Control layer presence in Builder’s map layer list

March 19th, 2025

Improvement Builder

Editor users can now manage the presence of a layer in the map layer list directly from the Legend tab in Builder. Previously, it was only possible to show or hide a layer’s legend. With this update, you now have full control over whether a layer itself should appear in the map layer list — what end-users see and interact with during map exploration.

Manage your maps, workflows, and connections at scale with our new Resources APIs

March 19th, 2025

New CARTO for Developers

As organizations expand their usage of CARTO and break the GIS data silo using cloud-native maps and workflows, it becomes important to have the right tools to manage all resources at scale. This is why, starting today, all users in CARTO have access to a new set of API endpoints where they can programmatically list and delete their maps, workflows, and connections.

Additionally, to empower Superadmins on their journey to enable CARTO for large organizations, we're exposing the following functionality via the new APIs:

• List all the maps, workflows, and connections in a CARTO organization

• Bulk delete of multiple assets with a single API request

• Transfer the ownership of an asset (map, workflow, or connection) to another user

Ready to scale up? Head over to our API reference to get started.

Connect to Databricks using OAuth authentication

March 13th, 2025

New Workspace

Users can now connect to their Databricks account using OAuth authentication, with both Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and User-to-Machine (U2M) authentication flows supported! This adds an extra layer of security for Databricks users since OAuth tokens are automatically refreshed by default and do not require the direct management of the access token. For these reasons, Databricks is strongly recommending its users to choose OAuth over Personal Access Tokens.

Want to learn more? head over to our section on Databricks connections.

Visualize rasters in Builder, directly from your data warehouse

February 27th, 2025

New Builder

Raster visualization is now available in Builder, marking a major milestone in CARTO’s end-to-end support for raster data. With this release, you can seamlessly import, analyze, and visualize raster datasets stored in Google BigQuery and Snowflake—all within CARTO.

This new capability unlocks powerful use cases, allowing you to explore and analyze data at scale, seamlessly within your cloud environment, without additional data movement. Interesting in learning more? Check our documentation.

Introducing AI Agents for maps - now available in Public Preview

February 20th, 2025

New Builder

We’re excited to announce the Public Preview of CARTO AI Agents, designed to make interacting with your maps in Builder more intuitive and dynamic. With AI Agents, users can seamlessly zoom to specific regions based on conversational input, explore map details, and apply filters using widgets—all through a natural language interface.

✨ Stay tuned—this is just the beginning. We’re already working on making AI Agents faster, smarter, and more powerful to elevate your mapping experience even further.

Expanding CARTO for Databricks: Location Data Services & Data Enrichment

February 18th, 2025

New Workflows

We’re introducing Location Data Services (LDS) support and new data enrichment components in CARTO for Databricks, enabling more seamless geospatial analysis across different user roles and workflows.

• Location Data Services (LDS) Support: Now available in both the Analytics Toolbox for Databricks and as Workflows components. Users can perform geocoding, routing, and isoline calculations via CARTO’s standard providers. The Analytics Toolbox enables direct use within Databricks notebooks and SQL workflows, while CARTO Workflows provides a low-code interface, integrating LDS into broader spatial analysis pipelines. LDS usage is subject to CARTO licensing and quotas, but users can also bring their own provider credentials, just as with other data warehouses.

• Data Enrichment Components: These new Workflows components simplify use cases like demographic enrichment, POI data integration, and trade area analysis. Users can enhance datasets with information from CARTO’s Data Observatory or their own geospatial sources, whether structured as spatial indexes, points, or polygons. By embedding enrichment within CARTO Workflows, users can more easily integrate this step into their existing analysis.

These updates further reduce complexity for Databricks users working with spatial data. Data scientists can leverage LDS functions directly within their Databricks environment, while Workflows opens up more advanced spatial analysis to less technical users. By bringing LDS and enrichment into CARTO Workflows, we make it easier to build complete geospatial pipelines without writing custom code.

Bringing cloud-native spatial analytics to your desktop GIS with the new CARTO QGIS Plugin

February 6th, 2025

New Integrations

The new CARTO QGIS Plugin allows you to access, visualize, and edit spatial data from leading cloud data warehouses directly within QGIS. With this plugin, you can seamlessly check out data from Google BigQuery, Snowflake, Databricks, AWS Redshift, and PostgreSQL, edit it within QGIS, and commit changes back to your data warehouse—all powered by the CARTO platform.

