How to define your vizMap application - Dictionary

This is part of the Step by Step Guides to get started with some of the more complex topics on this site. The full story on vizMap applications can be found at Data Driven Mapping applications

What you need

GoogleMapping.xlsm from the Download Complete Projects page

Objective

To create a dictionary of data that will be used and referenced by your Data Driven Mapping applications.

Steps

You will already have prepared your data, either by joining the transactions to the various master and lookup files as per How to prepare for your vizMap application - Data and How to prepare for your VizMap application - Parameters, or you will have created your matched transactional and locational data in some other way. Now it is time to prepare the vizMap Dictionary.

What is the dictionary

First open the sheet - step by step parameters. You will see a parameter block as below

The purpose of this dictionary in to attach dictionary names to the columns that are in the Joined Data sheet. From now on, these data items will be referred to as their dictionary names. These names will also be used as column names in any visualization tables or graphs that we create. Note that these names are case sensitive in the generated javaScript application. Every column that you will reference when setting up your vizMap application must be mentioned here. Note that some fields are mandatory - marked in red and green. 

  • the fields beginning with marker.. are for the same purpose as covered in How to Overlay circles on a Map, Quicklinks and Categories and How to use alternative Map icons and are optional.
  • The mandatory fields are required to be able to plot on a map or on earth and to provide labels and content for mouseover and infowindows.
  • Everything else is optional and will be referenced when we describe the visualizations later on. It is possible to use the same column to provide data for different vizMap data fields. For example, Address ID is used multiple times above. You will see why when we look at VizMap Measures

What just happened ?

The dictionary that describes all the data that will be used in the vizMap application is now created and we can use it to define the contents associated with each location on the generated map or earth visualization.

What Next

Read more about the detail of how all this works and walk through the source code at VizMap Dictionary see some more Step by Step Guides. In the meantime why not join our forum,follow the blog or follow me on twitter to ensure you get updates when they are available.


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