Pragmatic Works Nerd News

Power BI Custom Visuals - Heatmap

Written by Devin Knight | Sep 21, 2017

In this module, you will learn how to use the Heatmap Custom Visual.  The Heatmap is useful for showing data density on a map. It does this well because it aggregates data points and plots them to colors on a map.

Module 69 – Heatmap

Downloads

Key Takeaways:

  • Shows density of data on a map
  • Uses Bing Maps REST Services
  • Ability to animate the Heatmap over time

This Heatmap shows customers of various credit agencies and their complaints.

  • Under the Format paintbrush, there are several settings that you can configure to adjust the tooltip appearance.
  • Under the Legend setting, you can change the appearance of the legend. You can change the position, font size and what elements of the legend are actually displayed.

  • The Renderer properties allow you to change the type of maps that are shown, as well as how large each value is displayed and if the value on the map should be transparent. You can also select how you want the aggregated values to be displayed using the Measure property.

  • Depending on the type of map you select in the Renderer section, you will see either settings for Heat map or Contour map. These sections allow you to customize the way the thresholds are displayed for either map style.

  • If a column is placed in the Group field, that can be easily used to remove certain values from being displayed in the visual.

  • Under the Animation section, you can control how the visual plays through the results on the visual. The Group field is what is used for the animation.

  • Finally, the Map section allows you to control the interactions users will have with the map. By changing the Zoom and Pan settings, you can turn on/off the ability to freely move around the map.

You can also adjust the background color, add a border around the visual and lock the aspect ratio under the Format section.

Find Out More

You will always be able to find this video module and advanced viewing of future modules on the Pragmatic Works On-Demand Training platform or view my previous blog posts.