How to configure map – charts

Fri, 07 May 2010 08:33:00 GMT

Dashboard for MS CRM 4.0 provides several maps (World-map, Europe, U.S., Germany, Netherlands,…) in order to e.g. display customer-distributions.
This blog contains basic information on how to configure maps. This is explained with a Step-by-Step-Setup of a Customers in the U.S.A-chart.

Main-Chart settings: The following settings need to be configured within the Dashboard-Chart-configuration:

Figure 1: Main chart settings
1. Chart Series: Select Map to load the available maps into the chart-type configuration
2. Chart Type: All available maps are listed. Choose the country/area you want to use
3. Label(X): Select the CRM-attribute that contains country-specific data (e.g. Country-code, Contry-name,.. see below)
  
  Example US-Map: We choose Chart-Type: [Shapefiles/Usa_st]
  and Lablel(x) : [Adress1: State/Province]
Map-definition: Within the Dashboard for MS CRM 4.0 - [Installation-directory]\ClientBin\Shapefiles we can find a *.dbf-File for each available map.

Each of this files contains several info like name, code, population... about the areas within the maps, marked by an UNIQUE-Columnname (AREA,STATE_NAME,…)
E.g usa_st.dbf:

Figure 2: usa_st.dbf
Data-mapping: But how to link this data with CRM? Like all dashboard-charts, map charts are based on the results of an Advanced Find. This advanced find needs to deliver an attribute that fits to one of our UNIQE-columns within the *.dbf-file.

In most cases this will prospectively be Address1: Country or Adress1: State/Province

Example US-map: Adress1: State/Province delivers the names of the US-state Winsconsin, Washington:

Figure 3: names of Winsconsin, Washington

So in this example, the Label(x)-Value (Adress1: State/Province) needs to be linked to the STATE_NAME-column in the *.dbf-file.

Therefore we have to switch to the Values-tab on the Dashboard-chart record:

Figure 4: Dashboard chart record (value-tab)

The mapping is defined in the StyleValue-column:
|reader.DataMapping-Name=STATE_NAME; ToolTip=STATE_NAME|

reader-DataMapping: Specifies the mapped column
ToolTip: It is possible to choose any of the columns from the *.dbf-file to appear in the tooltip of the country

Result: Now, we get following result:

That’s it! We appreciate your feedback! Please share your thoughts by sending an email to support@mscrm-addons.com.

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How to configure map – charts