topic Re: SAS VA: Geo Region with Geo Coordinate(or Bubble) Map in SAS Visual Analytics

SAS VA: Geo Region with Geo Coordinate(or Bubble) Map

mduarte — Fri, 17 Nov 2017 03:24:18 GMT

Hi - I have two types of people - agents and users.

I would like to show user density relative to agent location on a geo map.

Preferable something similar to the included picture, taken from https://community.tableau.com/thread/126710

As a second option, I would like to show the users as one colour on the map (as a bubble, sized by count aggregated at the postcode level) and the agents as another colour on the map (as either a bubble or coordinate at the lat and lon cordinates o the agent). An example would look as follows (taken from: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/01/upshot/many-ways-to-map-election-results.html)

Is this possible in SAS VA vn 7.3 and if so, how can I go about doing this?

I have looked at the SAS Custom Graph Builder and there doesn't appear to be the option to overlay geo maps - however, I would love to stand corrected.

Thanks,

Marie

Re: SAS VA: Geo Region with Geo Coordinate(or Bubble) Map

FalkoSchulz — Fri, 17 Nov 2017 03:38:54 GMT

Hi Marie,

Unfortunately the regional overlay doesn't support the overlay of another plot. However you can use things like color or size to distinguish between different types (users/agents in your example). In VA 7.3 we don't support categorical data items for color roles (we do in VA 8.x) but you could use a display rule to achieve the same. The example below shows countries around the world with countries in North America colored red. The size of the bubble is determined by a data item representing the country's GDP:

I created a display rule to format the related countries. You can either use a expression based rule or directly color map countries by naming them.

If you have access to Esri ArcGIS - you may also utilize existing map services which already have regional information as per your requirement. In the following example the report uses an existing Esri map service showing population density by US county. Given the regional layer is part of the map service - you can overlay it with bubble or coordinates. In this case a bubble plot using a similar color mapping as shown in the previous example:

(report was created using VA 8.x but ArcGIS Online services are also supported in VA 7.3 or later)

Hope this helps. Falko

Re: SAS VA: Geo Region with Geo Coordinate(or Bubble) Map

mduarte — Fri, 17 Nov 2017 03:54:02 GMT

Hi Falko,

Thank-you for your response. I tried using a color-mapped value, however the drop down box only allows me to choose ID (which is my geography data item), it doesn't allow me to choose the category specifying agent/user.

Similarly, if I create an Indicator measure, 1 = Agent, 0 = User to use for the expression display rule. This aggregates at the postcode level. So if a postcode has both an agent and a user and I have selected minimum as the aggregation this will be 0.

I am not quite sure how to get the display rule to work for a non-geographic category.

Please note that I do not have access to ARGIS online ..

Re: SAS VA: Geo Region with Geo Coordinate(or Bubble) Map

FalkoSchulz — Fri, 17 Nov 2017 03:55:19 GMT

Yes, as I mentioned - the geo map doesn't support categorical items in 7.4. But you are on the right track with creating a numeric indicator (1/0). Just make sure to select 'average' or 'minimum' as default aggregation in the data panel so it doesn't get aggregated. You really only want to have 1's and 0's for your display rule.

Re: SAS VA: Geo Region with Geo Coordinate(or Bubble) Map

mduarte — Fri, 17 Nov 2017 04:00:59 GMT

Yes that is what I did, however some postcodes have both users and agents. So for these cases, minimum only shows the user and so I don't believe this method will work for me ..

Re: SAS VA: Geo Region with Geo Coordinate(or Bubble) Map

FalkoSchulz — Fri, 17 Nov 2017 04:07:24 GMT

hmm..but then this method wouldn't work anyway? Considering we only have one color per bubble. If your geographical data item is a postal code with both - what color would you expect? You really would need a pie chart (which we unfortunately don't support yet) showing a distribution of agents and users... I guess coloring by distinct value really only makes sense if you have a single value for the geographical data point.

You could consider a second visualization with just a single type or maybe a toggle button to switch between both..?

Re: SAS VA: Geo Region with Geo Coordinate(or Bubble) Map

mduarte — Fri, 17 Nov 2017 04:53:31 GMT

Okay, I have a sub-optimal solution, but I suppose it will have to do. I ended up sizing the bubbles according to number of users and coloring the bubbles red if agent count > 0 and blue otherwise. The ability to overlay geo-type maps (using the custom graph builder) would be ideal...

Re: SAS VA: Geo Region with Geo Coordinate(or Bubble) Map

mduarte — Fri, 17 Nov 2017 04:55:17 GMT

Thanks again for your suggestions !

Re: SAS VA: Geo Region with Geo Coordinate(or Bubble) Map

FalkoSchulz — Fri, 17 Nov 2017 06:02:37 GMT

Thanks Marie. Yes, there are plans to support multiple overlays for geo in the upcoming release. Thanks again for your feedback - I will pass this on to our development teams as well. Regards, Falko