Simply connect your cloud data warehouse to CARTO, install the QGIS plugin, and gain full control over your geospatial data in a familiar GIS environment. This enables smooth workflows for spatial data management, enrichment, and analysis while ensuring your data remains centralized and up to date in your cloud ecosystem.

Connect to Snowflake using Key-pair authentication

February 3rd, 2025

New Workspace

Snowflake users can now connect to their Data Warehouse using Key-pair authentication! This is a much more secure alternative to basic username/password authentication as it is highly resistant to brute-force attacks, eliminates password management complexities, and can be easily used as the authentication mechanism for scripts and applications.

We've also added support for Key-pair rotation, enabling users to update the private key of Key-pair connections they own. For more information, see our section on Key-pair authentication for Snowflake connections.

Support for aggregating data sources by identical geometries in Builder

January 30th, 2025

New Builder

Are you working with datasets where multiple rows share the same geometry but have varying attributes, such as administrative boundaries, roads, or infrastructure locations?

The new aggregate by geometry functionality allows you to aggregate those features in your layer visualization and interactions, improving performance while keeping access to detailed insights.

With this update, you can:

• Aggregate geometries in your layer to ensure optimal performance.

• Aggregate styling and interaction attributes to retrieve relevant information linked to your aggregated feature.

• Maintain widget functionality over the original source, enabling drill-down operations for deeper analysis.

Expand and tailor Workflows functionality with Extension Packages

January 30th, 2025

New Workflows

With this new release, users and partners can now extend the capabilities of our low-code analytics tool CARTO Workflows by creating, integrating and distributing custom components tailored to their specific spatial analytics needs.

To start creating your own Workflows Extension Packages we have published this public GitHub template. Kick off your own repository out the template and start developing extensions for BigQuery and Snowflake connections.

Additionally, we have published a set of extensions readily available to be installed from the Workflows UI. The initial release boasts a curated collection of extensions, including:

• BigQuery ML: Integrate machine learning workflows with your geospatial data using BigQuery ML directly within Workflows.

• Google Earth Engine: Unleash the power of Google Earth Engine for advanced spatial analysis tasks.

• Google Environment APIs: Bring the power of Google Environment APIs (Solar, Air Quality, Pollen) into your geospatial analytics workflows.

• Telco Signal Propagation Models: Analyze telecommunication signals with path profiles, propagation modeling, and obstacle identification.

Head over to the CARTO Workflows documentation to learn more about Extension Packages and explore the initial release offerings.

Support for sharing maps with specific users

January 17th, 2025

New Workspace

We've introduced the ability to share maps with individual users! Previously, maps could only be shared with the entire organization, specific user groups, or made publicly accessible via a link.

With this new feature, Editors now have more granular control over map access permissions. Users can select exactly which individuals should have access to a map (and they can revoke it at any time), making it easier to collaborate on specific projects while maintaining security. For more information, see our section on publishing and sharing maps.

Connect CARTO and Google BigQuery using Workload Identity Federation

January 10th, 2025

New Workspace

We’re excited to announce that CARTO now supports connecting to Google BigQuery via Workload Identity Federation! This new capability enables secure, seamless authentication without requiring service account keys, making it easier to manage access and improving security for your cloud-native maps, workflows and applications.

With Workload Identity Federation, you can set up a trust relationship between CARTO and your Google Cloud projects for a smooth integration — In other words, you will be managing permissions to each of your CARTO users directly in Google Cloud, using IAM rules.

Another benefit of this method is that it provides a framework to effortlessly scale and distribute granular permissions across large-scale teams using CARTO and BigQuery. To get started:

• Administrators will need to set up an integration to configure Workload Identity Federation in CARTO.

• Once the integration is set up, all users will be able to use Workload Identity Federation when connecting CARTO and BigQuery.

Develop completely custom widgets powered by H3 and Quadbin spatial index-based sources

January 7th, 2025

Improvement CARTO for Developers

A few months ago we introduced our framework-agnostic widgets, a new system for developers to add scalable and highly-performant charts and other data components to their CARTO + deck.gl application, with support for vector-based data sources: points, lines and polygons.

