Target
- With increased data usage, location-based decision making has become an intrinsic part of business processes.
- Understand what geospatial analysis is and how you can do it in Tableau.
Introduction
Like many of you, I'm a heavy user of app-based services like Uber taxi services / Wave or Swigy or Zomato food delivery app. Before I used to be amazed at how well these location-based services work so well. What, how they decide and optimize their routes to deliver products or manage transportation services.
Later i found out, all these things are possible, thanks to the ability to map locations and geospatial analysis. Such analysis gives the business organization an edge to provide better customer services in a profitable manner..
In this article, Let's try to understand geospatial analysis and prepare a map-based Tableau visualization.
Note: If you are more interested in learning concepts in an audiovisual format, we have this full article explained in the video below. If that is not the case, you can keep reading.
I'm using Public Table, that you can download for free. The data we will use is the EE sample superstore dataset.. UU. That is widely used in the Tableau community. available to you within Tableau.
What is geospatial analysis?
Most companies manage and store their data in the form of spreadsheets with rows and columns. It is quite difficult for them to generate knowledge from that.
For instance, if a company wants to know in which region of a state the majority of its customers are located or to say in which state the demand for the product is greater. There could be endless scenarios related to location-based decision making.
Here's our favorite EE Super Store dataset. UU. In this, we have columns based on location like Country / Region, Town, State and Zip Codes along with other measures like Sales, Quantity, Discount, Benefit. Now the question is how we can combine these pieces of information to generate insights such as which geographic location is contributing the most in
Here comes the geospatial analysis in the image. Thanks to Geospatial Analysis, we can collect, collect, store and analyze generate insights from the same information. It is a powerful concept that has spilled many business ideas around the world.. Maps make it easy to recognize patterns that were previously hidden in spreadsheets.
Take a look at the image below. This is a classic example of displaying a map in Tableau, how well it shows sales figures by states in the United States. After looking at this map, in an instant, your company's sales team can recognize which state is doing well and which is not and can use it to prepare your strategy. Isn't it amazing?
We will create the same visualization later in this article..
Geospatial Analysis Use Cases
Before moving on to the practical part, Let's first understand some of the most popular business use cases for geospatial analysis..
Sales and Marketing
Geospatial analysis can be used to understand customer segments for better targeting by sales and marketing teams. Information-based targeting will lead to a larger customer base.
Transport and logistics
Similarly, Location-based transportation and logistics planning can result in cost reduction and efficient use of the organization's resources. In summary, significantly helps in supply chain management.
Situational intelligence
Then comes situational intelligence, via map-based visualization, companies better understand situations and, at the same time, plan accordingly. For instance, why is there an increase or decrease in customer response in a particular region, it is due to some festival or holiday season.
Risk analysis
Risk analysis is another area in which insurance companies can obtain information on the regions in which they are overexposed.
Optimization and strategic growth
Geospatial analysis helps organizations understand the areas in which they can expand their operations. Expansion depends on multiple factors such as time, efforts and money, so you must be more insightful.
Satellite images
It is the most popular geospatial analysis use case. Every time you log into Google Maps to find out the location or how long it will take to reach your destination, say thanks to geospatial analysis.
This was just a look at the applications of geospatial analysis, to make you understand its effectiveness. Now, without forther delay, let's jump right into the practical and create our first map-based visualization in tableau.
Create your visualization
For this visualization, we will use the EE superstore dataset. UU. Once you are connected to the data, open the workbook and try to understand what are the location-based dimensions that we can use in our visualizations. As we can see, here we have country, Town, Condition, Postal codes in the dimensions panel, any of them can be used. I am using State to understand Sales distribution.
Paso 1
Now, in the first step, presione ctrl + select Status and Sales. Once the data is selected, click the Show Me button available in the upper right corner and select the recommended map. As shown in the following picture.
Here, we get nothing but a normal world map, so we must take a few more steps. The problem here is that there are multiple locations around the world with the same name, so we need to tell Tableau exactly what locations we want.
You will notice in the lower right corner of the map the 49 unknown messages. Just click on that and a popup will appear. In the pop-up window, click Edit location, now you will see another window. Here, select the country / Region and select the From field. Now that America appeared automatically, click ok.
You will instantly get your first map view in tableau. But still, is far from what we want, since it does not show any information.
Paso 2
Click on the drop-down menu available under the Marks card and select Map. Here we have our map of the United States. Even so, can i see a problem. I hope you also see that our sales measurement represents the size, but on a map, state size does not change, so it doesn't make any sense.
To solve this problem, remove the size sales and place the color card. Now we have our final visualization giving the distribution of Sales in different States. According to the map, California states, Texas and New York show the highest sales. Look at the map below.
Now you can play with the visualization as if you could change the map measurements and colors. On the following map, I have shown the distribution of profits in the states.
Looking at this map we can say that Texas is the least profitable state. Now we need to explore the options and strategies to increase profits there.. I will leave this task for you to let me know in the comment section if you have any ideas to do that.
EndNote
To sum up, In this article we learn about geospatial analysis and its important use cases in today's world of tech savvy. What's more, we have generated our first map-based visualizations in Tableau.
In case you're interested in learning more about visualization and Tableau, I will recommend you to follow our course. Tableau for beginners.
Feel free to comment below in case you have any complaints.
