Power BI – How to Create a Shape Map?

A shape map is similar to a map in Power BI. A shape map, shows the comparison between different regions, using different color shades, on a given value. For example, suppose the number of corona cases is higher in Uttar Pradesh, with respect to Haryana. In that case, the Uttar Pradesh state will be shown with a darker color than, the Haryana state. Shape maps help comparison between regions for better analytics of the visual data. In this article, we will learn how to create a shape map in Power BI. 

Adding Shape Map to PowerBI

By default, shape map visualization has not been added, to the Power BI. We need to add it from the settings into our Power BI. The dataset used is given here. Below is the screenshot of the dataset as well:

The following are the steps to create a shape map: 

Step 1: Open your Power BI software. In the tabs section, we have the File tab. Click on it. 

Step 2: A new dialogue box is opened. Click on the Options and settings options. Under Options and settings, select Options. 

Step 3: A new dialogue box name, Options is opened. Under the Global section, click on the Preview features. Under preview features, check the box Shape map visual. Click on the Ok button. Then, restart the Power BI. 

Creating a Shape Map in Power BI 

A shape map has multiple options while creating, and customizing it. We will take a look at each of the options. For example, we are given a dataset of Employees, and we want to make a shape map, consisting of location as New Home State, legends as Department,  tooltips as Year, and color saturation as Salary. We will explore each option while creating this shape map.

The following are the steps:

Step 1: Given the dataset, Employee. The columns we will use for this article are New Home State, Department, Year, and Salary.

Step 2: Under the Visualizations section, click on the Shape Map.

Step 3: An empty-filled map is created. This shape map does not contain any fields. The next task is to add columns to it.

Step 4: Adding Location in the shape map. Drag and drop New Home State into the location section. We can see that the states in the dataset have appeared on the map. We can also observe, all the states are of the same color i.e. blue.

Step 5: Adding Color Saturation in the shape map. Drag and drop Salary into the Color saturation section. We can see that Texas, which has a higher salary ratio, is of a darker color than other states. 

Step 6: Legends, help sub-categorize the data. It is preferred to use legends, on categorical data. Drag and drop Department, under the Legend section. We can see in the image, that, each department, gets its own color. For example, the IT department got an orange color, and hence the Salary of Arushi and Gautam is shown in purple.

Note: In the shape map, after applying legends property, the color saturation property is removed, and hence the states are shown only on the basis of the legends. 

Step 7: Our next task, is to add Tooltips to the shape map. Tooltips provide additional information that we want to see, whenever we hover at a data point. In the below image, we can see that we have hovered at Texas, and we view the previously added tooltips i.e. New Home State Haryana,  Department Finance, and Sum of Salary 60000. These tooltips appeared, as we have added, these measures previously. Now, think what if we want to add the Year of joining to this list?

Step 8:  Drag and drop Year under Tooltips. Now, again hover over Texas. We can see that the Year had been added under the hover text section.