Explore Geographical Relationships in Postmark Data with Power Map

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

Create an ODBC Data Source for Postmark

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.

Using API Key Authentication

Postmark uses server API tokens to authenticate requests. Each Postmark server has its own API token, which controls access to messages, bounces, templates, and statistics associated with that server.

To obtain your Server API Token, log in to your Postmark account and navigate to the server you want to connect to. Go to API Tokens under the server settings and copy the token labeled Server API token.

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
• APIKey: Set this to your Postmark Server API Token. This value is sent as the X-Postmark-Server-Token header on every request.

Example connection string:

Profile=C:\profiles\Postmark.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings="APIKey=your-server-api-token"

Connecting to Postmark

Once the authentication is configured, you can connect to Postmark and query data from any of the available tables such as OutboundMessages, Bounces, and Templates.

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

Geocode Postmark Data

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