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lukaszp
Power BI Team
Power BI Team

ArcGIS Maps for Power BI (Preview) Discussion

Since we announced ArcGIS Maps for Power BI (Preview), we've been getting a lot of great questions and positive feedback.

 

Let's use this thread for a discussion of ArcGIS Maps for Power BI, including any issues you might encounter when using the feature.

 

You can now use the ArcGIS Maps for Power BI feature in the September release of Power BI Desktop. Remeber to enable it in the options menu.

  

You can find documentation here:

 

Some have asked for features:

 

A) Sign in to ArcGIS Online; it's on the road map ... vote for this idea to keep updated

B) Shapefile support ... use the ShapeMap visual

 

Known Issues:

Starting Monday 2/14/2017 you may receive an error when opening Power BI desktop when you have enabled ArcGIS Maps for Power BI (preview).  Please review this thread for further details. The workaround for this issue is documented here.

196 REPLIES 196

@mike_honey I am not aware of any documentation for the functionality of the Esri maps. I had a PBI file with both types of codes in and tried it out to see which would work. Like most things trial and error.

Esri provides documentation for ArcGIS Maps for Power BI, you can find the relevant topic here:

http://doc.arcgis.com/en/maps-for-powerbi/get-started/prepare-your-data.htm#GUID-6E54E3BF-BB77-4D7A-...

 

@scottball can help with additional documentation needs.

I certainly agree with @mike_honey maintaining the 2011 ABS ASGS in the location tool is important but for the 2016 Census data that will be released in July to be usable the inclusion of the 2016 ASGS in the bondary tools will be vital. I hope this is somthing that can be included @scottball

We are really keen on this as a mapping tool within Power BI and think it is alreaydy great and has a lot more potenital. The potential for us as large users for Esri products will be being able to login and use our own mapping hosted securely on the Esri server to be able to add into the Esri Power BI map and then share with external users in a secure way. The other key item that we need is to know if this visual will work with Power BI Embeded. @scottball are you able to give us any guide as to when we will be able to get to our secured mapping and share that with others. Also I have not seen an answer about if this will work with PBIE.

 

Thank you for your assistance and please keep working on this great addition to PBI.

@DuncanP @dcresp Overnight we updated the map to fix the not loading issue. Please try to load the maps that previously did not work and let me know if you encounter any issues. 

 

@dcresp regarding Power BI Embedded, we definitely plan to bring ArcGIS Maps for Power BI to Power BI Embedded, we're working on the architecture for that right now.  Regarding using content from ArcGIS servers, we are planning in collaboration with Esri to enable sign-in to ArcGIS Online. In fact, these two items are intertwined from an architecture viewpoint which is why we've not yet enabled ArcGIS Maps for Power BI in Power BI Embedded.

Hi @lukaszp, has there been any update on the availability of ArcGIS maps for Power BI Embedded?  We've been eagerly anticipating this for quite some time!

I'm glad there is a plan to offer ArcGIS Maps for Power BI. We are excited by what we see in the desktop version!

 

A couple of questions:

- Is there a timeline for deployment? Rough estimate?

- Will this continue to be free?

 

Answers to these could make a big difference to our development plans.

 

Note that we don't expect to be using content from ArcGIS servers. Just thought I'd add my data point.

However, if there was a way to export from PBIE to a format that ArcGIS desktop users would prefer, that would also be exciting, althought not required by us.

We're not ready to comment on that :).  Glad you like ArcGIS Maps for Power BI, we're really excited by it too :).

Anonymous
Not applicable

Hello

 

I've gone through all settings as IT admin and user for the ArcGIS function and all looks like it should be.

 

However the ArcGIS maps works well in desktop but not in browser. The map is just stuck in loading whenever I open a report in browsing mode.

 

I read somewhere that this was an issue but after 13 pages of comments, I'm not sure why it wont load ?

 

EDIT: Works in Microsoft Edge but not in Chrome

 

 

@scottball it is great to see that the Australian map is now supporting ABS ASGS geographies. It would be good if it also supported PSMA suburbs which are freely avaliable at https://data.gov.au

 

Is there a way that the pollygons will display in a more complete shape than what I am currently getting which is faily unusable? The filled maps for other countries seem to work a lot better than this.

 

Capture.PNG

 

 

Hi @scottball

 

I totally understand the speed considerations: I've tried plugging actual boundaries into the shapemap visual and it's woefully slow.

