Geo Analytics: get more insight from your data

Deeper geographical analyses

For deeper geographical analyses, GeoAnalytics (available on Qlik Sense Enterprise) offers enormous possibilities. This allows (dynamic) distances to be calculated, maps to be read in or geographical data to be clustered. Meanwhile, the Geo-Operations have become a free part of Qlik Sense Cloud, offering roughly the same functions as GeoAnalytics! High time to take a closer look at the possibilities of this application.

Load-operation

Geo-data does not always have to be projected in a map. Floor plans can also be used in Qlik Sense. Instead of the standard floor plans, an image of a theatre can be added as a layer in Qlik Sense, for example. One challenge here is that it is quite laborious to get the coordinates of the background image right. But with setting the right parameters, this does offer a very nice result, as can be seen in the image below.

With the 'Load-operation' it is possible to load autocad files, making it much easier to link the data to a floor plan. For instance, you could create a heat map of a shop, quickly showing where customers are located. Or you could use colours to visualise empty shelves in a shop, so that action can be taken quickly. In the example below, I loaded an autocad file with the floor plan data of a supermarket, visualising the sales per aisle and shelf. This shows at a glance which aisles are the most popular.

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Binning-Operation

Another example of using Qlik Sense GeoOperations is to map crime data. If the location data of thefts is present, then this data can easily be plotted in Qlik Sense's default map. If there is a lot of available data over several years, the map quickly becomes cluttered. Each theft represents a point in the map, and with many points, it is difficult to see in which areas the most thefts occur. With the 'Binning-Operation', this is quickly solved. The points are clustered into a larger area, which you can then plot as an additional layer in the map.

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TravelAreas-operation

Travel distances can also be visualised in Qlik Sense. You can determine the fastest route from A to B, or calculate which customers can be reached within one hour's travel time. When a company has customers all over the country, it is relevant that employees serve customers in their own region. In Qlik Sense, this is easily mapped with the 'TravelAreas operation'.

In the example below, four sales employees are determined which customers they can serve within 60-minute travel time. The residence of the sales employees, the customers and the travel area can all be displayed in a map. At a glance, it is clear which customers are served by which employee(s) and which customers are outside the travel area. In the example, it also became clear that in Groningen, North Holland and Limburg a new sales employee might be recruited.

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As you can see, there are a lot of possibilities when it comes to geo-data and Qlik. There are many more 'Operations' that are relevant, making it a very good solution for a variety of challenges.Zoals je ziet zijn er heel veel mogelijkheden op het gebied van geo-data en Qlik. Er zijn nog veel meer ‘Operations’ die relevant zijn, waardoor het een hele goede oplossing is voor uiteenlopende uitdagingen.