Best Regards,
Herbert

[rbrundritt]

The Bing Maps V8 control is not being deprecated, it is the main production map control. Bing Maps V7 is deprecated.

[mhous]

I was able to dive into this a bit more by downloading the sample PBIX.  After looking at the data model for Plant, I saw that the Data Category was set to City.  Changing the Data Category to Place enabled the map visualizations to work.

The question remains: what is the difference between City and Place, and what is broken with City that no longer works with Bing Maps?

Also, the issue should be fixed with the sample so that others don't run into this same problem.