Hello and welcome to our training video which will give you a general overview of the commonly used functionality within eSpatial.
In this video we will discuss:
- Styling your Data
- Filtering Data
- Creating Radius and Drive time Buffers
- Creating Heatmaps
- Saving Your Maps
- Sharing and Exporting
This video will focus on different ways you can visualize your data in eSpatial. You will learn how about the different styling capabilities we have to make visualizing your data easier such as color by value to visualize different account values or adding labels for the easy identification of your accounts. I will also discuss the benefits and how to create buffer maps and heat maps.
Styling your Data:
Styling your data can give greater context to your data. When you upload your data eSpatial will apply default styling settings, but you can edit the styling to distinguish between multiple datasets on your map or style your individual dataset to display more detail such as using color by value to display high and low value locations. Making sure your data is clear and easy to understand is very important to ensure your audience is engaged.
On my map I want to be able to quickly see where our higher value clients are as this will help us to prioritize them in the field. To do this I’m going to apply color by value.
- To start styling your data select the style button in your control panel:
- You can navigate between the datasets you want to style using the dataset dropdown in the style menu.
In default pin styling you can set the pin icon, the colour, size as well as the clustering level. Your clustering level is important depending on whether you want to see each individual pin location or if you want a cluster summary of the number of pins in the area.
- To style your data in colour by its value click on colour by value
- Use the drop down to select which column you wish to style by colour.
- You can add or remove a range click on the + or – icons and change a colour by clicking on the colour box.
- As the column I am using is an numeric type column eSpatial will apply a sequence of ranges for colour by value Columns. If you were to choose a text type to distinguish account owners or client types, you can color by up to 50 distinct values.
If I wanted to display where my high value clients are as well as the client types I can also turn on size by value which will change the size of my pins based on their numeric value. In this case I’m going to select my total billing column.
I can now see on my map the different client types along with where my higher value clients are located, my larger pins indicate my higher value clients.
Once I'm happy with my styling changes I can save them and exit styling.
Filtering Data
If I only want to see my highest value clients, I can filter my data in two ways.
Firstly, by filtering in my legend, if I hover over each sequence of values an eye icon will appear and if I select it to close the eye that range will be hidden on my map.
Alternatively, you can filter your data using your table by selecting the icon next to the column you wish to filter by and then selecting filter results. When the filter box appears, you can then select the values or range of values you wish to see. You map and table will then filter to display only that data.
Radius and drive time buffers:
Why Use Radius and Drive time buffers:
- A buffer map can be useful for scenario and recruitment planning, trip planning and territory designing.
- Creating a buffer from all locations is a great way to
- Visualize, understand and communicate your coverage (or gaps in your coverage) for your business.
- Analyzing your sales or service territories to improve efficiency.
- Identifying new locations for offices or franchises.
- Mapping all of your property locations to understand adjacency.
For this example, I want to see where an ideal location would be to see up a new clinic. To do this I first need to plot my potential locations. I can do this by typing an address into the address search or by dropping a pin. The Address Point button can be found in the Top Toolbar beside the Address Search box.
- When I click on the Address Point button a Point will be attached to the cursor.
- I then click on the map where I would like to place the point and the Information window will open.
- The address of where the point was plotted will be available in the info window.
- Any address search points or drop pins will be added to a new dataset, available only to the map they are on, called Address Points. This will be displayed in the Legend and the Control Panel as normal and can be styled but will not be listed in the library.
Now that I have my locations plotted, I can create a radius around my pins to see their area coverage.
Create a radius buffer:
- To create your radius buffer:
- Select the point you wish to add a radius buffer to.
- When the data window appears select the buffer option and choose radius.
- The radius buffer window will then appear from here you can select the following:
- Select whether you want to create a radius buffer from just the selected point or all the points in the selected dataset.
- Set your distance criteria such as miles, kilometres, feet etc.
- You can add up to 3 radii by selecting add radius
- Once all chosen radius distances are inputted select done.
- Your radius buffers will appear on your map.
If you wanted the see the coverage area of a certain driving time from each of your locations, the above steps can be repeated but instead of radius buffer you would select drive time buffer.
Once I have my buffers created, I want to see how many clients are within each buffer and their potential value so that I can decide on the best location to open a new clinic that will service as many of my existing clients as possible. I can see what clients would be with each buffer by filtering my data. To do this I:
- Click on the buffer I wish to see my filtered data for.
- Click on filter and then chose the dataset I wish to filter.
- You can see that my map and table will then be filtered to only show the points within this buffer.
Based on the insights I have received, the optimum location for my new clinic is Chicago because it has the most clients and highest value clients.
