Creating a map

You can create interactive geographic maps in the Charts section that visualize your geographic dataset data.

When you choose “Filled Map” for your new chart type, Spider Impact creates a map with sample data. This sample data is the same as every other chart type, and it allows you to explore the functionality without needing to hook it up to data first.

Map levels

Maps show data from datasets that have geographic fields. The sample data shown by default is made-up numbers for every country. When you click “Map Levels” you can choose which levels of the geographic hierarchy you want to show on your map. Here we’re seeing 2D Earth broken into countries because those are the two levels that are turned on.

This is what it looks like when you turn on the Continent level. Our starting view is now the 2D Earth view broken into continents because those are the two highest levels that are turned on.

Next, we’ll turn on the 3D Earth level. You can’t have both 2D and 3D Earth, so the 2D Earth level automatically turns off. We can now see a 3D globe that slowly rotates on its own until you interact with it.

When you go to the Charts View tab, the map automatically resizes to fit available space. You can hover the mouse over a region to see its value in a tooltip.

When you click on a region, you’ll see a zooming animation and then that region in more detail. This Country level is the lowest map level we have enabled, so we can’t drill down any further. You can click the Back button to zoom out to the world map.

Map data

To show your real data on a map you need to first choose Set Data Source in the Data menu.

The data we’re choosing here is what numbers and colors you want to show up for each map region. In this example we’re going to choose the Customers dataset and “Number of Records” for the field. That means our chart numbers and colors are going to be the number of customers in each region.

Next we need to choose a geography field in the Customers dataset.

In this example we’ll choose the Postal Code field.

The map is now colored by the number of customers in each region.

When we change to the Charts View tab and hover over California, we can see that we have 5,804 customers there.

Clicking on California zooms to the state level and now colors the postal codes. This example shows how postal codes don’t always completely cover a state, especially in rural areas.

Starting view

The Starting View for maps is Auto by default. That means it starts showing the lowest map region that contains all of the data. In the customers example above, the view automatically started at the United States because all of the records in the Customers dataset were in the US.

You can choose a specific region to start on, though. Here we’re choosing the US state of New York as the starting view.

Now when we first view the chart we’ll see all of the postal codes in New York. This map also has the Country level turned on, however, so there’s a Back button to take us out to the country level.

Map colors

You can change the map’s colors by choosing “Filled Map Colors” in the Other menu.

By default maps use a light yellow to dark purple gradient broken into 6 segments.

You can change the color scheme and number of segments, however, as well as manually set the thresholds between color segments.

Here we’re showing the number of customers in an 11-segment blue color scheme.

Maps on dashboards

Maps, like all types of charts, work great on dashboards. Here we’re showing our customer map with speedometers and a dataset table widget.

Clicking on either a map region or the dataset table widget will apply a dataset filter for that region to the entire dataset.

Country-specific notes

Maps can drill below the country level wherever Spider Impact has a map of the next level down, which includes the states, provinces, and regions of most countries. Hover over any colored area to see its value, and click it to go deeper when there's more detail underneath. Spider Impact only offers that click when the next level can be drawn, so you'll never drill into an empty map.

The geographic hierarchy and terminology vary by country, so here are some things to keep in mind about postal codes, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

Postal codes

Postal codes are available for the United States and Canada. Because they cover two countries, postal code maps can start from the whole world: turn on “2D Earth”, “3D Earth”, or “Continent” in “Map Levels”. New postal code maps turn on “2D Earth” by default. When your data has postal codes in both countries, the map opens with Canada and the United States colored in, and you can click either one to drill down through its states or provinces to individual postal codes.

If a postal code map's highest level is “Country” and your data has postal codes in both countries, the map opens on just one of them with no Back button. Turn on “2D Earth” or “Continent” in “Map Levels” to see both countries.

Canada

You can enter a Canadian province or territory as the “State or Province” value by its name or its two-letter abbreviation, such as “Quebec”, “Québec”, or “QC”.

Canadian postal codes work just like US ZIP codes: drill into a province and each postal area is colored by your data. Canadian postal boundaries are published for the first three characters of a postal code, called the Forward Sortation Area (for example, K1A), so that's the level the map shows. Full six-character postal codes like K1A 0B1 match their area automatically, so there's no need to trim them first.

Saudi Arabia

For Saudi Arabia, enter a region as the “State or Province” value in your dataset's geographic fields. Both the official names in the geographic tree, like “Riyadh Region”, and everyday names and codes, like “Riyadh” and “SA-01”, will match. Each region is divided into governorates, which match a “County” field, and the governorates contain cities, which match a “City” field. A State or Province and a City are enough to reach the cities, so your data doesn't need a County field.

On a map, you can click into any of Saudi Arabia's regions.

Each region's governorates are colored by your data, each with its own value on hover, and you can click a governorate to see its cities.

Many governorate names in the geographic tree have accent marks, like “Khamīs Mushayţ”. You can type them without the accent marks, like “Khamis Mushayt”, and they'll still match. Names at different levels of the hierarchy can also use different transliterations of the same Arabic name. For example, the governorate “Khamīs Mushayţ” contains the city “Khamis Mushait”.

UAE

For the UAE, enter an emirate as the “State or Province” value in your dataset's geographic fields. Everyday English names and codes will match, like “Dubai”, “Sharjah”, “Ras Al Khaimah”, and “AE-SH”. Cities are available too, and a subdivision level may appear above the city level when you drill down.

Not all emirates have the same depth of geographic subdivisions. Some emirates have clearly defined subdivisions below the emirate level, while others do not. In those cases, the emirate itself is shown on the map at the subdivision level. Either way, you can click into any emirate on a map and go on down to its cities.