Table of Contents


Overview

A map is a complex output control that allows users to visualize geographic data and its relationships. You can choose from hundreds of available maps and add location data into your application's web interface. Each map must be associated with a Table Named Range (TNR) from the workbook.


Basics


Inserting a Map

To create a map, drag and drop a Map module into your page in the User Interface Designer.

Once placed, click on the chart to define its properties from the properties menu. Begin by selecting the Table Named Range (TNR) that contains the target map data from the Table Named Range selection. This range should include both the data and the column headers for the map.

For example, when creating a map for the world population, both the country names and the population data should be included in the selected Table Named Range (TNR).


Properties

The properties of the map control are outlined below.


Map Type

You can select from four distinctive map types:

  • Standard Map: The most common map type in data visualization, a standard map shades the map area to display quantitative values.
  • Cartogram: A cartogram map uses circles or squares of varying sizes to show regions in accordance with a quantitative value associated to them. This map type is best used to highlight the values of outlier regions, instead of their actual size.
  • Continuous Cartogram: A continuous cartogram plots the selected measure on a map by scaling the land borders depending on the selected data field.
  • Tile Map: Tile map uses circles, hexagons, or squares instead of the actual land borders to depict the regions. This view is quite useful for showing small regions that are otherwise difficult to read on a regular map.
  • Density Map: Density map is a type of heat map which plots values that match the selected latitude and longitude fields. Plot points will have different colors based on the magnitude of each value shown.
  • Location Map: Similar to a Density map, Location map plots data on a latitude and longitude basis. The data shown on a Location map will have circles of different sizes, which signify the each value.
  • Route Map: Route map can plot a path from point A to point B (or C, and D, and so on), using a numeric or date field. This effectively sorts longitude and latitude data in the order that they appear on the order field.

Sample images of the variations are depicted below.


Maps with Region Name Input

Maps with region name inputs are maps that require you to select a region, add fields that contain the corresponding region names, and the data to be visualized. The geographic names that come from your data fields must comply with the international naming convention. Sample images of the variations are shown below.


Map Name

The scope of the map (i.e. region, country, state, or city maps) can be selected from the Map Name menu.


Label Field

The data column containing the corresponding area names can be selected under the Label Field property.


Value Field

The target values to be displayed against the area names will be coming from the Value Field data. Each Map Type will behave differently when displaying this data, in accordance with the map types.

  • Standard maps and Tile Maps will show color-coded values.
  • Cartograms will show value based on circle diameter.
  • Continuous cartograms will distort area shapes based on value.

Maps with Latitude/Longitude Input

Maps with latitude/longitude input are maps that require you to define where data is going to be plotted on the world map by defining the latitude and longitude of each data item. Sample images of the variations are shown below.


Latitude Field

This field is only applicable for the Density Map, Location Map, and Route Map. The named range containing the latitude (horizontal placement) of the values to be plotted in a numeric format.


Longitude Field

This field is only applicable for the Density Map, Location Map, and Route Map. The named range containing the longitude (vertical placement) of the values to be plotted in a numeric format.


Value/Order Field

The target values to be displayed against the area names will be coming from the Value Field data. Each Map Type will behave differently when displaying this data, in accordance with the map types

  • Location Map will show value based on circle diameter.
  • Route Map will show a path in the order of data items.

Group Field

This field is only applicable for the Route Map. The items in the Group Field named range selection will determine how the coordinates will be grouped.

This is an optional field, and should only be selected if you want to display multiple routes. The coordinates will be grouped into multiple paths based on the corresponding Group Field items.


Multiple Field

This field allows the visualization to be separated as groups by the data.

This is an optional field, and should only be selected if you want to display multiple visualizations.


Title, Color and Fonts

Entering text into the Chart Title box will print it on the map area. The title text properties can be changed from Title Color and Title Font Size options. Background color can be changed using Background Color option.


Height

The height of the map. Map heights can be set manually within a range between 200 and 1000 pixels. Alternatively you can check Use auto-calculated height property.


Color Scheme

The color set of the map. You can customize your maps' colors as you desired by clicking to Edit Color Scheme button. If a color set is not selected then it will use default color set from the Edit Application page.


Edit Buttons

You can customize your map by pressing the blue Edit buttons on the bottom of the right hand menu.

  • Edit Color Scheme determines the color set of the map.
  • Edit Legend properties affect the labels and colors of the map legend.
  • Edit Tooltip options determine the mouse-over text format.
  • Edit Labels properties affect the labels and colors of the map.
  • Edit Animation properties affect the animation features of the map.

Clicking Edit Color Scheme will open the color scheme selection menu, where you can customize the map colors. When you're done, remember to press Save to save your changes. Pressing Close will hide the menu. The chart will revert back to the default color schema Edit Application page when you press the Clear to Default button.

Clicking Edit Legend will take you to the legend configuration menu. Here, you can enable or disable the map legend, and customize its looks. When you're done, remember to press Submit to save your changes. Pressing Back will take you to the previous menu.