Regional Heatmaps:
Regional Heatmaps are a great way to indicate the aggregate/summarized or average values of some property or quantity in particular areas such as volume of sales for each state or sales territory by using graded differences in shading or colour. Regional Heatmaps can also be used to:
- Get an overview of your market performance.
- Quickly identify high and low performing areas.
- Uncover trends in sales of products in particular locations
- Quickly spot areas for further investigation based on the density of sales.
In this example I was to see where my high performing and low performing territories are. To do this I run a regional heatmap analysis of my sales data against my territory boundaries.
- To add Regional Heatmap analysis to my map I first select the analyze option in the control panel and then click on the Regional Heatmap button in the Analyze Data window.
- As you can see eSpatial has already automatically populated my point and region dataset dropdown selection. However, I can change the dataset by using the dropdown menu.
- If I had not already added a region dataset to my map, I could add my region boundaries by selecting Add Dataset. I am going to run my analysis using my territory boundaries; however, you can also use boundaries such as states and counties by going to the eSpatial datastore.
- For more information on how to create your own territory boundaries you can view our Territory management use case video.
- If your dataset contains pins located outside of your selected boundaries you can select include outside results, which would allow you to see the totals for pins that fall outside of your selected region dataset. As this Is not applicable for my selection, I'm going to leave it unticked.
- I then select complete and my regional heatmap will be created.
Once completed my map will display my territories in heatmap colors, clearing visualizing my high performing territories such as Ken and Gregs territories and my high performing areas such as Mick and Trudy.
Hot Spot Heatmaps
Now that I have created my regional heatmap and summarized my data by my territories, I also want to see a heatmap displaying where the higher value of product sales are being made. I can do this by creating a hot spot heatmap.
Hot Spot Heatmaps take data plotted on a map and reveal a density attribute (e.g., sales volumes per year, etc.) in a region that is not restricted to fixed geographic boundaries. Hot Spot Heat Maps can be used to:
- Identify clusters of customers.
- Highlight opportunities outside of current territories.
- Uncover trends in sales of products in particular locations
- Quickly spot areas for further investigation based on the density (or lack thereof) of sales.
However, I first want to move to a new map so that I can also keep my regional heatmap analysis.
To do this I select the save icon and first save my current map. Once saved I then click on the save button where I have two options:
- New map which will create a new blank map in my workspace, or
- Save as which will create a copy of my current map but when I make changes it will not affect the original.
I’m going to choose save as, so I don’t have to re-add my data to my map. Once I have given a name to my new map and it has loaded, I first remove my current analysis by selecting clear and can then start the steps to create my hotspot heatmap analysis so I can see where the higher value of product sales are being made.
- To turn on the heat map I first open my style menu in the control pane, navigate to the dataset I wish to create my hotspot heatmap for and click on the ‘on’ button in my style menu.
- By default, when turned on, the heat map is generated based on point density, but I can change this to be measured based on any of numeric type columns such as value or customer count. As I want my heatmap to display where my highest sales value is I’m going to select my billing total column.
- If we look at the map, areas of blue represent low value of product sales and areas of red represent high value of product sales.
- I can change the colour schemes and transparency of this range by clicking on the colour box drop down menu and entering a % of transparency.
I can navigate between my two maps by clicking on the folder icon to see a list of map names or the view maps to see a thumbnail of each map.
Saving, Sharing & Exporting
Now that I have added all my data, styled it and conducted my desired analysis, I should save my map.
To save my map click on the Save button and then click Save.
I can share my map by selecting the share button in the control panel. If you have a single user account, you will only have the share publicly option which allows you to share your map as a link or embed it on a website.
If you have a multiple user account, you will also have the option to share your map within your team to individual users or entire groups. You can also specify if you want the users that you share the map with to be able to collaborate and edit the map by enabling the edit data and edit map permissions.
You can export your map in three ways: as an image using the print button or as a map book/PowerPoint or PDF using the export button.
When exporting as an image you can manipulate the image being exported by panning in the print window or zooming further in or out. You can select the JPEG quality by selecting the image size and whether you want the image to be landscape or portrait.
You can export your map as a PDF or Map book by selecting the export button and then selecting which type of export you would like. If you select Map book option, you will have a choice of exporting just your current map or all maps in your workspace.
If you select the PDF option, it will only export your current map but will give you a choice of whether you wish to include your table or not.
Finish
Thank you for watching our training video on the commonly used functionality within eSpatial. If you have any questions, you can contact us by emailing help@espatial.com or by selecting the chat button to the bottom right-hand corner of your screen when on our website or logged into eSpatial. You can also visit our video resources page to view other helpful videos.