Free up-to-date UK postcode latitude longitude data

Unless your data comes pre geo-encoded, if you're trying to do some UK-based geospatial analysis you'll probably need some easy way of translating addresses into latitude/longitude pairs or some similar co-ordinate system. Whilst full-address geocoders are available, if you don't actually need that level of precision then looking up a full postcode is often good enough and … Continue reading Free up-to-date UK postcode latitude longitude data →

#VisualizeNoMalaria: Let’s all help build an anti-Malaria dataset

As well as just being plain old fun, data can also be an enabler for "good" in the world. Several organisations are clearly aware of this; both Tableau and Alteryx now have wings specifically for doing good. There are whole organisations set up to promote beneficial uses of data, such as DataKind, and a bunch of … Continue reading #VisualizeNoMalaria: Let’s all help build an anti-Malaria dataset →

Free interactive data and analysis tools from Public Health England

Public Health England is an agency sponsored by the UK Department of Health whose aim is to "protect and improve the nation's health and wellbeing, and reduce health inequalities". They use, generate or distribute a bunch of interesting health-related data. They've a collection of many, many "data and analysis tools", linked to from this page. There's something for everyone … Continue reading Free interactive data and analysis tools from Public Health England →

Showing continents on a Tableau map

Tableau maps can understand many geographic features, but, somewhat surprisingly, whole continents is not one of them. It's a requested feature but hasn't yet made the grade to be included. However, it was pretty easy to find several shapefiles of continents freely available online. Here's one. Tableau can't read shapefiles (yet). But, inspired by tableaumapping.bi, I then used this … Continue reading Showing continents on a Tableau map →

Using a Tableau Web Data Connector to access my Moves app location data

Never one to rush into things :-), here's the second part of my journey towards creating a Tableau Web Data Connector. Next on my plan was to try out an existing Web Data Connector so I could see what they looked like in practice. It's always useful to review examples of other people's work in analytical tools, … Continue reading Using a Tableau Web Data Connector to access my Moves app location data →

How to map geographies in Tableau that are not built in to the product (e.g. UK postcodes, sales areas)

Tableau has a nice ability to create point ("symbol") or polygon ("filled") maps to visualise spatial data on. However, in order to do this, it of course needs to understand where each point you wish to plot is in the real world. Several of the most common geographic identifiers are built in, such as country, … Continue reading How to map geographies in Tableau that are not built in to the product (e.g. UK postcodes, sales areas) →