You can set a number formatting for numeric legend values. The list of formatting options is as follows:

  • [Anything] : Label information will be displayed inside the brackets, where ‘Anything’ label is entered. This can be used for currency formatting. (i.e. [$]#,##0.00)
  • #,## : Adds a comma separator. This keyword also requires adding “0” or “0.x” to the end (i.e. #,##0.00).
  • 0 : The number will be rounded to the nearest whole number.
  • 0.0 : The number will be rounded to one decimal place. More zeroes added to the right means more decimal places allowed. (i.e. 0.000 means 3 numbers after the decimal)
  • s : Adds SI-prefix to numbers. (i.e. a format like #,##0.00s will be displayed as 45M with a value of 45150000. Adding one more zero before the ‘s’ will give 45.1M.)
  • % : Converts the number into a percentage. This works like the “s” keyword. The values will be multiplied by 100.

Clicking Edit Tooltip will take you to the tooltip configuration menu. You can enable or disable, and customize tooltips that are displayed when you mouse over the map elements. When you're done, remember to press Submit to save your changes. Pressing Back will take you to the previous menu

You can set a number or date formatting for tooltip contents using "{keyword:#,##0.00}". Data field names are also aplicable to tooltip contents using "[FieldName:#,##0.00]". A list of available formatting options is given below:

  • [Anything] : Label information will be displayed inside the brackets, where ‘Anything’ label is entered. This can be used for currency formatting. (i.e. [$]#,##0.00)
  • #,## : Adds a comma separator. This keyword also requires adding “0” or “0.x” to the end (i.e. #,##0.00).
  • 0 : The number will be rounded to the nearest whole number.
  • 0.0 : The number will be rounded to one decimal place. More zeroes added to the right means more decimal places allowed. (i.e. 0.000 means 3 numbers after the decimal)
  • s : Adds SI-prefix to numbers. (i.e. a format like #,##0.00s will be displayed as 45M with a value of 45150000. Adding one more zero before the ‘s’ will give 45.1M.)
  • % : Converts the number into a percentage. This works like the “s” keyword. The values will be multiplied by 100.
  • AM/PM: Adds 12-hour clock format.
  • YYYY: Adds full year.
  • YY: Adds last two digits of the year.
  • mmmm: Adds full month name.
  • mmm: Adds abbreviated month name.
  • mm: Adds month as a decimal number. (i.e. 01, 12]
  • dddd: Adds full weekday name.
  • ddd: Adds abbreviated weekday name.
  • dd: Adds weekday as a decimal number. (i.e. 01, 12]
  • HH: Adds hours as a decimal number.
  • MM: Adds minutes as a decimal number.
  • SS: Adds seconds as a decimal number.

Clicking Edit Labels will take you to the label configuration menu. Here, you can enable or disable the map labels, and customize their looks. When you're done, remember to press Submit to save your changes. Pressing Back will take you to the previous menu.

You can set label contents to include data values using "{keyword}". Full list of supported keywords:

  • {label}: Places the corresponding label field data in the label.
  • {code}: Places the corresponding abbreviation data in the label.
  • {measure}: Places the corresponding measure field data in the label.

You can set a number or date formatting for label contents using "{keyword:#,##0.00}". Data field names are also aplicable to tooltip contents using "[FieldName:#,##0.00]". A list of available formatting options is given below:

  • [Anything] : Label information will be displayed inside the brackets, where ‘Anything’ label is entered. This can be used for currency formatting. (i.e. [$]#,##0.00)
  • #,## : Adds a comma separator. This keyword also requires adding “0” or “0.x” to the end (i.e. #,##0.00).
  • 0 : The number will be rounded to the nearest whole number.
  • 0.0 : The number will be rounded to one decimal place. More zeroes added to the right means more decimal places allowed. (i.e. 0.000 means 3 numbers after the decimal)
  • s : Adds SI-prefix to numbers. (i.e. a format like #,##0.00s will be displayed as 45M with a value of 45150000. Adding one more zero before the ‘s’ will give 45.1M.)
  • % : Converts the number into a percentage. This works like the “s” keyword. The values will be multiplied by 100.
  • AM/PM: Adds 12-hour clock format.
  • YYYY: Adds full year.
  • YY: Adds last two digits of the year.
  • mmmm: Adds full month name.
  • mmm: Adds abbreviated month name.
  • mm: Adds month as a decimal number. (i.e. 01, 12]
  • dddd: Adds full weekday name.
  • ddd: Adds abbreviated weekday name.
  • dd: Adds weekday as a decimal number. (i.e. 01, 12]
  • HH: Adds hours as a decimal number.
  • MM: Adds minutes as a decimal number.
  • SS: Adds seconds as a decimal number.

Clicking Edit Animation will take you to the animation configuration menu. Here, you can customize the animation behavior for maps. When you're done, remember to press Submit to save your changes. Pressing Back will take you to the previous menu.


Visible

The Visible property sets the conditions under which the map will be visible. This can be set to Always or Never.

If there are any Boolean Named Ranges (BNR) defined in your workbook (i.e. single named ranges that evaluate to TRUE or FALSE), then an additional option (By Value Of) will be available. This option allows you to configure a Boolean named range that determines whether or not this section is visible. This can either be calculated or input-based.