News – Google Maps Flash API

Since version 6.4 of InstantAtlas desktop, customers have been able to include Google maps as a background layer in their dynamic reports.  This has been a popular choice for many customers.  Unfortunately Google decided to deprecate the Google maps flash API in September 2011. The reason they gave was it wasn’t as popular as some of their other APIs.  This wasn’t necessarily a problem for us as the existing functionality worked well and Google will usually keep a deprecated service going for around three years.  However, in February 2012 Google stopped issuing new API keys.

So what does this mean:

-          Those who are already using Google maps in their flash dynamic reports can continue to do so. Their existing API key will still work.

-          Those who do not have an API key will not be able to use Google maps as a background layer in their flash dynamic reports and will have to use another source of background mapping.

-          Those who have a report on a particular website but want to move it to a new domain may be able to get a new API key by following the procedure outlined in this post.

-          Users of our new HTML 5 single map template (due out in April 2012) will have the option to use Google maps as a background layer as this uses a different API.

We are investigating using one of the other Google Maps APIs and hopefully we can re-introduce it to the flash templates at a later version.  In the meantime there are a number of other good sources of background mapping including ESRI ArcGIS Online services and WMS services including our own Ordnance Survey Open Data WMS. Please contact our support team if you need help with background mapping.

David Carey (on behalf of Jon Peltenburg, Technical Director – InstantAtlas)

Upgrading an InstantAtlas Dynamic Report

Justification for upgrading can be boiled down to two reasons: fixes and features.

Sometimes reports created with earlier versions of the software, when certain problems were present, may only be fixed by upgrading the report to a later version of the software. Before you upgrade, we highly suggest contacting the Support Team to check that errors or issues in your report can be resolved by upgrading.

Other times the question of upgrading is prompted by the appearance of exciting new software features. For example, you may be interested in the Population Pyramid chart, or prefer to use icons for contextual geography layers, or need to incorporate new text and images that can now appear in the tooltips of map layers. If so, you will need to ensure the report is created in version 6.5 or later of the InstantAtlas Desktop software. This is because these (and many other) features only became available from version 6.5 onwards.

InstantAtlas Desktop v.6.5 (Single Map template). The latest to-date version is 6.5.3 with 6.5.2 templates.

What’s the easiest and fastest way to upgrade an existing report to the latest version of InstantAtlas?

If you want to upgrade to the latest version of the software, you must possess a valid Maintenance contract. Contact the Support Team if you are unsure whether you or your organisation has one.

When you’re ready to upgrade, log into My InstantAtlas and head to the Maintenance area – but please note, only users with valid Maintenance contracts will be able to do this!  Download and install the latest version of the software onto your machine. Then follow the steps below or watch the video to learn how to upgrade the report without losing the edits you made when you created your old report.

1. Republish the report using the same template, map files, data.xml file, and settings you used in the older report. Unpack the new report into a new report folder.
2. TOP FUTURE-PROOFING TIP: Take this opportunity to use the project file feature in the latest version of the software! It will contain information about everything you set in the Publisher to create your report, including file locations, advanced settings, labelling, opacity, icon files, etc. When you republish the report in the future, you can just upload the project file and the Publisher will pre-fill with all of the correct settings (taken from the project file) for you. (Please note: if you later change the locations of objects, for example, the map files you used, the project file won’t contain those edits.)
3. Copy and paste all images (logos, background map tiles, etc) from the old report folder into the new report folder.
4.  Locate the old config.xml file in your old report folder.
5. Go to the Config Upgrade tool, available from My InstantAtlas. Upgrade the config.xml file in your old report folder with the tool. This will create the necessary edits to convert the config.xml file to the latest version of the software. Save the new config.xml file in your new report folder. (If you find that confusing, click the video above to see a step-by-step use of the config.xml upgrade tool in My InstantAtlas.)
6. If you are upgrading from 6.5.0, you won’t need to upgrade your default.css files. You can just copy and paste the old default.css file into the new report folder.
7. For report versions prior to 6.5.0, upgrading the default.css file is a little more complicated, so we offer to upgrade one default.css file for you for free. Contact us for more details. Your new default.css file can then be used across all of your 6.5.2 reports. Simply drop it into the new report folder, and you’re ready to go.

And that’s it. You’ll have a report with the latest product fixes and features, and hopefully feel more confident about upgrading your reports in the future when new releases occur.

If you have any questions, leave a comment below!

Free Background Mapping Services and InstantAtlas

This post is all about free background mapping services that you can use with InstantAtlas, including some important information about current services that may soon be disconnected.

The good news first then! Many of our customers use ESRI’s ArcGIS Server Online background mapping services to enhance their reports. For example, the Arizona Cancer Registry uses the World Street Map in Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere (102100).

Those who have longed for an understated, elegant and neutral background against our colourful base geography imagery will be delighted to know that the new Light Gray Canvas Map service was recently announced by ESRI!

