WEB SERVICES - ONLINE OFFICE - 30.10.2014

Creating fusion tables with Google

What exactly is it?

Google Fusion Tables ( http://support.google.com/fusiontables ) allow you to collect, analyse, visualise and share large datasets. This tool is still in the experimental stage and is therefore a bit hard to find. Surf to http://tinyurl.com/fusion-in-google and click on Create a Fusion Table . You can now start importing data. On the one hand, you can load a CSV, TSV or TXT file from your computer - this can also be an existing Excel spreadsheet, as long as it doesn’t exceed 100MB. On the other hand, you can use a spreadsheet you had already created in Google Docs or start from an empty table. Tip. In Google Fusion Tables, you can even integrate information from the web. You can look for this information via the “Search Public Data Tables” search field. A search will then be performed through various online sources, mainly Wikipedia. Below each result found you will see an Export Data option which allows you to transfer the data and subsequently open them as a fusion table.

The possibilities

Table. To illustrate the possibilities of fusion tables, we created a simple sample table listing the branches of a company ( http://tinyurl.com/nwl7srg ). The data, rows and columns can be freely modified, copied and deleted by the administrator. Via the blue Filter button, it’s possible to show only the Italian branches of our company, for example.

Note. When working with numerical data or locations, it’s best to change the relevant “type” (click on the arrow beside the column name and select Change ). In this way, the data can subsequently be interpreted correctly for further analysis.

Maps. In our example, we defined the “Location” column as a “location” type. This makes it possible to display the different branches neatly on a Google map ( http://tinyurl.com/oplb9jd ). One click on the corresponding red dot on the map opens the detailed information from the fusion table. You can create such a Google map by clicking on the + sign (to create a new tab) and selecting “Add Map”. You can then fully customise the layout and the information to be displayed. Tip.  By using so-called KML files, you can even display entire regions on a map. Simon Rogers ( http://simonrogers.net/2013/01/27/how-to-make-a-map-with-google-fusion-tables ) explains how to do this.

Charts and cards. Similarly, you can turn your data into charts (“Add Chart”), again with various options. An example distilled from our table can be found at http://tinyurl.com/novfobq . You can also have the data displayed in handy individual cards (see the Cards tab). For even more options, we refer to the Google Fusion Tables tutorial ( http://tinyurl.com/fusion-tutorial ).

If you would like to try out all the possibilities of this service, use our sample table: http://tinyurl.com/fusion-example2 .

Publish the information online

You can share the separate components of your fusion table (maps, charts, cards, etc.) with others or integrate them into your website by clicking on the arrow beside the corresponding tab and selecting Publish .