Drive Zone Wizard: Update Variable

This step of the wizard allows you to define what the virtual variable will be called.

Enter the name into the Description box or, to overwrite an existing virtual variable, drag that variable onto the Drop the variable to overwrite here drop box.

When you have used a text file of multiple centre points to create a selector variable for each point, you will see a red 'Note' prompt to use [centrepoint] as part of the variable description that is generated. By adding [centrepoint] - for example at the end of the description - the geographical location will be appended.

If you are working on an Enterprise version of FastStats, you can select the Modify Security Attributes box to access and modify the Security options for your virtual variable.

Click Next to go to Finish

Click to return to Notes

IMPORTANT: Billable transactions apply for Bing Maps - see Bing API for more information.

Added in Q3 22

To provide new functionality for geographic mapping functions, billable Bing transactions apply. Each licensed user is credited with 6,600 transactions per year, sufficient for most normal use. For example, an initial calculation using a Drive Zone wizard request for 10 centre points each with 5 zones would result in 50 billable transactions. Subsequent data refreshes would be free.

Transactions over and above the allocated 6,600 per year are supplied at 1.5 pence each. To protect against unintentional spend on billable Bing transactions, warning messages and maximum volume checks are displayed.

Confirm Bing Transactions

You must acknowledge and confirm the number of Bing transactions required to create and/or update the virtual variable(s).

Geographic variable

Here, the number of API requests will often be the number of zones, or the cardinality of the geographic variable used. If a maximum drive time is specified, this maximum is applied and only the locations reachable in that time are counted. If multiple centre points are defined, each one is calculated separately to give the total number of transactions.

Latitude and longitude variables

Once you have chosen your variable description, clicking Finish will open a dialog that confirms the number of Bing API requests needed to create the variable(s).

The example below is based on four UK postcodes defined as centre points, with 16 zones per point resulting from setting a 0-80 minutes drive time at a 5 minute accuracy:

Although initial calculations are chargeable, subsequent data refreshes are free.

Too Many Bing Transactions warning

If you try to proceed when your permitted maximum is exceeded, you will see the following message and should contact the relevant person within your organisation: