Google Retiring Fusion Tables Dec 2019

[mdob07]

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]

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]

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

[S4GRU]

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

Robert

[RAvirani]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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 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]

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

[S4GRU]

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

[Flompholph]

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]

.
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]

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]

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]

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

[RAvirani]

On 8/5/2019 at 5:06 AM, S4GRU said:

Yes, that'd be great. Thanks!

Robert

Hi Robert,

To follow up, over the last two weeks (since 8/5) I've had 276 Ultimate Coverage Map page loads. I can report back in another two weeks with more data, if you'd like.

[dkyeager]

 

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: <fusiontables-noreply@google.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 11, 2019, 2:36 AM
Subject: Download your Google Fusion Tables data and migrate your maps
 

 

Last year, we announced plans to shut down Google Fusion Tables, an experimental project to help visualize large datasets, especially on a map. With three months to go until shutdown on December 3, 2019, we wanted to share progress on new tools to make it easier for you to download your data and migrate your maps. Download your data with Google Takeout If you created many tables over the years, we’ve made it easy to download all your data in one step with a new dedicated Fusion Tables option in Google Takeout. You can save the rows, metadata and geometries of any base tables that you own, and export this data in the following formats: JSON, CSV and KML. Migrate your maps with a new open source tool We’ve seen a lot of great maps created with Fusion Tables, including data journalism projects that shouldn’t have to disappear along with Fusion Tables. That’s why we've partnered with Ubilabs to create a new open source tool built to preserve maps generated with Fusion Tables. To get started, go to the Fusion Tables Archive Tool and select the tables you want to export. You will need to give the tool access to your Google Drive and Fusion Tables so that it can read your tables and write archives. Here’s how it works: The data for each table is saved to its own “archive”. The data will be saved in a Google Sheet; for datasets beyond the size limits of Sheets, you'll get a CSV. This archive is stored in a top level folder called “ft-archive” in your Drive. A Google Maps visualization is automatically created with the archived data. This map preserves many of the original Fusion Tables styling configurations. Any changes you make to the Sheet or CSV will appear in the map visualization. A listing of all archived tables is stored in a Sheet. This handy Sheet is called "ft-archive-index" and lives within the “ft-archive” folder. The index Sheet summarizes each run of the archive tool and preserves the visualization URLs with encoded styles. Each time you run the archive tool, you will get additional archives based on the current data in your tables along with corresponding new rows in the archive directory. You can preview a map visualization in the archive tool, and when you’re ready to share, generate a code snippet to embed your map. If you want to embed the map on your site, you must get an API key. If you're a journalist or nonprofit, you may be eligible for free or reduced cost usage. Finally, certain features of Fusion Tables, notably geocoding, will not be supported by this tool—see this FAQ for more limitations and known issues. As mentioned, we’ve open sourced the export and visualization code. The export code will stop working on December 3, when Fusion Tables shuts down. The visualizer will continue to be available for at least a year after this date. There are guides on how to deploy and host your own version of the tool in the GitHub repo. These and other tools—including BigQuery, Cloud SQL and Maps Platform—provide newer, more specialized alternatives to Fusion Tables, from data storage to mapping. We encourage you to explore these alternatives as you transition off Fusion Tables.   Sincerely, The Google Fusion Tables Team

© 2019 Google LLC 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 You have received this mandatory service announcement to update you about important changes to Google Fusion Tables or your account.