Frequently Asked Question

Symptom

• Configure the N4V Google Geocoding component

Environment

• SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform : all 4.2/4.3 Webi versions
• Need4Viz : all version

Resolution

This is some information about how to create and configure the Google Geocoding component in your Webi report :

1. Open a new Webi document and add a query retrieving the objects used by the component. Generally as a result in your Webi report, you'll get at least the following objects :
   1. Address : the address of the point you want to show. It can be a full address (Ex. : "55 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, 75008 Paris") or a partial address ("Paris"). You need to be able to take the address and give it to google maps in Chrome (so the geocoding will work in the component)
   2. Tooltip : The content of the tooltip you want to display when the user will mouse over the point (it can be the Address object, another dimension object or a formula)
   3. Measure : the measure you want to display on the point (the radius of the circle placed on the point will correspond to the value of the measure)
2. You can now create a first Google Maps Geocoding chart and feed it with the mandatory settings :
   1. Address : the address of the point
   2. Tooltip : The content of the tooltip you want to display
   3. Link/Itin : This dimension is used in many ways :
      1. Linking elements : If you activate the lasso selection (allowing multiple selection), then this dimension will be sent to the multi value Input Control affected to the lasso selection : 
      2. Hyperlink : if the value is formatted as an hyperlink (an URL), you can activate the hyperlinking on this value when user click on the marker on the map : 
      3. Itinerary : if you activate the itinerary module, this dimension will be used to build the lists of values for the Start and End point.
      4. If you don't need to use one of these 3 ways, you can simply feed this dimension with the "Address" object.
   4. Measure : this value  is used to draw the circle arround the point. It can be a dynamic value (radius of circles will vary depending on this value) or a static value (all circle will have the same size on the map).

Now you have a first Google Maps Geocoding chart. You can enrich this chart by adding some additional dimensions :

1. Create a specific color value for each point (or each family). For instance, you display all the  bike rental station on your map and want to categorize them by the status of the station (closed/open/work in progress). You just have to create a variable in Webi (dimension) to affect a color code to each value of the status (ex. =If([status]="open") Then"#00B5CD" Else If ([status]="closed") Then "#FFBE0D"...).
2. Assign this variable to the 4th parameter of your Google Maps chart (Color). Now each circle is colored depending on the color value of the dimension.

After that, if you want to display a legend on your map, you need to define the labels affected to each color :

1. Create a variable in Webi (dimension) to affect a label value to each value of the status (ex. =If([status]="open") Then "Opened station" Else If ([status]="closed") Then "Closed Station"...).
   
2. Assign this variable to the 5th parameter of your Google Maps chart (Legend). Now a legend is displayed on your map with the status and affected colors for each station. You can click on the values of the legend to hide/display the correcponding points...

Annexe

For geocoding address, the N4V server needs to access the internet (because, for each address, it ask the correpsonding localization to Google).

To use these component, you need to configure your Google key in the configuration of N4V server.

Usage of MongoDB instance is advisable because for each address localized by Google is stored in the MongoDB database then the next time the component is refreshed with the same addresses, N4V server will previously check if the localization exists in the MongoDB database before asking to Google, so you will save Google localization credits.

The usage of the Google Maps Lat/Lon is exactly the same as the Google Maps Geocoding component excepting that the Address is replaced by 2 dimensions : Latitude and Longitude.