Catalog layers

The Icon Map Catalog contains ready-made boundary layers, such as countries, states, regions, local authorities and postcodes. You can join one to your Power BI data and colour each boundary with conditional formatting, without finding, preparing or hosting a boundary file yourself.

Catalog layers need an internet connection and are not available in air-gapped environments. They draw with the Modern map engine, or with WebGL Rendering Mode turned on for reports on the Legacy engine.

Data configuration

To join a catalog boundary layer to your data, the following fields must be configured:

  • ID - A unique ID for each row.
  • Feature Reference - The value that identifies each boundary in the catalog layer, for example a postcode, a state code or a country name. It must match the layer's key field exactly.

Sample data

ID Longitude Latitude Destination Longitude Destination Latitude Circle Size Cluster Group H3 Weight Heatmap Weight Image / WKT / GeoJSON Feature Reference Feature Weight
TX null null null null null null null null null TX null
CA null null null null null null null null null CA null
NY null null null null null null null null null NY null
FL null null null null null null null null null FL null

Adding a boundary layer

  1. Select the map and open the Format pane.
  2. In the Catalog (Preview) card, turn on Configure Layers. The catalog dialog opens.
  3. Select Add New Layer from Catalog and search for the boundaries you need, for example "US states" or "UK postcode districts".
  4. Choose a layer that shows the Data Binding badge and add it to the map.
  5. In the layer's data binding settings, choose the Key Field: the property in the layer that holds the same values as your Feature Reference field. For US states that is the two-letter state code.
  6. Close the dialog. Boundaries that match a row of your data now take their styling from your data.

The catalog documentation covers these steps in more depth: Getting started and Data binding.

Styling with your data

Once a layer is bound, each catalog layer has its own section in the Format pane. Use Power BI conditional formatting on its settings to drive the map from your data:

  • Fill color - for example a colour scale based on sales or population.
  • Outline color and Outline width.
  • Extrusion height - raise each boundary in 3D based on a value.

Conditional formatting takes priority over the styling set in the catalog dialog for boundaries that match your data. See Format pane settings for every option.

Useful options

  • Hide unmatched features - hide boundaries that have no matching row, so only the areas in your data are shown.
  • Auto-zoom to matched features - zoom the map to the boundaries that match your data, with an optional maximum zoom.

Matched boundaries show Power BI tooltips, and selecting one cross-filters and cross-highlights the other visuals on the page.

Troubleshooting

  • Nothing is coloured - check that the Feature Reference values match the key field exactly, including case, spaces and leading zeros (for example 01 rather than 1).
  • Some boundaries are missing - boundary codes change over time. Check that the layer's vintage matches the codes in your data.