Create your first map

Add an Icon Map item

  1. Open a Microsoft Fabric workspace where you have permission to create items.
  2. Choose New item and select Icon Map.
  3. Give the map a name. The new item opens in the map editor.

Because Icon Map is a native Fabric item, it lives in your workspace like any other Fabric artifact — you can rename it, share it, and manage its permissions using the standard Fabric controls.

The map editor

The editor is built around a central map canvas with:

  • A ribbon across the top with Save, Undo/Redo, Share, Bookmarks, Map controls, World Effects, Data tables, and Publish.
  • A left Build sidebar where you connect data and add layers, charts, slicers, and other visuals.
  • A right editor pane that shows the settings for whatever you're currently editing.

The Build sidebar guides you through the authoring flow:

  1. Data — connect to Fabric to bring data onto the map.
  2. Layers — build and stack data layers over a background map.
  3. Charts / Visuals / Slicers — add in-map charts, slicers, panels, and text or image visuals.

Editing mode and reading view

Every map can be opened in two modes, toggled from the ribbon:

  • Edit — the full authoring experience. Use this to change the map: add data, build layers, and configure visuals.
  • Reading view — explore the map without changing it. Panning, zooming, filtering with slicers, and any controls the author enabled all work, but nothing you do alters the saved map.

Whether you can edit a map depends on your Fabric permission on the item. Viewers with read-only access see the reading view; contributors can switch to Edit.

Reading view is the experience most of your audience will use. When designing a map, switch to reading view regularly to check that it works the way your viewers will experience it.

Save your work

Use Save in the ribbon to persist your changes to the item in your workspace. Icon Map also supports Undo/Redo while you work.

Next steps