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Microsoft Idea

Power BI

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let maps recognize data category hierarchy automatically

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Ingeborg Hawighorst's profile image

Ingeborg Hawighorst on 06 Apr 2017 15:36:36

Currently maps don't seem to recognize the relationship between a country and a city, even if both columns have been set up with the corresponding data category in the model.

In a table with cities as "cities" and country as "country" in the data model, the cities are plotted in arbitrary countries instead of the country specified in the column for country.

Please let Power BI maps acknowledge the hierarchy of existing typed data categories and plot depending data points only in relation to their parent category context.

You may not feel the pain if you're in the US. I have a data set with cities all in New Zealand, but when I map them, they end up all over the globe, despite the "country" column specifying "NZ".

Please add your vote if you ever found a mapped dot outside of your desired country or continent.

Comments (5)
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Dicky on 05 Jul 2020 22:55:33

RE: let maps recognize data category hierarchy automatically

Agreed but even better would be to allow multiple fields to pin point the location so even if my country field isn't called country it can still be added along with Zip Code to pin point a location.

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Alexander on 05 Jul 2020 22:53:58

RE: let maps recognize data category hierarchy automatically

The filled map recently has gotten so much worse. Please fix this!

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Andrew T. on 05 Jul 2020 22:49:18

RE: let maps recognize data category hierarchy automatically

It's definitely an issue. Try mapping Birmingham, AL. You will find it in England. Similar examples exist. It's a little surprising when you can categorize the data as Location data.

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Joop van den Heuvel on 05 Jul 2020 22:47:37

RE: let maps recognize data category hierarchy automatically

Seriously, this is my number 1 issue with maps. Please fix this!

Working from the Netherlands, it looks like Maps defaults to *every* other country in the world, before the map plots anything in the Netherlands: even the Dutch town of Breukelen sometimes gets plotted to Brooklyn, NY (which was named after Breukelen).

The only work-around that fixes this is to *always* concatenate country with any other location data, like city/province/etc. as a single string in the same field (eg.: 'Breukelen, The Netherlands').

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Dan English on 05 Jul 2020 22:45:41

RE: let maps recognize data category hierarchy automatically

I would agree, particularly if you have defined a hierarchy for geography going from country->State->City->Zip Code then this should work. The context should be passed as you drill down into the data.