I’m a Qlikview consultant who wants to know more about Tableau. To get some experience in Tableau I started building small applications with Tableau. Personally I’m interested in which data visualization tool (Qlikview or Tableau) is the best in a specific situation. In this blog I will compare Tableau to Qlikview, especially the capability of plotting geocodes on a map.
In the example below I plotted all Dutch cities on a map. The size of the dot gives an indication of the population.
This type of map can also be used for visualizing the amount of restaurants per city or profit per production facility. See the following URL’s in Tableau public for more inspiration.
https://public.tableau.com/s/gallery/worlds-largest-stadiums
https://public.tableau.com/s/gallery/major-colorado-wildfires-1971-2013
https://public.tableau.com/s/gallery/vaccine-preventable-outbreaks
https://public.tableau.com/s/gallery/read-all-about-it
Tableau
In Tableau it’s very simple to build this kind of visualization. After importing the data (Excel file with Dutch cities) you have to make sure the geographic role of the dimension city is marked as City.
When the geographic role is turned in to City the field will begin with a small globe icon.
This way Tableau can generate the geocodes.
Building the graph
After that you have to double click on longitude and latitude. Then drag the dimension city to Marks. The map with dots will emerge instantly. There is an even faster way of doing this: double clicking on city is enough to position longitude and latitude automatically.
When you drag the measure ‘huishoudens14’ to size, the size of the dot gives an indication of the population.
For this example I used a dataset with Dutch cities in it. You can download the dataset here: http://www.scp.nl/Onderzoek/Lopend_onderzoek/A_Z_alle_lopende_onderzoeken/Statusscores
Qlikview
If you want to do this in Qlikview, you have to do a lot more. The graph must be made custom and you have to get through complicated steps which take to much explanation for a short blog like this.
- First you have to get the geocodes for each city. To obtain the geocodes you have to write a script that connects to an online API such as google maps.
- You have to load the data in Qlikview by a script.
- After that you have to write a formula that translates the geocodes to coordinates on a picture of the Netherlands. This is a very complicated formula which takes into account the outline of the Earth.
- After that you have to select the Scatter chart with the right settings.
If you want to see the whole procedure look here: http://qlikshow.com/geocoding-and-maps-visualizations/
Conclusion
Personally I think Tableau is the best tool for geocoding. You can build a map visualization within a half an hour. In Qlikview it will take a lot more time.
As both Tableau and Qlikview are complex products I might have overlooked some features that would make this easier in either Tableau or Qlikview. As I am still learning I would appreciate it if you leave a comment with your suggestions or best practices for either products. I hope to document more of what I’ve learned starting working with Tableau over the coming months in future posts.
Last year Qlik introduced a new product called Qlik Sense. Qlik Sence is more self-service and also has good geocoding capabilities. I installed and used the product for training purpose. Maybe I will write a blog about Qlik Sense next time.
Tableau versus Qlikview 