Q. Why aren't my data fields being displayed/added in Dundas Map for RS?

A. When adding fields as "Displayed Fields" or "Data Fields" to Dundas Map for Reporting Services, here are some things to check:

• Data value fields: Fields representing the names of your elements and the data you want them to represent must all be added as "data fields"/"displayed fields." If you want the provinces of a country to each be color-coded according to some data in your database, for example, one of the data fields must represent the names of the provinces. You can add these in the map's wizard, the field drop-zones, or in the Map Designer >> Data tab.
  
  
• You should also have a category grouping field so that more than one row of data is returned.
  
  
• The binding field: The binding field must be set to the field from your dataset that contains names matching the names of the elements that you are trying to bind to. (E.g., the names of the provinces in the example above.)
  
  To check, right-click on the map and go to Properties. In the Data tab, set the Binding Field drop-down.

Dundas Map must be able to match up the names used in your database with the elements you have imported into Dundas Map. There may be differences in spelling, spaces, abbreviation, etc. that can interfere with this matching.

To check on this, right-click on the map and go to Properties, and click on the Advanced tab. Select and open the Shapes, Paths, Symbols or Groups collection (whichever type of element you have set in the FieldType property -- this is set to shapes by default.) Here, you will see the names of the elements. If they do not match up with your database, the simplest way to correct this is to set each element's Name property.

Elements can also have other fields that you can bind to, for example a field containing states' abbreviations. For this field to work, it must have its UniqueIdentifier property set to true. (In the Map Designer's Advanced tab, open the Fields collection, e.g., the "ShapeFields" collection, and you can check for the field's UniqueIdentifier setting here.)

To display your data on the map, go to the map designer's Data Appearance tab and select this data as your Field from the drop-down menu, or to display it as text labels select it using the Text property drop-down menu.

If you have numeric data that displays, but with a different color entry for each value and it is out of order in the color swatch or legend, your data is being imported as a string.

To correct this, right-click on the map and choose Properties, go to the Advanced tab, and select and open the ShapeFields, PathFields, SymbolFields or GroupFields collection. Select the field that you are using, and set its Type property to a numeric type such as System.Double.