Use Voyager for geospatial mapping in Slate. This type of reporting is fundamentally different from what is available within reports or queries. Beginning with a map of the United States, Voyager allows superimposing of additional layers allowing visualization of data about records, events, organizations, American Community Survey (ACS) data, and more.

Voyager can be found under the Queries / Reports toolbar

A voyage begins as a map. The map can be manipulated as within Google Maps, including zooming, panning, and centering based on a search parameter. Data may be added to the map using two different types of data representations, based on what is going to be to plotted:

Configure Data Layers

Use the edit layers button to configure data layers for the map.

Create a Marker Layer

1. Click New Layer to create a new data layer.
   Note: All of the settings in the edit layer popup can be edited at any point.

   • Name - Name the marker. The name will appear on the voyage in the legend and the data tab.

   • Type - The Type should remain Marker

   • Color - Select a Color for the markers. This color dictates the color of the clusters, and it also appears in the legend and the corresponding data tab.

   • Default Visibility - Any active marker layers can be toggled on and off when viewing the voyage map. When Default Visibility is set to On, the markers for this layer will automatically be toggled on when the voyage is opened for all users. If the setting is set to Off, the markers will not be displayed automatically, but the layer does appear as an option to turn on if the user wishes to do so.

   • Order - The Order determines the order in which the data tabs appear under the map as well as the order they appear in the legend.

   • Population - Select the Population for the query that will provide the data(You will want to add the "Geography" query base and the "ACS Data" exports and filters via the Slate Template Library first).

   There will be additional configurations that will need to be set in the edit layer window, but these rely on a configured query.

   

2. Click the edit query link to build the query that will drive the data for this marker layer.
   The normal Query Builder will be opened to edit the query associated with the marker just created. The query will already be associated with the population that was selected.

   • Exports - Exports added to this query will be available to view on the data tab. The only requirement is that a postal code data point must be added so that the markers can be displayed on a map. Several postal code exports are available in the Slate Template Library, including postal codes associated with mailing address, permanent address, active address, and school #1 address.

     
     By default, column widths are equally divided. Column widths may be adjusted so that columns that will always be much smaller, such as a CEEB code, can be limited to the width of that column so that the unused width can be allocated to the other columns. The display width can be configured in the name field of the export using the syntax: 
     Export Name:XXpx (to define the width in pixels) or Export Name:XX% (to define the width by a percent).
     Only the name up to the colon will appear as the column label. In the following example, the column width is 50 pixels wide, and the name of the column is CEEB.

   • Filters - Filters restrict the population of records. For example, to show only records with an active entry term, use the field prompt exists filter:

     

   • Sort keys - Sort Keys are optional. The records displayed on the tab and within a cluster will be ordered using any specified sort keys.

   Once the query has been configured, use the edit layers breadcrumb link to continue configuring the layer.

3. In order to put the data from the query onto the map, Voyager must have data that associates each record with a location on the map. Click the edit layer link to perform the location configuration.

   • Location Export - Select the query export that contains the postal code from the location export dropdown.

   Once the marker layer has been successfully configured, use the breadcrumb link at the top of the page to return to the voyage map. 

Create an Overlay Layer

The steps to create an overlay are very similar to the steps used to create a marker layer.

1. On the edit layers page, click New Layer to create a new data layer.

   Note: Just as with marker layers, all of the settings in the edit layer popup can be edited at any point.

   • Name - Name the overlay. This name will appear as the option group for all overlay exports that are configured for this layer.

   • Type - Set the Type to Overlay.

   • Population - Select the Population for the query that will provide the data. If using ACS data for the overlay, use the Geography query base.

   There will be additional configurations that will need to be set in the edit layer window, but these rely on a configured query.

2. Click the edit query link for the new layer to build the query that will drive the data for this overlay layer.

   • Just as with the marker layer, this link will navigate to the normal Query Builder to edit the query associated with the new layer.  The query will already be associated with the population that was selected.

   • Add any number of exports to the query to make the data available for the overlay layer.  Just like with markers, be sure to also include a postal code data point so that the data can be displayed on the map.

   Overlays must be numerically quantifiable within a range. Unlike markers, exports for name, CEEB code, etc., should not be included in the query.

   • If including ACS data as overlays, use the ACS data value configurable export.

   • For all exports added, double click on the export to edit the configurations:

     • Provide an intuitive name for the export. This name will appear in the list of available overlays on the voyage.

     • If the data export selected requires configuration (this is true for the ACS data exports), set the configurations needed.

ACS Data

For ACS data, there are a number of available data points to select. Some of the data points are on a percentile, while others provide the raw numeric value.  Keep this in mind when choosing data points. Displaying the percentage of the population that has a household income of at least $200,000/year gives a different representation than displaying the median household income.

Filters and sort keys are unnecessary in most circumstances for overlay queries.

Once the query has been configured, use the edit layers breadcrumb link to continue configuring the layer.

In order to put data from this query onto the map, Voyager must have data that associates each data point with a location on the map. Click the edit layer link to perform the location configuration.

Select the query export that contains the postal code from the location export dropdown.

Optional: If one of the exports is selected as the pre-selected value, that overlay will be selected by default every time the voyage loads. Regardless of the export chosen, all active exports associated with the query will be available to select when viewing the voyage. 

Once the overlay later has been successfully configured, use the breadcrumb link at the top of the page to return to the voyage map.

Voyage Navigation

Markers

Any number of marker layers may be used. Each layer will appear in the markers legend to the right of the map. Clicking on a marker in the legend will toggle its display on or off.

The map has the same search, zoom, pan, and tilt features as Google Maps. When the area on the map changes, the cluster results for all active marker layers will update, and the data displayed in the data tabs will also be restricted by the bounding box.

Search the data tab results to find records with a certain attribute. Restricting the results in the data tab will update the clusters displayed on the map.

Click on a cluster to display the records contained within that cluster. Click on a record in the cluster results or the data tab to view the query data associated with that record. Use the lookup record link to navigate to that record within Slate to see more information.

If plotting the Organizations dataset records as a marker layer, use the new event link to create an event associated with the selected organization.

Overlays

In addition to any number of markers that may be toggled off as described above, an Overlay can be added to a Voyage to show a gradation of colors similar to a heat map. Select any of the American Community Survey (ACS) attributes created above to dynamically update and shade based upon the selected American Community Survey (ACS) attribute. There are dozens of possible ACS attributes to select from, but only one overlay may be viewed at a time.