Simply Analytics

Starting a project

Whether you are creating a map or a spreasheet, Simply Analytics first prompts you to select the location or locations you want to research. (You can choose multiple locations and switch between them later.)

Location boundaries are borrowed mostly from Statistics Canada's Census geography, for example, provinces/territories, census metropolitan areas (CMAs), census subdivisions, and forward sortation areas. (Forward sortation areas are the first three characters of a postal code.)  When making a map, especially as you are becoming familiar with Simply Analytics, you may need to choose the 'best fit'. 

To visualize the different geographic boundaries available in Simply Analytics, seethe 'Census geography in pictures' page of this guide.

The location selection screeen looks like this:

Once you have chosen your location(s), SimplyAnalytics will prompt you to choose variables you want to research. The tool contains many more options than what you see in this first menu, though. Pick at least one variable from this list; you can explore and add other variables soon. 

Your preliminary map could look something like this:

This preliminary map will probably not display all the variables you selected. To select others, toggle the menus at the top of your map.

You can now add new variables to display on the map, selecting them from the left-hand side of the screen. The 'category' and 'data folder' options provide two different views of the variables menus.

Menus expand into more specific sub-categories you can chose from. For example, clicking on "Consumer Behavior" below opens up more than 800 different variables. 

You can customize the look of the map by editting the legend. 

The Legend editor will give you several options for changing how map's statistics are displayed. In this example, the legend is for a map showing population counts for different parts of town. In this example you could:

1. change how the quintiles (the 5 population segments) are broken up (the 'classification method').
2. add or remove segments (for example, change it from a map with 5 'categories' to one with 7).
3. change the colour scheme (including giving each segment a colour from a different colour palate)
4. change the colour and thickness of the map lines that define internal areas - for example within a map of the province, have the Census Divisions clearly laid out.) 
5. change what the numeric break points are (category ranges) between population segments

Displaying multiple variables on a map (population count and age groupings at the same time, for example) is challenging. One way to meet this challenge is to use 'filters' to show the areas where a specific criteria is - or is not - met.

Begin by selecting all of your desired variables from the menu of data options on the left. For example, if you were interested in how much households earning more than $80,000 per year spend on their vehicles, you would select both "Households by Income" and also "Average Total Expenditure | Transportation | Private transportation". 

To use any of these variables as filters on the map, select the "Filtering" button in the top right of the map.

You will see the variables you have chosen and the conditions you can set for them. (In this example, I set Household Income at above $80,000 and Average total expenditure on personal cars or trucks at more then $8000.00).

Hit "Apply" at the bottom of the filtering screen. Your map will now display the geographic areas that meet, and do not meet, the criteria you set. 

To export your map, click the "Export" button in the top-right corner of the interface. 

You will have the option to modify the layout and select a format (PNG, JPEG, or PDF).