Azure Maps: (Blank) values treated as location data

[AMeyersen]

I have an Azure map showing sales data by customer location.

Some values are not mapped to an actual customer (correct behaviour), so there are some values where customer country and city is empty. PBI shows these as (Blank).

When I view the map on country level, those values do not appear (correct behaviour).

When I drill down on city level, Azure Maps shows these values on a place in Maryland, USA which is apparently named "Blank".

When I change my browser language to German, the empy city value translates to (Leer). Leer happens to be a town in northern Germany, so Azure Maps tells me the customers live in this place.

Does anyone know any settings to make sure Azure Maps does not treat empty values like actual location names but just like empty values?

It's very irritating, if sales from e.g. New Zealand show up in USA or Germany.

[AMeyersen]

Has anyone encountered the same issue?
I haven't been able to solve it yet. Any ideas are highly appreciated!

Please do not post generic responses from ChatGPT though...

[johnbasha33]

@AMeyersen 

It seems like Azure Maps is interpreting empty or null values as actual location names, leading to incorrect visualizations on the map. To prevent this behavior and ensure that empty values are treated as such, rather than being interpreted as actual location names, you can try the following approaches:

1. **Data Cleansing in Power BI:**
- Before visualizing the data on the map, ensure that the empty values for country and city are properly handled in Power BI.
- You can use Power Query Editor to replace empty values with a placeholder value (e.g., "Unknown") or remove records with empty values altogether, depending on your data analysis requirements.

2. **Data Preprocessing in Azure Maps:**
- If possible, preprocess your data before visualizing it on the map using Azure Maps.
- You can filter out records with empty or null values for country and city before passing the data to Azure Maps for visualization.

3. **Customize Visualization Settings:**
- Check if there are any settings or configurations in Azure Maps that allow you to customize how empty or null values are handled.
- Look for options to specify default behavior for handling empty or null values, such as ignoring them or displaying them differently on the map.

4. **Language Settings:**
- You mentioned that changing the browser language affects how Azure Maps interprets empty values. Check if there are any language-specific settings in Azure Maps that influence this behavior.
- If possible, adjust the language settings or locale settings to ensure consistent behavior across different languages.

5. **Contact Azure Support:**
- If none of the above approaches resolve the issue, consider reaching out to Azure Support for further assistance.
- They may be able to provide insights or suggest additional solutions to address the problem with how empty values are handled in Azure Maps.

By taking these steps, you should be able to prevent Azure Maps from interpreting empty values as actual location names and ensure accurate visualization of your sales data on the map.

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[AMeyersen]

Hi @johnbasha33 ,

thank you for your reply.

I am well aware of workarounds like replacing NULL values with some default values or filter on visual level. For several reasons that's something I do not really want to do.

Since the behaviour of Azure Maps is clearly not fully correct in this case, I'd love to find a way to show the values correctly.

I'm trying to phrase my question a bit more precisely:

Does anyone know specific settings on the Azure Maps visual or in the Power BI service to avoid empty location data being treated as actual location data.