Map visuals

As of the November 2017 release, Power BI currently provides four map visuals including the bubble map, filled map, shape map (in preview), and the ArcGIS Map. The bubble map plots location points over a world map and varies the size of the bubbles based on a value. The points on bubble maps can also be broken out across a dimension to provide additional context. The filled map and shape map visuals are forms of heat maps that use color and color intensity to distinguish specific areas of a map by a value, such as postal codes by population. 

The ArcGIS Map visual is the most powerful of the available geospatial visualizations and several custom map visuals are available in the Office Store including the Globe Map and the Flow Map. See Chapter 12, Applying Custom Visuals, Animation, and Analytics for details on the ArcGIS Map visual and using custom visuals. The Shape Map visual is currently still in preview and thus should only be used for testing purposes. The following URL provides documentation on the Shape Map http://bit.ly/2zS2afU. 

Per the Data category section in Chapter 9, Designing Import and DirectQuery Data Models, it's important to assign geographic data categories to columns. This information aids the map visuals in plotting the correct location when a value is associated with multiple locations (ambiguous locations). The following image from the Data view highlights the city category for a column:

Data category per column

Data categories can be assigned to columns from the modeling tab in Data view or the Report View. For DirectQuery datasets, these metadata properties can only be assigned from the Report View. Report authors should engage the dataset designer or BI team responsible for a dataset if data categories have not been assigned to columns needed for report development.

Additionally, for bubble and filled map visuals, hierarchies can be added to the location field well to avoid ambiguous results. For example, by adding the following hierarchy to the Location field well, the map visuals will only use the locations associated with their parent values, such as only the states of Australia. 

Geographic hierarchies in map visuals

For greater precision and performance with map visuals (excluding the Shape Map), latitude and longitude input field wells are available as alternative inputs to Location.