Wouldn't it be great if you could add a map in your Excel spreadsheet the same way you add charts?
Well folks, you can! Both Microsoft and ESRI have released map extensions to Excel 2013/365.
Microsoft one is called GeoFlow and is still only a preview. It expects your data either to have a latitude/longitude columns populated or an address that it can geocode against. Geocoding can be done to address level or just in city, post code or locality.
GeoFlow is pseudo-3D (meaning it uses globe but no terrain) showing results as stacked bars or hotspots. You can select from multiple basemaps but these are more color palettes rather than traditional (e.g. aerial, standard, terrain, topo).
ESRI Has released their Maps series to Excel too. This interface uses the same REST API ESRI has used on all their BI, EAM and CRM implementations. It sits comfortably within Excel and looks like it is at home.
ESRI Maps supports geocoding, latitude/longitude pairs, traditional basemaps, clustering and hotspotting on 2D maps and some additional features around labeling and grouping.
Both products are very fast, require no Geospatial expertise, nor taining/manuals. Both are free downloads although ESRI use their cloud service so you need to register for it to get some free tokens.
I am in a middle of thorough comparison of these 2 products right now, so will release my findings (with screenshots) later on my stories blog - so watch this space!
In the meanwhile google/bing them out and give them a go!
Well folks, you can! Both Microsoft and ESRI have released map extensions to Excel 2013/365.
Microsoft one is called GeoFlow and is still only a preview. It expects your data either to have a latitude/longitude columns populated or an address that it can geocode against. Geocoding can be done to address level or just in city, post code or locality.
GeoFlow is pseudo-3D (meaning it uses globe but no terrain) showing results as stacked bars or hotspots. You can select from multiple basemaps but these are more color palettes rather than traditional (e.g. aerial, standard, terrain, topo).
ESRI Has released their Maps series to Excel too. This interface uses the same REST API ESRI has used on all their BI, EAM and CRM implementations. It sits comfortably within Excel and looks like it is at home.
ESRI Maps supports geocoding, latitude/longitude pairs, traditional basemaps, clustering and hotspotting on 2D maps and some additional features around labeling and grouping.
Both products are very fast, require no Geospatial expertise, nor taining/manuals. Both are free downloads although ESRI use their cloud service so you need to register for it to get some free tokens.
I am in a middle of thorough comparison of these 2 products right now, so will release my findings (with screenshots) later on my stories blog - so watch this space!
In the meanwhile google/bing them out and give them a go!