Power BI Bing Map Locations

[TomNorth]

Hello,

I have some stats at street level for various locations across England. Table below is an example of how it looks.

Location	Parking Charges
Silver Street, Newark, Nottinghamshire	25
Orchard Street, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire	36
West Street, Lincoln, Lincolnshire	10
etc.	etc.

I have created a Bing Map in Power BI. I have set the "Data Category" to "Place", however, some of the locations appear in the wrong places i.e. sometimes in countries outside of the UK.

Can anyone tell me the logic Power BI Bing Map goes through when it finds a location? If I go to bing maps https://www.bing.com/maps and put the exact same location, it finds the correct one. But when I put it into PowerBI it comes back with a different location?

I have also found the logic seems to change. For example, I have had some locations above map correctly, but then a couple of months later, the exact same address has moved to a different location. Not sure if this is related to a Power BI update?

Any advice on whats going on and how to get around this would be greatly appreciated. I think having postcode or long/latitude works, but is that the only way? As a whole street has several postcodes I dont have exact points on the map.

Thanks,

Tom

[v-yuta-msft · Accepted solution]

@TomNorth ,

This should be caused by the value in the cell can't be recognized correctly by power bi. Not sure if it's related to the power bi update. But I would suggest to refer to tips below to improve the underlying dataset:

1. Categorize geographic fields in Power BI Desktop

In Power BI Desktop, you can ensure fields are correctly geo-coded by setting the Data Category on the data fields. Select the desired table, go to the Advanced ribbon and then set the Data Category to Address, City, Continent, Country/Region, County, Postal Code, State or Province. These data categories help Bing correctly encode the date. To learn more, see Data categorization in Power BI Desktop. If you are live connecting to SQL Server Analysis Services, you will need to set the data categorization outside of Power BI using SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT).

2. Use more than one location column.
Sometimes, even setting the data categories for mapping isn't enough for Bing to correctly guess your intent. Some designations are ambiguous because the location exists in multiple countries or regions. For example, there's a Southampton in England, Pennsylvania, and New York.

Power BI uses Bing's unstructured URL template service to get the latitude and longitude coordinates based on a set of address values for any country. If your data doesn't contain enough location data, add those columns and categorize them appropriately.

For example, if you only have a City column, Bing may have a hard time geo-coding. Add additional geo columns to make the location unambiguous. Sometimes all it takes is adding one more location column to the dataset - in this case state/province. And don't forget to categorize it properly, see #1 above.

Make sure when each field only has the specific information tied to the categorization. For example, your City location field should be Southampton, not Southampton, New York. And Address location fields should be 1 Microsoft Way and not 1 Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA.

3. Use specific Latitude and Longitude

Add latitude and longitude values to your dataset. This removes any ambiguity and returns results more quickly. Latitude and Longitude fields must be in Decimal Number format, which you can set in the data model.

4. Use Place category for columns with full location information

While we encourage you to use geo-hierarchies in your maps, if you must use a single location column with full geographical information, you can set the data categorization to Place. For example, if the data in your column is full addresses, such as 1 Microsoft Way, Redmond Washington 98052, this generalized data category will work best with Bing.

More reference please check this doc:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/visuals/power-bi-map-tips-and-tricks

Community Support Team _ Jimmy Tao

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.