Map

Snapshot

The Map tool is a powerful feature of Stae that allows you view, filter, and compare data within your city's boundaries.

At the end of this tutorial, you’ll be able to

• View multiple data sources on the map
• Analyze your data using filters
• Share your map view with others

Map of Jersey City with 911 Calls & 311 Issues.
The City boundaries are defined by the strong, bordering blue outline.

1. View Your Data on the Map

The Map Page enables you to view your data within your city or place's boundary. To get started from the Overview Page, click on the Map icon on the left panel. Once loaded, you can choose as many Data Types as you’d like to view on the map. Click Explore once you’re ready to view.

By default, selecting a Data Type will return all data points for that type. For large data sets, it may take some time to load all the data points.

Once loaded, your data will appear on the map as color points on the map. Clicking on any data point will bring up a window with more contextualized information associated with that point.
From here, you can close the window or click Source to view the data source for your Data Type, in this case, 311 Issues.

Detailed view of a 311 Issue data point

2. Analyze Your Data using Filters

With Stae, you can now compare other data sets to each other that were once only available in a static spreadsheet or viewable to only one person via a dashboard. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use filters on the Data Type.

Filtering works similarly to other features that you may have used in data software: it allows you to refine your view of large datasets. To start, select a Data Type you’d like to explore. In this case, we’ll use 311 Issues again. Select your Data Type and then click Explore.

From here, we can start adding fields to filter down your data. Think of the Filter feature as an open-ended sandbox that can help you better understand your data. In this example, let’s create a data filter for 311 issues that displays open tickets about parking issues during Q1 of this year.

Map Protip

Some data sets in Stae are very large. The example above with 911 calls and 311 issues are a combined 110,000+ data points. When you’re exploring, we encourage you to start small by using the filtering option. A good starting point is to approach your data with a defined date range and a problem to explore. Is speeding becoming an issue in school zones? Is parking a pain in areas with new development? Filters are a good way to narrow in on these problems.

3. Share Your Map View with Others

Imagine you have a quarterly review with department heads and you would like to share relevant data on your team’s performance. You can save out any map view that you’ve filtered as a URL clicking on the Share Button in the bottom right corner. This button also functions as a save and continue feature. If you have some good insights going but need to pause, use the share button to preserve your progress. You can also share out this URL to anyone you’d like, even if they don’t have a Stae account.

An unfiltered map view of all 311 Issues.

Filter feature in 311 Issue data.

311 Issues filtered to just show potholes for all of 2018.

How To Filter Your Data

The filter options for data are contextual to that specific field. For example, when you filter a field like Received, you'll get a calendar to select date ranges. Other fields like Operators will provide a dropdown menu or an open text box to let you search by a specific term. It's helpful to familiarize yourself with the fields of the data set before diving into the map view to gain some context on the data set. 

1. While in the Map view with data selected, click on the Filter button on the toolbar. Then, click on Received and then select Between. Click on the empty box next to it and a calendar will pop up.
   
   
2. Use the calendar to select your date ranges. Select your date ranges by clicking on two different dates on the calendar. For example, to filter to Q1 2018, you would select January 1, 2018 and then April 30, 2018. The date range selected will be highlighted in grey with the end points highlighted in blue.
   
   
3. Next, let’s narrow in on parking issues. Click on Type, then select Exactly, and then find Parking Issues. Type is contextual for each data source but it’s a commonly used field across types and often a good place to start when applying filters.
   
   
4. Finally, let’s find all the open issues with Parking Problems. Click on Status, select Exactly, and then select Open. This will display all open tickets. Click the check mark to see the results of your filter.

Stae Inspired

"We ground our work in questions like 'What are we looking to understand?' rather than 'What can we collect?' by taking a people-first approach to building cities."
Shin-pei Tsay, Gehl Institute

Have any questions or running into issues with this feature?
Reach us at: support@stae.co