Maps Data for Scotland

Brass Contributor

Hi,


Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere but I'm trying to create a map chart for Scottish Local Authorties (Council regions) and I have all of their official names but the Maps chart isn't having it.  Is there a list somewhere for how I should be naming these or am I missing anything else?

 

I've attached a picture of my data.


Thanks,

Chris 

22 Replies

@Chris Nicol 

 

Hi Chris

 

Map Charts is quite sensitive to the names. It has no idea about what is Row Labels and Local Authority how you name your columns. Second, it won't recognize Moray but recognises County of Moray. It's no warranty it works with everything, but first try to transform you data in this way

image.png

 

Thank you @Sergei Baklan .  Sensitive is a very polite word for it!  Thanks for your help.


I have found the solution to all but 2 of the local authorities - Angus & West Dunbartonshire.  I've tried adding County to the end and County of to the front as well as City but without joy.

 

Any suggestions?  

Bizarrely the Gaelic name for Angus, Comhairle Aonghais, has worked but I still can't get anything for West Dunbartonshire.

 

@Chris Nicol ,

 

Hi Chris,

 

It works in my case

image.png

Try to put it into another place of your table.

Thanks for checking @Sergei Baklan.  The area in your map that is circled is actually Argyll & Bute.  I'm pretty sure West Dunbartonshire is the missing bit in the centre.

 

Microsoft don't seem to believe in West Dunbartonshire! 

@Chris Nicol , sorry, I'm not familiar with Scottish geography. Yes, it shows this region as West Dunbartonshire or Argyll depends on what first is in the list.

To offer a wee update on this I'm still in the same position.

 

Going through the Excel support they were unable to help me and directed me to a Bing Maps feedback button which doesn't request contact details.  I've done this and also tried tweeting Excel, Bing Maps (not sure if it's really them) and Bing.

 

I haven't had any response.  Any suggestions?

@Chris Nicol 

 

Chris, I have no contact details as well. Send frown from your Excel, Microsoft follow them. I'm not sure, but try to find the blog here about Maps Chart and ask your question mentioning the author here. Repeat on answers.microsoft.com. No warranty you'll have an answer, but at least more chances for that.

 

Perhaps @Smitty Smith could add something.

Chris/Sergei,

 

If you convert your data to an Excel table, and rename B1 to County, then the chart will map with greater confidence (at least it did for me). 

 

ScottishMap.png

I've reached out the Map chart PM to see if he has any idea about the rest. It looks like the Bing mapping service isn't completely disambiguating the locales.

 

Smitty

MSFT

 

 

Smitty, thank you. 

@Chris Nicol it also appears to respond to Forfarshire. West Dunbartonshire is proving impossible, however. I've tried everything I can think of, in English, Scots and Gaelic.

Thank you for the replies.  Thanks @Sergei Baklan for bringing in reinforcements!  I have now added the question to Answers. I couldn't find an appropriate blog to contact an author though.

 

Thanks for trying @Noel Slevin , Forfarshire seems to replace Angus which would make sense.

 

Thanks @Smitty Smith , unfortunately I don't seem to be able to access Data Types.  I'm using Office 365 Pro Plus and have just done an update but I still don't have these options.  It sounds like it's the same problem if it's plotting all but East Ayrshire though, seems bizarre that it'd be a different Local Authority that'd cause the problem.  From your original post regarding the counties and greater confidence I do know from checking that the 31/32 that I do now have plotted are correct and the missing piece of the jigsaw is exactly where West Dunbartonshire lies.  

 

 

@Chris Nicol 

 

I didn't find here @Smitty Smith post about geography data type, perhaps it was deleted. I tried West Dunbartonshire with geography data type as well, that didn't help.

Chris/Sergei,

 

[quote]I didn't find here @Smitty Smith post about geography data type, perhaps it was deleted. [quote]

 

Sorry about that. I posted a solution from the Excel team with data types, but it turns out there were some issues that need to be addressed, so I deleted it.

 

They went back to the drawing board, and were able to come up with good results with normal text by adding a Country/UK column to aid with disambiguation, then mapping Scottish Councils with "County" for the Council column, and "Province" header for Scotland. There's a hangup with West Dumbartonshire, but that's been sent to the Bing team to investigate. It should be fixed and in production in a few weeks.

 

Scotland_01.png

And here's a link to the new workbook: ScotlandCouncils.xlsx

 

Thanks for the interesting scenario! It's definitely going to help with geography data type definitions.

 

Smitty

Chris/Sergei,

 

{quote}I didn't find here @Smitty Smith post about geography data type, perhaps it was deleted. {quote}

 

Sorry about that. I posted a solution from the Excel team with data types, but it turns out there were some issues that need to be addressed, so I deleted it.

 

They went back to the drawing board, and were able to come up with good results with normal text by adding a Country/UK column to aid with disambiguation, then mapping Scottish Councils with "County" for the Council column, and "Province" header for Scotland. There's a hangup with West Dumbartonshire, but that's been sent to the Bing team to investigate. It should be fixed and in production in a few weeks.

 

Scotland_01.png

And here's a link to the new workbook: ScotlandCouncils.xlsx

 

Thanks for the interesting scenario! It's definitely going to help with geography data type definitions.

 

Smitty

Hi Smitty,

 

Thank you for this update. Yes, Map Charts is quite sensitive to column names, but not only. Sometimes it's enough to rename the place like County of Stirling instead of Stirling (what Chris did). Sometimes order of records matters.

 

On the other hand it could ignore such dancing with names, e.g. I removed UK column and renamed Scotland to State - result is exactly the same (second sheet attached)

image.png

However, whatever we do West Dunbartonshire remains the black hole.

Whoop! Thanks again guys.

I'll leave Data Types for another day :D

Hi guys,

 

Our Office applications have now received an update (bit retro looking!) and that's included the Data Types but my West Dunbartonshire remains greyed out.

 

Has there been any update on this?


Thanks,

Chris

Hi Chris,

 

Update shall be in logic on Microsoft servers site, our client applications only pick-up information from them and present in proper form.

 

Have no idea about the Microsoft plans to fix that issue.