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2 min read

Day 2: PASS Business Analytics Conference, New 3D Mapping Analytics Tool for Excel

Today at the PASS Business Analytics Conference, Microsoft technical fellow Amir Netz and partner manager Kamal Hathi took to the stage to demonstrate how people experience insights. As mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, understanding how people experience insights is critical to Microsoft as we look to build and improve our data platform.

Today we’re pleased to add another exciting business analytics tool to help customers gain valuable insight from their data. Project codename “GeoFlow” for Excel, available in preview now, is a 3D visualization and storytelling tool that will help customers map, explore and interact with both geographic and chronological data, enabling discoveries in data that might be difficult to identify in traditional 2D tables and charts. With GeoFlow, customers can plot up to a million rows of data in 3D on Bing Maps, see how that data changes over time and share their findings through beautiful screenshots and cinematic, guided video tours. The simplicity and beauty of GeoFlow is something you have to see to understand – check out the video demo and screenshots below. You can also download and try it out firsthand today. It’s an entirely new way to experience and share insights – one we think you’ll enjoy.

For more information on GeoFlow, check out the Excel team’s blog and visit the BI website.

We’ve put a lot of effort into making Excel a self-service BI client, and have worked to equip users with the capabilities they need to take analytics to the next level. Through compelling visualization tools like those in Power View, the modeling and data mashup functionalities in PowerPivot, and the incorporation of a broader range of data types through February’s project codename “Data Explorer” preview, we move toward the democratization of data, and the democratization of insight. GeoFlow takes this one step further, by providing a seamless experience with our other BI tools, and enabling visual storytelling through maps.

Project_Codename_GeoFlow

Project_Codename_GeoFlow

Check back here tomorrow for the final installment of this series, where we’ll share some real-life examples of how Microsoft technology contributes to more effective analytics, or review the complete series through the links below:

Eron Kelly
General Manager
SQL Server