4 replies to this topic

[Moso]

Hi, does anyone know if it's possible to somehow automatically update or link a map to an excel spreadsheet? Basically we have a status sheet where people put what area they are working on, and I was wondering if it could automatically update a Flash map to show who is working on what area? Here is an example of what the maps look like


Basically I wanted to update the colored regions in this map using data from an Excel spreadsheet. any other software?

Thanks

Edited by Moso, 11 October 2008 - 11:27 PM.

[ProMapper]

Hi, does anyone know if it's possible to somehow automatically update or link a map to an excel spreadsheet? Basically we have a status sheet where people put what area they are working on, and I was wondering if it could automatically update a Flash map to show who is working on what area? Here is an example of what the maps look like



Basically I wanted to update the colored regions in this map using data from an Excel spreadsheet. any other software?

Thanks

Hi

I have no experience of Flash but it is a simple job in any of the GIS softwares. All you need is to create a base map of the tiles(just the blank tiles) that various people are working on. Now link these map tiles to an excel/access/oracle or any other table/database/schema etc. Create a thematic map based on the progress on each tile, say a set of 10 colors showing ten percent interval and as you update the table/sheet, the colors of tiles change corresponding to the percentage of progress. So you can get the progress of the day, weekly progress and so on. You can also link up names and associate those to individual colors and it will show that too. You can know who is working on which all areas. Naturally you need to define the areas only once and use the same reference again and again.

Anu
http://www.mapsandlocations.com

[Moso]

Thanks. I did a lot of google searching and found this website which gives a tutorial of how to make dyanmic maps in excel spreadsheets. It works great.. I now have one spreadsheet I can look at and view all of the cities we are working on.

http://charts.jorgec...p-in-excel.html

[jetboots]

Hey Moso, that is an interesting video, I never realized Excel is capable of doing that kind of thing.

From what I know, the usual way of doing what you describe is by using actionscript with php to communicate with a mysql server. With this case you would need to import your excel table into mysql first as well as learn a few tricks with how to get data communicating back and forth. The added bonus is that your flash map will be automatically updated if you have some other program or person changing the online mysql.

[zforest]

Hi, does anyone know if it's possible to somehow automatically update or link a map to an excel spreadsheet? Basically we have a status sheet where people put what area they are working on, and I was wondering if it could automatically update a Flash map to show who is working on what area? Here is an example of what the maps look like


Basically I wanted to update the colored regions in this map using data from an Excel spreadsheet. any other software?

Thanks

I haven't looked into this a ton, but if you're unafraid of Google, this seems like a perfect application of their Visualization API. A Google Doc (which you can import your excel spreadsheet into) can easily be linked into one of their visualizations (including a couple basic thematic maps). The doc can be shared across a team, and the visualization can be embedded in a website. I'm no huge Google fan, but I'm less of a Microsoft one and Flash seems like overkill for such simple (but typical and sometimes sufficient) mapping tasks.