Loading spatial data into the visual

Loading spatial data into the visual using the Upload Manager provides an alternative means to add your own polygons or other geometries onto the map, and have them symbolised according to values from your Power BI data model.

Which approach to choose?

In some circumstances it may be preferable to have your spatial data included in the data model instead. See this page for an in-depth look at the differences between the methods.

Using the Upload Manager

Launch the upload manager by selecting the toggle on the Upload Geospatial Data settings pane. You need to have added some data to at least one field of the visual first, before this will work.

You can browse to select the file you want to upload. This can either be a GeoJSON file, a TopoJSON file, or a shapefile (either zipped or as individual files).

• If you are uploading a shapefile, please ensure that all component files (.shp, .shx, .dbf, .prj, .cpg) are included in the zip or uploaded together if uploading individual files.

• GeoJSON / TopoJSON files should contain latitude/longitude coordinates; shapefiles may be in other coordinate systems but a .prj file must be provided to allow the visual to project the data onto the map.

• The maximum file size is 50Mb but we recommend you use smaller files than this, as the uploaded data will be stored in the report.

• The dataset must include at least one unique column, which you'll be able to match to a field in the Power BI data model

• If there are any problems with the geometries in the file (e.g. self-intersections) then the uploader will attempt to repair them, but if it can't manage it then an error will be displayed.

Once you've uploaded a file, it will be scanned to identify which columns/attributes contain unique values. These columns will be available to be joined to data from your PowerBI data model. The remaining (non-unique) columns will also be listed, and can be included in the report if you select the "Load all columns to report" checkbox.

Choosing "Load all columns to report" will allow you to use these columns in pop-ups instead of adding data to the Features Layer: Pop-ups field well. For example the uploaded file may contain all the information you want to display to users, and you want to use the Power BI data simply to filter/slice what is shown.

However this may reduce performance and increase the size of your report if you have a lot of columns in your data, so we recommend only selecting this option if you need it.

If the columns seem to be correct, then select "Load Data" to load the data into the Power BI report. Note that if no unique columns are found, this button will not be enabled and you won't be able to use this dataset in the visual.

Unloading data

The data are only transferred into Power BI when you press Load Data.

After loading the data, during the same session of the visual, you can re-open the dialog and remove the data by pressing the rubbish bin icon; the button will then change to "Unload data" and this will remove the data from the report.

If you reload the visual after choosing Load Data (e.g. by switching to a different report tab and back again), the file information and the rubbish bin icon will not be present when you re-open the dialog. This is because only data that have been transferred into Power BI can be saved between sessions.

If you want to remove the loaded data from the report later (after the visual has been reloaded) you can just re-add the same dataset, or a different one (this will replace what was loaded before in the report), and then follow the above steps to unload it. The only reason for doing this would be to reduce the report's file size, there is no effect on the functionality of the visual.