A powerful feature of eSpatial is its data filtering capability. It allows you to narrow your focus to get to the data you really want to look at. In eSpatial you can filter your table of data in the same way you would in excel.
Filtering your data while it is already plotted on a map allows you to create multiple views of the same data that you can share with various colleagues and team members depending on what they need to see.
Your sales team may only want to see their own customers and their own performance from within their own territories.Your manager might want an overview of the entire country based on sales of a certain value to identify opportunity hotspots.You might want to take a look at one region to see if there is any correlation between the demographics of that region and the sales quality and volume of that region.You can do all of this and more by taking advantage of the eSpatial Data Filtering feature. There are two ways to filter data in eSpatial, based on an alphanumeric or numeric value just like you would in excel. Additionally, you can filter geographically based on the datasets on your map, for example, your sales territories or areas the drawn with the polygon functionality.
Let’s explore how to use this extremely useful tool…
Firstly, you need to open your table which you will find in the bottom right of your workspace. Once it is open, you will notice that a filter symbol appears on the top of every column in the table.Click on the filter icon and select “Filter Results” to open the filter panel to the right of your table.
Text FiltersIn the image to the left, you can see a filter has been applied to the “State” column. This is filter is a Text Filter. If there are less than 60 unique value then it will appear as a list of each value with a checkbox. By default, all options will be selected. If there are more than 60 unique values, you can filter by using is, isn’t or contains and typing the value in it. If you untick the All box, all the mapping data vanishes.
You can then start to select states individually, by ticking the relevant boxes. Now only data in these states appear on the map. The most obvious advantage of this is that it enables you to focus on a particular region, without any other, irrelevant distractions.
Multiple FiltersYou can have more than one filter applied to your data. In the example to the left, we have filtered by sales value, county and opportunity owner.
Numeric FiltersThat’s how filtering works in a text-based column, but what about when there are numbers – integers – in a column?Now that you have filtered by state you might want to filter by sales value. Go back to your table, click on the filter icon on the column that contains your sales value data. Select Filter Results and a new filter option will appear below your first one.
Click on the scrollbar of the filtering panel and move down, you will see a slider at the bottom of the listed states. Moving the arrows on the slide bar allows the selection of a numeric value range. You can move these to a specific value range, or you can just double-click the numbers and type in the new range in the text boxes beneath the slider.
The effect this has on the map is to isolate just those sales opportunities with a sales value between $8,500 and $20,000 which if you’re a sales person trying to meet quarterly quotas, are the opportunities you will want to be closing.
Saving Filtered ViewsYou can save your filtered views by saving as a new map in your workspace. Simply click on the save icon in the control panel in the top left of your workspace. Select Save As and type in the name of your filtered view as the map name.
Removing filters.It’s easy to revert to you original unfiltered map.All I have to do is remove the existing filters by clicking “Remove Filter” in the drop-down in the columns you previously selected.
This article was last updated May 2017