Skill Level

Beginner

Accessing the Tool

Microsoft Office, including Excel, is a licensed suite of software that requires purchase (Office 2015 or earlier) or a subscription (Office 365). To get a free 1-month trial, or purchase a monthly subscription or license, go to https://products.office.com/en-us/try.

General How-To

In Excel, open a workbook that has the data you want to map in a table. Note: Your table must have at least one geographic data element per row (such as state, Zip Code, city, county, countries/regions, or longitudes and latitude). This guidance helps you structure your data properly for mapping.

To make a 2-D Map:

1. Click on any cell in that table.
2. Select Insert – Maps – Filled Map.
3. You can format the map and add data labels similarly to how you would edit a chart.

To make a 3-D Map:

1. Click on any cell in that table.
2. Select Insert – 3D Maps.
3. 3D Maps uses Bing to geocode your data. After a few moments, the globe will appear next to the first screen of the Layer Pane.
4. Then, in the Data area, change the visualization to “Region,” and a new field box will appear called “Value.”. Click and drag the variable you wish to map to the “Value” box.
5. The “+” and “-” magnify and reduce the zoom, and the direction keys pivot the map in 3D.

View an example 3-D map and step-by-step instructions for recreating the example. For more details from Microsoft, view the guidance .

Limitations

The number of data points displayed at once is currently limited to 1,000. This is only for the current view of the data. For example, 1,000 data points can be displayed in the U.S. view, 1,000 data points can be displayed for Europe, etc. This also holds when zooming in on particular regions.

Skill Level

Medium

Accessing the Tool

Tableau Public can be downloaded for free.

General How-To

See Tableau’s resources section for step-by-step tutorial videos, including initial data setup.

Tips for Creating Effective Displays

• Tableau has background data layers from census data, such as U.S. population and other demographics, which can be automatically overlaid in any map visual (Figure 9).
• Switch the display from Automatic to Filled Map if you want areas (like cities) to be colored polygons, not flagged points.

Limitations

• For the free Tableau Public software, any saved workbooks are available online — so do not use it for confidential data!
• For very large data sets or private data services, Tableau requires purchasing a Tableau Business plan.
• When embedding this application, be aware that application headings may appear that could be distracting for users.

Figure 9: Example of Polygon Census Data Overlay, American Indian Population in Maine, 2015

Skill Level

Beginner

Accessing the Tool

BatchGeo’s basic mapping services are available for free.

General How-To

Take a look at BatchGeo’s Excel spreadsheet to see an example of how to best set up data for this tool. Once you have data with header rows, copy and paste it into the site’s homepage table. Click Validate and Set Options to verify that BatchGeo has correctly identified the locations. Click Map Now for immediate results.
BatchGeo will email you a link to your map and an embed code for direct integration of the map into a webpage.

Tips for Creating Effective Displays

• Differentiate your map from other Google Maps with BatchGeo’s six styles; select Show Advanced Options to explore.

Figure 10: Customization Options in BatchGeo

Limitations

• You need a Pro account to log on to the site to view and manage all your created maps, so keep track of the autogenerated emails that BatchGeo sends with your map links, which allow you to access, link to, and edit your maps.
• BatchGeo is designed for nonprogrammers. The flip side of its ease of use is more limited customization options (for example, you can’t change the HTML to alter the formatting of data windows beyond the preset styles).