Microsoft has released Power Map Preview for Excel 2013 which enables you to plot geographic and temporal data visually and analyze them in 3D. It also provides an ability to create visual tours to share with other users.
Power Map enables you to plot more than million rows of data in 3D on Bing maps from an Excel worksheet table or data model. It is also possible to capture screenshot scenes, build cinematic and guided video tours that can be shared broadly thus enabling you to engage with wide audience.
Maps in Power View make use of Bing map tiles so that you can zoom and pan as you would with any other Bing map. It displays data in the context of geography. In order to work with maps, you need to send the data to Bing through a secured connection for geocoding. Dots are placed on the map as soon as you add locations and fields. Moreover, pie charts can be plotted on the map by adding a multi-value series.
In order to work with Power Map Preview for Excel 2013, you require Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows Server 2008 R2, which requires requires Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0. Moreover, you need access to either Office Professional Plus 2013 or Office 365 ProPlus, Midsize, E3 or E4.
Eventhough Power Map Preview for Excel is available for 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) platforms, Microsoft recommends 64 bit for handling extreme large amouns of data. In order to use Power Map, Start Microsoft Excel 2013 and select Maps located on the insert tab of the Excel ribbon.
Along with Power Map (previously GeoFlow), Microsoft also released Power Query (previously Data Explorer) at the Worldwide Partner Conference. Faisal Mohamood, Lead Program Manager, Microsoft has examined the usage of Power Query and Power Map in detail with the help of a sample application.
"Together, Power Query and Power Map enhance the self-service business intelligence experience in Excel by allowing you to discover, combine, refine and visualize your data," said Faisal.
