Google Retiring Fusion Tables Dec 2019

[mdob07 875]

I received the below email today about Google shutting down its Fusion Tables tool. I know many of us have and still use fusion tables for our market maps here on S4GRU. Looks like we've got a year to migrate to a new platform.

 

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[RAvirani 1,606]

44 minutes ago, mdob07 said:

 

I received the below email today about Google shutting down its Fusion Tables tool. I know many of us have and still use fusion tables for our market maps here on S4GRU. Looks like we've got a year to migrate to a new platform.

 

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

 

 

I got the same email. What a shame .

[belusnecropolis 1,164]

Just when I figure out how to use something Google starts killing it.

[S4GRU 56,822]

Yeah, I got it too.  Bummed.  But they mention they have other products coming online soon.  Hopefully equal or better.

Robert

[RAvirani 1,606]

5 minutes ago, S4GRU said:

Yeah, I got it too.  Bummed.  But they mention they have other products coming online soon.  Hopefully equal or better.

Robert

Yeah—keeping my fingers crossed they’ll release something better. 

[radem 416]

I got that email as well.  Now is a good time to remind everyone to download your fusion tables to .CSV files on your desktop/laptop so that you have a backup of your data.  You should do this at least monthly if any of your tables have changed since the last backup.  I am sure whatever they come up with will have the ability to upload data from .CSV files.

[ingenium 1,128]

I got that email as well.  Now is a good time to remind everyone to download your fusion tables to .CSV files on your desktop/laptop so that you have a backup of your data.  You should do this at least monthly if any of your tables have changed since the last backup.  I am sure whatever they come up with will have the ability to upload data from .CSV files.

Most of us using fusion tables feed it from a Google Sheet. Every update we delete all data and re-import it. It was a great way to have multiple maps/layers in a single "file". I'm not aware of a replacement from Google yet unfortunately...

They've been putting a lot of their Maps related products behind a paywall. I'm guessing whatever they get to replace it will get a certain number of accesses or uses per month, then a fee after that.

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[red_dog007 342]

https://support.google.com/fusiontables/answer/9185417

Use Google BigQuery, Cloud SQL, Sheets, Data Studio

Some new existing internal tools in some capacity may be coming.

This is using these new tools.

https://insights.sustainability.google/places/ChIJiQHsW0m3j4ARm69rRkrUF3w/buildings

Sign up here for news on new tools

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdXwDdRb8JyKj_JcQ6D-iu1T_e393U0ndSE-tKm28Llc03-cw/viewform

[ingenium 1,128]

https://support.google.com/fusiontables/answer/9185417
Use Google BigQuery, Cloud SQL, Sheets, Data Studio
Some new existing internal tools in some capacity may be coming.
This is using these new tools.
https://insights.sustainability.google/places/ChIJiQHsW0m3j4ARm69rRkrUF3w/buildings
Sign up here for news on new tools
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdXwDdRb8JyKj_JcQ6D-iu1T_e393U0ndSE-tKm28Llc03-cw/viewform

Those replace the database aspects of Fusion Tables. But I don't think any of them allow you to make custom maps do they?

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[dkyeager 8,089]

11 hours ago, red_dog007 said:

...Sign up here for news on new tools

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdXwDdRb8JyKj_JcQ6D-iu1T_e393U0ndSE-tKm28Llc03-cw/viewform

It is important that we all sign-up, as google uses this as a proxy for interest and whether they should invest time and money.

[S4GRU 56,822]

On 12/12/2018 at 6:31 PM, dkyeager said:

It is important that we all sign-up, as google uses this as a proxy for interest and whether they should invest time and money.

Great point.  Done!

Robert

[RAvirani 1,606]

As Google is turning fusiontables down soon, I've been looking for ways to preserve our maps. Playing around with the Google Maps API, it looks like it's possible to take data from a MySQL table and display it in the form of pins on a Google Map via PHP. This is virtually identical to what fusiontables did. 

If map usage stays low enough to be covered by the free tier, this is something I could look into doing on a bigger scale.

If anyone else has other ideas for fusiontables alternatives, share them here. The shutdown date is approaching quickly. 

