Data sources overview
Icon Map builds maps directly on the data in your Fabric tenant — it reads your data in place from OneLake and your Fabric sources, so there's nothing to copy or move.
A data source is a connection to that data. You add data sources from the Data tab of the Build sidebar, then build one or more data-bound layers from them. A single map can combine many sources of different kinds.
Source types
| Source | Connects to |
|---|---|
| Lakehouse | A Delta table, or a Parquet / CSV / GeoJSON file, in a Lakehouse in OneLake. |
| Warehouse & SQL | A table or SQL query from a Warehouse or SQL database, read over OneLake. |
| Power BI semantic model | A table, fields and measures, or a DAX query from a semantic model. |
| Eventhouse & KQL | A table, function, or query in a KQL database. |
| Live feeds | Live vehicle positions from a GTFS-Realtime or custom JSON feed. |
Configuration common to every source
When you add a source, you can set:
- Name — how the source appears in the sidebar.
- Columns — the fields to include. Use Detect columns to read the schema automatically.
- Row limit — a cap on how many rows are loaded (50,000 by default) to keep maps responsive.
- Latest by — order rows so you keep the most recent record per item.
- Auto-refresh — re-query the source on an interval (seconds, minutes, or hours) for live data.
- Location / viewport — tell Icon Map where each row is on the map (see below).
- Only load data in the current map view — re-query as the map is panned and zoomed, so only the data in view is fetched. Useful for very large datasets.
Aggregating at source
Where the source supports it (Warehouse/SQL, KQL, or a semantic model), Icon Map can push aggregation down to the source, so totals are computed exactly on the full dataset rather than on the rows loaded into the map.
Telling Icon Map where your data is
For a source to appear on the map, each row needs a location. You can provide this as either:
- Longitude and latitude columns, or
- A geometry column encoded as WKT, WKB, or GeoJSON (for points, lines, or polygons).
Once a source has a location, you can build a layer from it.
Next steps
- Pick a source type above to connect your data.
- Map layers overview — turn a source into a layer.
- Security & permissions — the access your sources require.