Mapping in Power BI

[JP8991]

I have always struggled with the lack of function in maps in Power BI.

Today's problem is I am trying to overlay some data to an Azure Map visual of Australia using a GeoJSON and then bind my data table to that layer on the map.

I have added my GEOJSON file to show Statistical Area 3 (SA3) regions of the country from the Australian Census as per the below:

As you can see that works fine, for reference this is an example of how the properties look in the GEOJSON.

properties {14}
SA3_CODE21 : 10103
SA3_NAME21 : Snowy Mountains
CHG_FLAG21 : 0
CHG_LBL21 : No change
SA4_CODE21 : 101
SA4_NAME21 : Capital Region
GCC_CODE21 : 1RNSW
GCC_NAME21 : Rest of NSW
STE_CODE21 : 1
STE_NAME21 : New South Wales
AUS_CODE21 : AUS
AUS_NAME21 : Australia
AREASQKM21 : 14284.5857
LOCI_URI21 : http://linked.data.gov.au/dataset/asgsed3/SA3/10103

The important bit here is the highlighted SA3_CODE21 field, I am trying to bind this to my fact table that looks like this so that I can overlay my Licensed Places data, I have ensured that my SA3_CODE21 field is formatted as text (string).

SA3_CODE21	Licensed Places
10102	1,458
10103	358
10104	1,189
10105	754
10106	985
10201	4,739
10202	3,840
10301	1,158
10302	1,203
10303	878

However, when I drop the SA3_CODE21 field in the location field in the visual it plots all of my SA3 Codes all over the world.

How do I fix this?

[JP8991]

Thanks, really good explanation however it is so dissapointing that Microsoft has such poor mapping functionality in Power BI, it is a really poorly implemented area of Power BI and always has been in my view.

The Shape Map (see below) does what I want using the location field however the performance is so bad it is basically unusable.

Where as the much more user friendly Azure Map with the SA3 code set in the Location field does not.

[Anonymous]

Hi @JP8991 

The reference layer overlays an uploaded GeoJSON file on top of the map. For the original map, you still have to provide multiple sources of location information (such as country/region, state, city, street address and zip code) in the Location field to guarantee more accurate results and eliminate ambiguity that would prevent a specific location to be determined. You can also add latitude and longitude data of areas to improve the accuracy. 

In your case, you are using SA3 codes. Statistical Areas Level 3 (SA3) are geographical areas built from whole Statistical Areas Level 2 (SA2). SA3s are designed to provide a regional breakdown of Australia. I'm not sure if Azure Map can recognize SA3 codes as effective Geocoding in Australia. From current result, it seems failed. You may try adding a Country column with value "Australia" or AU in your data table, categorize it as Country/region and add it to Location field too. If this still doesn't help, you may have to use other location fields or latitude/longitude fields instead of the SA3 codes to improve the accuracy. 

Best Regards,
Jing
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