Explore Geographical Relationhips in REST Data with Power Map

The CData ODBC Driver for REST is easy to set up and use with self-service analytics solutions like Power BI: Microsoft Excel provides built-in support for the ODBC standard. This article shows how to load the current REST data into Excel and start generating location-based insights on REST data in Power Map.

Create an ODBC Data Source for REST

To connect to REST data, your application will use connection properties defined in the data source name (DSN).

Below is a typical connection string:

DataModel=Relational;URI=C:/people.xml;Format=XML;

You can configure the DSN in the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator. This is the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for a guide to use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN for REST data.

Import REST Data into Excel

You can import data into Power Map either from an Excel spreadsheet or from Power Pivot. For a step-by-step guide to use either method to import REST data, see the "Using the ODBC Driver" section in the help documentation.

Geocode REST Data

After importing the REST data into an Excel spreadsheet or into PowerPivot, you can drag and drop REST entities in Power Map. To open Power Map, click any cell in the spreadsheet and click Insert -> Map.

In the Choose Geography menu, Power Map detects the columns that have geographic information. In the Geography and Map Level menu in the Layer Pane, you can select the columns you want to work with. Power Map then plots the data. A dot represents a record that has this value. When you have selected the geographic columns you want, click Next.

Select Measures and Categories

You can then simply select columns: Measures and categories are automatically detected. The available chart types are Stacked Column, Clustered Column, Bubble, Heat Map, and Region.