You can see a demo of the effect here, and anyone with map files projected to 102100 can use this service with InstantAtlas for free.*

Say you really like the Light Gray Canvas background map below, but you don’t have map data in 102100. If you have access to a geographic information system (GIS), you can ask to have your current map files re-projected to 102100.

Unfortunately, ESRI is unlikely to release the service in any other projection. The reason for this is actually pretty sound: 102100 matches Bing Maps and Google Maps, so it makes sense moving forward that they all match up nicely.

We are working hard on the next release of our software, which will contain the ability to project your base geography from a number of common projections into 102100. This will allow you to use the Light Gray Canvas background map without needing to reproject your map data manually before adding them to the InstantAtlas Publisher.

Now to the disconnection of ESRI’s free online mapping services: the Support Team is aware that ESRI’s 4326 services (also known as the unprojected or lat/long) are no longer updated, and will be retired soon.

The background mapping services commonly used in InstantAtlas that will be retired in the first quarter of 2012 are:

ESRI_StreetMap_World_2D

ESRI_ShadedRelief_World_2D

CSP_Imagery_World_2D

Two other services will also be retired at some point in the near future, but the dates are currently unknown. These are:

I3_Imagery_Prime_World_2D

NGS_Topo_US_2D

What does this mean for the InstantAtlas user community? Well, first of all, don’t panic. You can wait until the background services disconnect before doing anything. However, when the services are no longer available, you will have to republish your reports to see background maps in your reports again.

Before you get started republishing all those reports there are some key tips and tricks to upgrading that you will really want to know about. These will be covered in my next blog post. So stay tuned!

–

• - The Light Gray Canvas Map currently covers North America at 1:9,000 and most of the world at 1:2,000,000. This means this background map may not appear for you if your base geography falls outside those scale parameters. ESRI is committed to adding more coverage for the world, so keep checking here for more updates when we hear about them!

How to get an instant answer to your support query

We in the InstantAtlas Support Team take pride in responding quickly to the queries that land in our inbox. However,  the variable nature of our case load means that it may not be possible for us to respond immediately. This is true especially for customers in a different time zone to our support team (we operate in GMT).

To minimise interruptions to your work with InstantAtlas we have been continually developing and improving our InstantAtlas Knowledge Base. This is a database of solutions that answers over 200 of the most frequently asked questions about InstantAtlas Desktop and Server.

The InstantAtlas Knowledge Base is located within ‘My InstantAtlas’, the customer-restricted area of our website and it is really easy to use. You can simply type in a search word or phrase which describes your question or problem, hit the search button and you will see a list of all solutions which match your search. You can also browse through the solutions by drilling down into categories and subcategories to narrow down the results. You can sort solutions by their popularity and rate them if you find them effective. Watch a short video on how to use the InstantAtlas Knowledge Base here.

In the unlikely event that you can’t find an answer to your query in the Knowledge Base, you still have the option to email or phone our support team. If the answer to your query can be helpful to other customers we will add a new solution to the Knowledge Base.

Andrea Kirk, InstantAtlas Support Team

Call for InstantAtlas customers to rate the support service

Recently Dorothy from the InstantAtlas Support Team posted on the subject of feature requests for our products. This generated some great feedback. Many thanks to those who contributed their ideas.

Now I would also like to tap into your valuable feedback. We are always looking for ways to improve InstantAtlas support and to ensure this satisfies the needs of our customers. InstantAtlas customers only please vote below on InstantAtlas support. If you wish to provide any additional comments feel free to use the blog or to write to support@geowise.co.uk.

Many thanks,

Pierre Jenkins, Head of Support

Got a great idea for a new component or improved functionality for InstantAtlas? Feature Request it!

InstantAtlas is packed full of features that enable sophisticated yet user-friendly configurations and presentations of mapped data. However, occasionally we receive questions from our customers about features or functions of InstantAtlas that do not quite meet their specific requirements. It’s in these cases that our customers find themselves in a unique position of power – they can Feature Request!

You might be surprised to know that our software developments often result from Feature Requests by our customers. For example, customers asked for the ability to map indicator values as graduated points over shaded polygons. The new Double Base Layer Map template, released with InstantAtlas Desktop v.6.5.0 and freely available to anyone with the Double Map Time Series template, directly resulted from these Feature Requests.

Another great Feature Request that made it into the latest release is the new Pyramid Chart. This simple, yet powerful graph allows side-by-side, at-a-glance comparisons of population data by age groups or gender. You can see this in action over at the Cornwall Parish/Town Council Population Estimates.

Now you might be wondering how to send us a Feature Request. It’s so simple – just send an email to the Support Team (support@geowise.co.uk) detailing what you want. To support your case, it is particularly helpful to send screenshots or images showing how your Feature Request would improve report presentation. In the rare case that we can’t help you achieve your goal with the current version of the software, we will log your email as a Feature Request!

