1. Open the My Map Layer Tray by Clicking on the Layer Tray Button located in the top right-hand corner of My Map:
My Map Layer Tray Button
2. To begin creating your Map Layer, Click on the Plus Symbol in the Layer Tray Header:
My Map Layer Tray; Add Button
3. Complete the required fields for your Map Layer, to include:
- Location: The HQ/Region/Site where the Map Layer is to be stored. (More information on data locations can be found here).
- Name: The name/title of the Map Layer.
- Description: A description of the Map Layer, that will appear when a user hovers their mouse over the Layer Name.
- Project: The main project folder that the Map Layer belongs to (drop-down folder under the Location).
- Category: The subsequent category folder that the Map Layer belongs to (drop-down folder under the Project):
4. Set the Sharing Settings:
Check the appropriate boxes:
- Private: Determines the security level of the data.
- Shareable: Determines if location access is required to view the data.
Note: There are 4 combinations of Sharing Settings available to you:
1. Private Checked & Shareable Unchecked: The Layer is only available to users with Private Permissions (or higher) to view data for that specific Location. Users who do not have access to that Location and/or users with Public Permissions cannot access the data.
2. Private Checked & Shareable Checked: The Layer is accessible to everyone across the Organisation who has Private Permissions (or higher) to view data, irrespective of their access to that location. Users with Public Permissions cannot access the data.
3. Private Unchecked & Shareable Checked: The Layer is accessible to everyone across the Organisation who has Public Permissions (or higher) to view data.
4. Private Unchecked & Shareable Unchecked: The Layer is available to users with Public Permissions (or higher) to view data for that specific Location. Users who do not have access to that Location will not be able to view the data.
5. Click the Import Map Data button:
6. Click the applicable button from the following 3 choices, based on your data format:
- Geocode – A CSV file that contains address information
- Lat / Long – A CSV file that contains latitude and longitude coordinates (in Decimal Degree format)
- KML – a KML or KMZ map file
Examples of the 3 Import Paths:
1. CSV File Upload – Geocoding and Lat/Long Coordinates. In general, geocoding is the process of converting a location descriptor (physical property address, place name, etc.) into geographic coordinates on the earth’s surface. Geocoding can be problematic at times due to country/regional differences in how mailing/physical property addresses are structured. Lat/Long Coordinates are more precise and easier to work with.
a. Initial data preparation:
Critical to the efficient upload and geocoding of your data is whether the address format is consistent across your dataset. Close inspection of the spreadsheet to filter out duplicate records, records without sufficient address information, or misspelling of Street names or Cities will likely result in records not being uploaded to the map. This standard “data-cleaning” should be the first step for loading data both via the rWaves geocode method or the Lat Long method.
b. Upload the data:
Once the CSV file is prepared, and the method with which the location data will be placed on the map is selected (geocoding of addresses or placement via lat/long coordinates), the red screen below will appear:The CSV file can be dragged and dropped in to the red area, or the file can be navigated to and selected by clicking on the grey “Browse…” portion of the window. Once the file is acquired, the red portion of the user interface will turn green, indicating that the file is ready for upload. Click the Upload button.
c. The next window that opens depends upon which type of geolocation data is selected (addresses or lat/long). Select the column with the property address (GEOCODE option), or the columns with the Latitude and Longitude (LAT LONG option) and then Continue.
1a. Geocode Option (example dataset):
a. After uploading the CSV file where property addresses are to be used for geolocation, a window similar to the following will show up:
b. Select the column/field in the .csv file that holds the address to be used in geocoding the location. Click the Geocode button.
c. A window similar to the following will show up:
d. The top red portion of this window indicates that of the 11 locations that were to be geocoded, 10 were successful. However, 1 address was not specific enough to avoid a conflict with other similar addresses. At this point, you would want to review the record and edit it so it can be recognized by the software. Click the back button and reload the file. Select which field you want as the name of each individual location.
e. Select which fields you want displayed on the pop-up window for each location.
f. rWaves provides several options for map icons representing the locations loaded on to the map. These include a website URL field contained in the uploaded data table, a public URL link entered directly into this form, a custom image uploaded from the user’s computer, or a selection from our icon list. Click Finish when the icon is selected.
1b. Lat Long Option (example dataset):
a. Select the fields in your dataset with the latitude and longitude coordinates (in Decimal Degrees).
b. Proceed through the pop-up windows in the same manner as was outlined for the Geocode Option, selecting the main title/label for each location, the fields from the dataset that will be displayed when a location is selected, and the icon representing the location on the map. The result of both options is the site-specific pop-up window that appears when the location is clicked on.
KML File Upload
1. If the User has previously mapped locations in a program such as Google Maps, Google Earth, or Google Maps Pro, then they would have the option to export their layer(s) as a KML file, which can be directly loaded into rWaves. Users who have existing data files in ESRI’s Shapefile format can use ArcGIS to export their data into KML format as well. Direct uploads of shapefile data files will be available in a future release of rWaves.
2. One main difference in uploading KML files is that the User is restricted in the format/visual representation of the map data to that which was selected prior to exporting the data to the KML format (see the screenshot from Google Maps along with the rWaves interface below).
As future releases of the rWaves mapping software come online, more functionality will be available for those Users intent on uploading KML files directly, rather than the more adaptable .csv files.