Explore Geographical Relationships in Strava Data with Power Map

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

Create an ODBC Data Source for Strava

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.

To authenticate to Strava, and connect to your own data or to allow other users to connect to their data, you can use the OAuth standard.

Using OAuth Authentication

You must create a custom OAuth application to connect to Strava. To create a custom OAuth application:

1. Log into the Strava API Settings page
2. Create a new application or select an existing application
3. Set the "Authorization Callback Domain" to your callback URL domain (e.g. localhost)
4. Note down the Client ID and Client Secret

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

• AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
• InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.
• OAuthClientId: Set this to the Client ID from your Strava API application.
• OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the Client Secret from your Strava API application.
• CallbackURL: Set this to the redirect URI matching your application's callback domain.

Example connection string:

Profile=C:\profiles\Strava.apip;AuthScheme=OAuth;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackURL=http://localhost:33333;

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

Geocode Strava Data

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