 

I don't know whether it's possible to say that when part of a district ends up completely within another one, it could be subsumed entirely? For example, the NR21 district below:

 

ArcGIS_PostCodeDistrict3.PNG

 

Could the bit of the shape to the left be ignored entirely? In reality, it's a small bit that sticks out past RAF Scunthorpe:

 

NR21.PNG

 

If it were possible to remove the extra bit rather than raise the detail level to go around it, then the speed wouldn't be compromised.

 

On another subject, if we choose to represent locations as points rather than boundaries, it's no longer possible to use postcode areas or districts as locations. Is that something that might be implemented at some point, perhaps using the centre of the postcode area or district as the location?

 

And yes, I am enjoing the visual, it's just what I've been waiting for!

 

Best,

 

Duncan

DuncanP
Advocate II
Advocate II

Hi

 

I've just got hold of a data set that includes plenty of UK postcode data, so I've broken it down into area, district and sector to start mapping it. So far it looks really impressive, except for a couple of weird anomolies.

 

One strange issue is when using currency data as the value in size or color on the map. You can see how the formatting is corrupted in some way. The measure is a fixed decimal formatted as currency (£ English) with comma separation and 2 decimal places.

 

ArcGIS_Currency.PNG

 

I've also noticed that when using postcode areas, some are mapped in the wrong place. They are:

CF (Cardiff) - mapped as CB (Cambridge)

IM (Isle of Man) - mapped as CM (Chelmsford)

ST (Stoke on Trent) - mapped as AL (St Albans)

OL (Oldham) - also mapped as AL (St Albans)

WF (Wakefield) - mapped as WD (Watford)

 

Finally, it appears that incorrect postcode districts are sometimes mapped to real ones, which led to some considerable confusion on my part. So BR29 (which doesn't exist) was mapped over BS29, with the colour coming from the data corresponding to one district while the tooltip showed the data from the other. That led to me thinking that the colouring was messed up until I worked out what was going on! (Don't worry, I will fix my data ;))

 

Other than that though, this is pretty amazing from what I've seen so far - so thank you!

 

Cheers,

 

Duncan

hi @DuncanP just browsing though this thread as I have just hit the misrepresented postal regions. Though I had hit the jackpot after giving up on trying to import shapefiles via the shapemap but the ST,CF,M,WF misplacement is the fly in the ointment.

 

I haevn't got to the end of the thread just wondered if you got a workaround for this? 

 

Thanks

 

Hey @scottball, looks like there are a few mis-located points - could you look into these?

@lukaszp yep, on it. 

 

@DuncanP would it be possible for me to get a copy of the dataset you're using so we can reproduce the issue here at Esri? 

@scottball The functionality of the Esri maps is great but the big missing feature is any type of legend. Is it on the raod map to add this? Thanks

hello @scottball, coud you take a look at my example also?

 

Polish regions (same data set: ShapeMap vs ArcGIS) and ArcGIS has some missed regions.

Shape_vs_ArcGIS.PNG

The polygons for this filled map seem to come up with a very complete shape but the ones for Australian regions come up with a very basic shape that does not even fill the map. Is there a setting that I am missing @ThunderDub?

 

Capture.PNG

@scottball is there any news on fixing the Polygon shapes for the Australian ASGS georgraphies. Our GIS person took one look at them and believed it is a mistake that somone has loaded. Also the ABS are now working on the ASGS 2016 and data is being released in that format. Are you able to update the ASGS in the Power BI app to accept the 2016 ASGS. Ideally ASGS 2011 and 2016 at the moment. Getting the polygons right to the ASGS would be a great start. I really want to use this functionality but at the moment the maps look terrible as I showed in the previous post. I love the potential of this visual but it is not quite there just yet.

@ThunderDub - can you provide the dataset of Polish regions that aren't matching correctly? 

 

@dcresp - we are looking into what we can do re: a legend. Screen real estate inside a Power BI visual is a challenge, and one that we are carefully considering. The interactive nature of online maps mitigates some need for a legend; hovering and clicking and interacting with the map can provide information that is normally stored in a legend on paper / non-interactive maps. That being said, I agree that sometimes it is just nice to have a legend. 

@scottball I apreciate your points about the legend but still thing that some sort of legend is essential so that people can understand what they are looking at with a quick glance. Additionally if the report is printed it still makes sense. Somthing similar to the native map legend would be great. At the moment I am using a native map visual hiden behind an ESRI map visual just to get the legend which is not a great way of having to do it.

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