How to Use ArcGIS in Power BI

Combining your business data with geographical context can reveal patterns you never would have seen in a spreadsheet. By pairing the analytical power of Power BI with the advanced mapping capabilities of ArcGIS, you can create interactive, data-rich maps that go far beyond simple pinpoints. This article is a hands-on guide to using the ArcGIS Maps visual directly within your Power BI reports.

What Exactly is ArcGIS for Power BI?

You might be familiar with Power BI's built-in map visuals, which are great for plotting basic location data. ArcGIS for Power BI, developed in a partnership between Microsoft and the mapping technology leader Esri, takes this a big leap forward. Think of it as a specialized mapping upgrade that lives right inside your visualizations pane. It allows you to transform a simple map into a dynamic analytical surface.

Instead of just plotting points on a map, you can:

• Overlay your data on different base maps like street maps, satellite imagery, or topographical charts.
• Add demographic reference layers, such as median income, population density, or age distribution, to give your business data critical context.
• Use different visualization techniques like heat maps to show density or clustering to manage large volumes of data points.
• Incorporate advanced location analysis and layers directly from your organization's Esri ArcGIS platform (if you have an account).

The standard ArcGIS visual is included for free with Power BI. This version is incredibly powerful and covers most common use cases. For users who need access to private corporate data layers or advanced geocoding, there's also a seamless sign-in option for a paid ArcGIS account, unlocking even more enterprise features.

Getting Started: Adding the ArcGIS Visual to Your Report

First things first, you need to add the ArcGIS map to your report canvas. The visual is pre-installed with Power BI Desktop, so there's nothing extra to download. Just follow these steps:

1. Open Your Report in Power BI Desktop: Fire up Power BI and load a report that has some form of location data. This could be anything from country, state, and city names to zip codes or even precise latitude and longitude coordinates.

2. Locate the Visualizations Pane: On the right side of your Power BI window, you'll see the Visualizations pane. This is where you select the charts, graphs, and maps for your report.

3. Select the ArcGIS for Power BI Icon: Scroll through the list of visuals until you see the Esri ArcGIS Maps icon - it’s a green globe symbol. Click on it.

4. Add it to the Canvas: An empty map visual will appear on your report canvas. You may see a pop-up window prompting you to sign in. For now, you can close this. You're using the standard, free version by default, which is all you need to get started.

Mapping Your Data: From Table to Map

Now that the map object is on your canvas, it's time to feed it some data. When you select the ArcGIS visual, you'll notice several data fields appear in the Visualizations pane. These tell the map how to render your information.

• Location: For text-based locations like addresses, cities, states, or zip codes.
• Latitude / Longitude: For precise coordinates. Using these is a best practice for accuracy and speed.
• Size: Use a numerical value here to make the size of your map symbols proportional. Perfect for showing sales volume, store traffic, or number of orders.
• Color: Use a categorical field (like "Product Category") or a numerical field (like "Profit Margin") to color your map symbols.
• Time: If your data has a date/time component, you can add it here to enable time-based animations on your map.
• Find Similar: A powerful field used for analysis, allowing ArcGIS to find other locations with similar attributes.
• Tooltips: Drag any extra data fields here to appear when you hover over a map point (e.g., store manager, sales rep).

Example: Mapping Sales by State

Let's use a common business scenario: you have sales data and you want to see which states have the highest sales volume.

1. From your Fields list, find your state/province dimension (e.g., 'State'). Drag and drop it into the Location field well for the ArcGIS visual.
2. Next, find your core sales measure (e.g., 'Total Sales'). Drag and drop it into the Size field well.

Instantly, the map will geocode your state names and place a dot on each one. More importantly, the size of each dot will be directly proportional to its 'Total Sales' value. You've just created a proportional symbol map in seconds, making it immediately obvious where your largest markets are.

Customizing Your Map and Digging Deeper

This is where ArcGIS really starts to shine. You're not stuck with the default look and feel. The visual has a robust set of editing tools that let you fully customize the map's appearance and analytical focus.

Step 1: Open the Map Tools

With your ArcGIS map selected, click the ellipsis icon (...) in the top-right corner of the visual and select 'Edit'. This opens the in-visual tool palette where all the magic happens.

Step 2: Change the Basemap

Don't love the default grey map? You don't have to keep it. In the tool palette, go to the Basemap section. You’ll have several options to choose from, such as:

• Street Map: For when you need road names and city labels.
• Satellite: Provides realistic satellite and aerial imagery.
• Dark Gray Canvas: A sleek, modern basemap that makes bright data colors pop.

Changing the basemap can dramatically improve the readability and aesthetic of your map, helping your data tell a clearer story.

Step 3: Adjust Symbol Style (Symbology)

How your data is represented visually on the map is called symbology. The default circles are useful, but you can get much more specific. In the ArcGIS tool palette, click on Symbol style. Here you can control:

• Symbol shape: Change the circle to a square, diamond, or other options.
• Symbol color: Set a single color or control the ramp for color-coded maps. Change an entire category of symbols using the ‘Layer styling’ menu.
• Transparency: Adjust the transparency of your symbols to see the basemap behind them more clearly.
• Outlines: Add an outline and control its color and thickness to make symbols stand out.

This fine-tuned control ensures your map adheres to your company’s branding or the specific analytical point you’re trying to make.

Step 4: Explore Different Map Themes

Within the in-visual editor, go into Layer styling > Style by, here, you can switch the entire theme of your map visualization.

• Size: This is the proportional symbol map we already created.
• Color: Instead of size, the symbols are colored based on a numerical value. For example, you could map stores by profit margin, where highly profitable stores are bright green and less profitable stores are light yellow.
• Heat Map: Forget individual dots. A heat map shows data density. It's perfect for visualizing customer locations to see where incidents or sales are most concentrated, displaying hot spots of activity in bright colors.
• Clustering: Have thousands of data points to plot? Plotting them all can make the map unreadable. Clustering groups nearby points into a single symbol with a number indicating how many points it contains. As you zoom in, the clusters break apart, revealing the individual points.

Adding Context with Reference Layers

This feature alone is reason enough to use ArcGIS over the standard Power BI maps. A reference layer is an additional layer of geographic data that you overlay on your map to give your own data essential context. For example, you can plot your store locations, and then add a reference layer showing the median household income of the surrounding area.

1. In the map tools, click on Reference Layer in the analysis tools tab.
2. You can choose from publicly available data on ArcGIS or use the extensive demographic data provided by Esri under the Demographics tab.
3. Browse and select a layer. For our example, you could search for "USA Median Household Income".
4. Add it to the map. The map will now display a semi-transparent colored layer representing income levels, with your store locations plotted on top. You can instantly see if your stores are located in high-income or low-income zones, an insight that would be impossible without this spatial context.

Final Thoughts

Integrating ArcGIS with Power BI moves your location-based analysis from simple dots on a map to a rich, interactive analytical experience. By customizing basemaps, changing symbology, applying spatial tools like clustering, and adding invaluable demographic context with reference layers, you can uncover stories in your data that would otherwise remain hidden in rows and columns.

At Graphed, we focus on helping you get from raw data to actionable insight as quickly as possible. While ArcGIS unlocks powerful geospatial analysis, the challenge of getting all your underlying business data - like sales data from Shopify, ad performance from Google Ads, or lead data from Salesforce - into a clean, report-ready format still exists. We solve this by connecting to all your marketing and sales platforms, allowing you to create comprehensive dashboards instantly using simple, conversational language. With your core business data automated and unified in Graphed, you can spend less time wrangling CSVs and more time uncovering high-value insights, whether in a dashboard or an advanced map.