[Flompholph 1,191]

You can import a CSV into google maps I believe it is done that way in Charlotte Market. You can also import a kml not sure if it would be easier to do a kml which is just pretty much xml. Creating a script to generate a kml from google sheets should not be to hard. The problem with creating a script google gives a scary message about giving access to your files to run a script that reads from a sheet you have access.

 

Not sure of the limitations of maps (number of pins) or the security of stopping leaked maps.

[dkyeager 8,089]

1 hour ago, Flompholph said:

You can import a CSV into google maps I believe it is done that way in Charlotte Market. You can also import a kml not sure if it would be easier to do a kml which is just pretty much xml. Creating a script to generate a kml from google sheets should not be to hard. The problem with creating a script google gives a scary message about giving access to your files to run a script that reads from a sheet you have access.

 

Not sure of the limitations of maps (number of pins) or the security of stopping leaked maps.

I have been using a .kml with and old version of google earth for a long time.  Ideally we would use google maps that would move with you. 

[Flompholph 1,191]

Kml work with maps also but network links don't work. They import with the pin colors that are in fusion if you download the kml from fusion. So you just need to build it similar to how that kml is structured.

Click the top left go down to "Your places" it should be found there where to import cvs or kml. 

[RAvirani 1,606]

1 hour ago, Flompholph said:

Not sure of the limitations of maps (number of pins) or the security of stopping leaked maps.

Leaked maps could be a big issue. I'm also curious if map markets are rendered individually on the client side or if they're rendered as tiles on the server side. If they're done client-side, performance with large maps (e.g. the NV sites map or Clear sites map) will be terrible. Can you link me to one of these maps?

[Flompholph 1,191]

The first post contains a few maps and how they would look embed in the forum.

[S4GRU 56,822]

Thanks for looking into solutions!  Ideally, running in Google maps with all the data present to scroll around would be best.

[Flompholph 1,191]

Google maps may not work out because of limitations. The limit seems to be 10,000 pins and 2000 pins per layer. 

Do you know how many monthly views the maps get on a busy month? Just to work out how much it may cost but google does give credits for "news media". https://developers.google.com/maps/billing/understanding-public-programs Not sure if that is on top of the already $200 per month or how that would work.

Maybe there is a way to detect if you have went through the free usage then shut it down so there would be no out of pocket cost. That is probably one of a few questions for google that could be asked.

[ingenium 1,128]

.
Maybe there is a way to detect if you have went through the free usage then shut it down so there would be no out of pocket cost. That is probably one of a few questions for google that could be asked.

You can set quotas and limits on the Google APIs. You can even have it alert you when you reach a certain threshold, so you know when you're approaching the quota that you've set.

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[S4GRU 56,822]

On 8/2/2019 at 9:50 AM, Flompholph said:

Google maps may not work out because of limitations. The limit seems to be 10,000 pins and 2000 pins per layer. 

Do you know how many monthly views the maps get on a busy month? Just to work out how much it may cost but google does give credits for "news media". https://developers.google.com/maps/billing/understanding-public-programs Not sure if that is on top of the already $200 per month or how that would work.

Maybe there is a way to detect if you have went through the free usage then shut it down so there would be no out of pocket cost. That is probably one of a few questions for google that could be asked.

@RAvirani do you have any metrics available on your site to determine how often it's loaded?  I'm trying to come up with a wild guess how often the maps are loaded if I can combine my website page statistics with yours.

Robert

[RAvirani 1,606]

6 hours ago, S4GRU said:

@RAvirani do you have any metrics available on your site to determine how often it's loaded?  I'm trying to come up with a wild guess how often the maps are loaded if I can combine my website page statistics with yours.

Robert

I haven't really set up bulk logging/high-level usage stats on that particular part of the site. How about I record usage for the next week or two and give you a good usage estimate then?

[S4GRU 56,822]

3 hours ago, RAvirani said:

I haven't really set up bulk logging/high-level usage stats on that particular part of the site. How about I record usage for the next week or two and give you a good usage estimate then?

Yes, that'd be great. Thanks!

Robert