March 16, 2023 / 🗾 Map View

[mdubakov]

Map View

Map View can visualize entities with Location Field on a map. Here are some use cases:

• See Accounts on a world map and quickly see in what country you have more customers and leads.
• See Customers you need to visit today in some city and think about the best routes.
• Plot properties for sale or rent on a map, making it easy to identify and compare listings in specific neighbourhoods or regions.

How about museums in EU?

Or electricity consumption in NYC?

You can see several databases in a single map, set map style, visible fields, filter and color code markers. You can also quickly see entities by clicking a marker:

Check Map View user guide and share your cool cases with us!

NOTE: If you store addresses in a Text field, it is not possible to build a map view to see entities on it, you have to use Location Field. There is no easy way to convert text address to Location right now. Life is hard…

Improvements

• Form View preview in social media and web works better, it shows actual form name and description
• GraphQL API performance improved dramatically for some cases.

13 Fixed Bugs

• Left menu: Favorites section does not get auto-expanded if view is selected there on user login
• Left menu: Space doesn’t get selected in the left menu of open it via Go to Space button on Templates page
• Left menu: Focus should be set in doc name when creating a new doc
• Left menu: View is not selected in the left menu when open it by a direct link if it placed in the folder
• Left menu: dnd for Folder and Smart-Folder crashes when it’s parent changes
• Jira sync: ‘Compass’ field left synced even when user makes it ignored in schema
• Clickup sync: Missing Task DB on “Edit schema fields” screen
• ‘New’ tooltip appears for “New” button if open full-add form from relation view
• Notion sync: Error on sync with Notion in case Notion field name is empty
• “Duplicate” action missing on table view
• CSV Import: UI form is slow
• Duplicated relation lists
• On opening entity view focus always set in Location field if it is

[JoelH]

Okay, I don’t have a known business use case for maps (I know many have!) but after testing it, I’ll admit this map feature is pretty damn cool.

I’ll leave it to other users to leave more serious feedback…

There is no easy way to convert text address to Location right now. Life is hard…

Indeed. It’s a rough ride.

[Oshyan]

I have to say I was not initially a believer in the value of adding map view and field(s) to Fibery, but this is pretty cool. And as a real estate company it even has some use for us.

One problem noticed so far, and a couple questions/requests.

First a possible bug: in Google Chrome 110 on Windows 10, I’m not seeing the markers until I mouse over them. Then they show up. But of course I can’t see them to do this reliably. Not sure why this is happening, I would imagine you’d have tested on Chrome. I have an update to do (Chrome and Windows both), so I’ll test again after that…

Now, a couple questions/requests. Do you think you will enable public sharing of these? That would be pretty awesome and enable entire new use cases for me. In fact if it becomes possible there are several projects I would probably embark on that I until now have not been able to accomplish. That said I realize there may be API cost issues for geocoding, etc. but curious what you guys are thinking here.

Also would be very nice to be able to add entries from this view. At the least a “New” button, but even cooler to have right-click → create new and have it lookup that location under cursor, maybe optionally allowing you to adjust the returned address. A general location Search and then create new entity from result(s) would also be amazing, though definitely bonus not necessity. But just in general I’m curious your thoughts on creation of new entities from this view.

@mdubakov

There is no easy way to convert text address to Location right now.

AI to the rescue?

[mdubakov]

@Oshyan

First a possible bug: in Google Chrome 110 on Windows 10, I’m not seeing the markers until I mouse over them. Then they show up. But of course I can’t see them to do this reliably. Not sure why this is happening, I would imagine you’d have tested on Chrome. I have an update to do (Chrome and Windows both), so I’ll test again after that…

Indeed we reproduced this bug for some zoom levels on Windows, we will fix it soon.

@Oshyan

Now, a couple questions/requests. Do you think you will enable public sharing of these? That would be pretty awesome and enable entire new use cases for me. In fact if it becomes possible there are several projects I would probably embark on that I until now have not been able to accomplish. That said I realize there may be API cost issues for geocoding, etc. but curious what you guys are thinking here.

Public sharing of Map View is tied to permissions we are working on. Not sure when we will get to it, but eventually it will be possible to share any view. However, I can’t say when it will be done…

@Oshyan

right-click → create new and have it lookup that location under cursor, maybe optionally allowing you to adjust the returned address. A general location Search and then create new entity from result(s) would also be amazing, though definitely bonus not necessity. But just in general I’m curious your thoughts on creation of new entities from this view.

We considered this, but did not find a useful use case so far. Do you have any in mind?

[ESGdataBoi]

Sometimes seeing things spatially lends to insights as to where some new thing should potentially be located and it would be convenient to be able to “right click → add entity here” right on the map…but I’m not sure how applicable that would be to MOST users…although I personally would love it.

Not ideal, but For now, a workaround to get such visual insights with the ability to add new entities in that context could be to setup a client-side/desktop automation to:
(1) export table view with all the relevant location-based entities to csv,
(2) run through a transformation to format for google earth kmz,
(3) load into google earth to see all the entities there so you can see where you may want to add new entities and add them + the related field data,
(4) import the new entities back into Fibery