This unexpected way to use location intelligence may have you feeling like you’re a top detective on CSI.One of our customers is a US Federal Agency (wish we could tell you who, but we are sworn to secrecy). And while we’re also not allowed to get into the nitty-gritty details about how they use QlikMaps, we can share some of the functionality they’re applying to analyze criminal activity.In our example below, we used data from Chicago Open Data Initiative and plotted the data to show crimes broken down into Chicago’s crime classification. The main color of the shape tells you the primary offense and the outline of the shape tells you the second highest offense. This gives us a high-level overview of the Chicago area.Analysis GoalsOne of the main goals is to find patterns and commonalities between crime incidents so the organization can be better prepared and place resources in hot spots. So the first thing we’ll do is simply drill down in to the polygons to get a closer look at the specific crime incidents. Then we need to perform four analyses to unlock the actions we should take based on the data:1. Evaluate the data points’ relationships to landmarks.As we look at the large landmarks on the map, we can see there is increased crime near the interstate and by the sports arena. Both are unsurprising, but justify the need for additional patrolling resources in those areas.2. Add a google search query to bring in other landmark variables.We can do a google search query within your mapping visualization that reaches outside the Qlik data model and pulls in additional landmarks such as restaurants, hotels, or for this case, bus stops to see if crime spiked near those locations. Now we can interact with these google queried data points just like any other data on our map.3. Display lines to see movement over time.Use the lines function to see patterns. Many people think you need animation to see how things change over time. But that’s not the case.The use of lines is an effective way to visualize the movement over time. There is not much of pattern above, but if we go to a different location on our map shown below, the lines display something noteworthy. It appears as if the crime shifted over time. This type of observation begs the question of why: Did we increase police presence in certain areas? Did businesses open or close? 4. Virtually visit the crime locations After the other evaluations, our agency used their maps to drill into each of the data points to the street view to see if there were any commonalities (which they did find because of street view). They also used the customized pop ups we looked at earlier to show real-time street cameras to monitor behavior in criminal hot spots. Features Used: Custom polygons, Custom popups, google search query, mashups, Lines, Radial Plots Shown in QlikMaps for Qlik SenseBefore QlikMaps: The detectives and agents had to request analyses from data scientists who had to process the data and pass it along – a very untimely process. Now with QlikMaps: Everyone from beat cops, to detectives, and all the way up the hierarchy can access dashboards and get their hands on data to do relevant analyses and take relevant actions.Part 2: Spot A Problem – Take Instant Action (Instead of jumping from app to app, you can centralize your work flow to your map. Yes… we just rhymed there.) Part 5: Hospital Network Planning (The concepts can easily be applied for Market & Sales Territory Planning as well)You can watch the full webinar to see all the features in action and get tips from QlikMaps product architect, Patrick Vinton OR you can check out these blog posts that will spark your creativity for how to use location analytics to get buisness value.
