Explore Geographical Relationships in Dropbox Data with Power Map



Create data visualizations with Dropbox data in Power Map.

The CData ODBC Driver for Dropbox 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 Dropbox data into Excel and start generating location-based insights on Dropbox data in Power Map.

Create an ODBC Data Source for Dropbox

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Dropbox uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, you can use the embedded credentials or register an app with Dropbox.

See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for more information.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

Import Dropbox 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 Dropbox data, see the "Using the ODBC Driver" section in the help documentation.

Geocode Dropbox Data

After importing the Dropbox data into an Excel spreadsheet or into PowerPivot, you can drag and drop Dropbox 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.

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the Dropbox ODBC Driver to get started:

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Dropbox Icon Dropbox ODBC Driver

The Dropbox ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live Dropbox cloud storage, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access Dropbox like you would a database - access Files, Folders, Users, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.