Although we can’t guarantee every feature request will appear in future versions of InstantAtlas, we can promise that we take Feature Requests very seriously. The Development Team goes through every single Feature Request when planning the next version of InstantAtlas, so you can be certain your views will be heard!

We want InstantAtlas to meet your needs and take your data presentations to the next level. So if you want it, Feature Request it!

Supporting InstantAtlas around the world

InstantAtlas is used world-wide and the number of customers outside the UK is large and rapidly increasing. This is principally due to the InstantAtlas outputs being entirely language-independent and the desktop authoring tools coming equipped with English, French, German and Spanish interface language packs. Also, our main website http://www.instantatlas.com can be viewed in any of those four languages. The need to extract meaning from numerical or text-based data has no geographic or cultural boundaries and creating data visualization software to empower only local users would be missing a trick.

In the age of web conferencing you would be forgiven for thinking that providing support for this far-flung customer base should not pose too great a challenge. This is to some extent true – we are particularly fond of the WebEx web conferencing tool that allows us to deliver demos, support and training to remote areas that we could not travel to quickly or inexpensively.

However, there remains an obstacle for which technology has a tendency to be disappointingly ineffectual – language. Believe me when I say that Google’s translation tools will only get you so far.

We provide support mainly by phone and email/chat. Many of our overseas customers have English as a mother tongue or have learnt it to a high level – we can relax and allow their exotic accent to transport us to far-away places. Others only have the basics they picked up at school and this makes technical troubleshooting interesting to say the least. Others have no English at all. With that in mind, we have always viewed foreign languages as a big plus and our support team currently includes native speakers of English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Portuguese and Ghetto-Texan (err, that’s an official language is it Dorothy?).

A global and multilingual customer base makes for interesting support work. On Monday we’ll discuss how to map a dengue fever outbreak with Argentina’s Ministry of Health, on Tuesday we’ll plan the delivery of a child health census with analysts at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital and on Wednesday we’ll work on the design of a community information system with the research team at Pinellas County in Florida… by Friday we’ll have called all seven continents. It brings us into contact with a wide range of data, issues, work methods and mind-sets and challenges us to find the best solutions. Occasionally we even have the pleasure of dropping in on these customers to deliver consultancy or training in person.

Look out for this week’s stories about our customers NISRA in Northern Ireland and The National Institute for Health and Welfare in Finland.

Till next time | A la prochaine | Hasta luego | Bis zum nächsten Mal | Tot de volgende keer | Até à próxima

Pierre Jenkins, Head of InstantAtlas Support

Versión en español

Supporting Somerset’s Partnership Intelligence Unit

Supporting InstantAtlas takes us into lots of different areas such as customer training, software testing and technical documentation. Probably the most rewarding part of the job, however, is being instrumental in a customer’s successful InstantAtlas solution. This might simply be through troubleshooting an installation problem or by giving advice on where to download suitable map data. But often we are commissioned to play a more substantial role and actually deliver part of or sometimes even the whole working solution.

This work can be very varied. For example, we might be asked to manipulate a customer’s raw statistical indicators into a suitable InstantAtlas format in Excel or asked to create a personalised design for a dynamic report.  Above all it requires good communication between the support team and the customer and careful planning from the outset. The support team draw on their in-depth knowledge of the InstantAtlas product but also on their experience in areas as diverse as data visualisation, web design, statistics, digital cartography, accessibility, IT infrastructure and even security. The aim is to combine the best ideas of both the support team and customer to deliver an InstantAtlas solution that best meets the end users’ requirements.

Local & Community Information Systems based on our InstantAtlas Server product present the greatest challenge due to the depth of the product and endless configuration possibilities. On the blog last week we featured INFORM Somerset, a web site that provides an overview to the county of Somerset (UK) on a range of themes. The initial setup of this site was a collaborative effort between Mike Smith’s Partnership Intelligence Unit (PIU) team based at Somerset Council and our support team, with the work ranging from data loading to user interface customisation. The highly pragmatic approach taken by Mike’s team made them a joy to work with and allowed for rapid turnaround times. With local & community information systems, which are built to hold lots of data, it can be tempting to go for “quantity over quality” where voluminous datasets are loaded with scant attention paid to how these are consumed by the end user. With INFORM Somerset a phased approach has been taken to ensure that data and viewing options are added in a controlled matter and always with the end user in mind. The thematic icons on the homepage take the user to dynamic lists of data views and profiles (Mike’s team simplified these terms to Information by Topic and Information by Area) – these do not come “out-of-the-box” but it was decided that this relatively-straightforward customisation would give users an easier route into the data.

Read the full story on INFORM Somerset and link to the site – it features a feedback link at the bottom of the page if you wish to leave your comments!

Pierre Jenkins, Head of InstantAtlas Support