Today, we're extremely happy to announce that developers can now build completely custom widgets using spatial index sources as well. These sources aggregate the data in a spatial index system, such as H3 or Quadbin, for increased performance and scalability. The main benefits of the new framework-agnostic widgets apply to spatial index-based widgets as well:

• Build anything using H3 and Quadbin sources: from scorecards to bar charts, tables, time series, and everything in between.

• Bring your own UI: Use your favorite charting library or custom HTML components.

• Easily sync your widgets with the deck.gl map.

• Seamlessly use widgets to filter the map and other widgets, fully leveraging your cloud data warehouse computing power.

• Built using JS and Typescript only, they are fully compatible with the framework of your choice (Angular, React, Vue...), adding minimal dependencies.

Ready to learn more? Get started by reading the technical reference or by exploring the examples.

Enhancements to export data from Builder maps

December 20th, 2023

Improvement Builder

We've upgraded the export functionality in Builder maps, shifting the data export process to work in server-side mode for an enhanced efficiency and data integrity. This improvement ensures a more reliable data retrieval experience.

Additionally, when exporting data as CSV, it now includes the geometry column in WKT (Well-Known Text) format, if applicable. This enhancement simplifies data handling and boosts compatibility with various geospatial tools, making integrations smoother.

Looking to leverage this enhanced functionality for RDS for PostgreSQL data sources? Don't forget to set up the necessary S3 bucket integration to enable the export feature. For more details and guidance, check out our documentation.

ML Generate Text component available for Workflows

December 18th, 2023

New Workflows

We have added a new component to Workflows that leverages BigQuery ML Generate Text capabilities to allow embedding Generative AI functionalities into your geospatial analytical pipelines.

It can be used to help analyze the result of an enrichment; to generate labels or categories based on variables on your table; or could also generate new content for each row on your data, using different variables to compose a prompt that will be evaluated on each row.

With this new addition, Generative AI capabilities are handy and readily available from Workflows.

Export Workflows results to a bucket

November 28th, 2023

New Workflows

We have just released a new component in Workflows that allows exporting the result from any node in a workflow to a storage bucket.

The node's data will be exported as a series of files, which URLs will be stored in a table. Just inspect the Data tab in the results panel to access the links to each file.

This component is currently available for all CARTO Data Warehouse and BigQuery connections.

Improvements to the results panel in Workflows

November 27th, 2023

Improvement Workflows

We have added a few improvements to the results panel in Workflows that are focused on better usability and data exploration capabilities:

• Renovated, sleeker design;

• See when the workflow was executed for the last time;

• Easily find the number of columns and rows of a result;

• Explore the complete result with pagination for optimal performance;

• Copy the content of a page to the clipboard, ready to be pasted into a spreadsheet;

• Analyze statistics of each column:

  • Frequency of the Top 20 categories for string, date and timestamp columns;

  • Maximum and minimum values, average and sum for numeric columns.

• SQL control code is hidden to facilitate readability.

Find all the documentation about these improvements here.

Support for OAuth connections in Snowflake

November 22nd, 2023

New Workspace

You can now set up an OAuth integration to connect CARTO and Snowflake. This allows users to follow their usual Snowflake login flow (Snowflake OAuth) to set up their connections in CARTO, which has security benefits and is a more familiar process for all Snowflake users.

If you have an external identity provider integrated in Snowflake such as Azure Active Directory or Okta, we also support External OAuth to achieve the same process.

Read more about Configuring OAuth connections to Snowflake.

Measure point-to-point distances in Builder maps

November 16th, 2023

New Builder

We're excited to announce the latest feature in Builder - a distance measure tool that will allow users to measure distances between two points on their maps.

This new functionality is ideal for a diverse range of use cases, from planning tasks to gaining a deeper understanding of spatial relationships between various map elements.

Style qualitative data using hex color codes

November 6th, 2023

New Builder

In Builder, you now have the capability to style your qualitative data using hex color codes pulled directly from your table or SQL query sources. If you're curious about generating these hex color codes, we've prepared a tutorial to assist you, detailing the steps using either Workflows or SQL. What's especially exciting? The range of possibilities this opens up. Whether you're aligning with your company's branding, looking to automatically style a high number of categories, or exploring diverse color schemes, the choice is all yours.

Collection of Workflows examples

October 25th, 2023

New Workflows

We have just published a new collection of workflows examples, designed with a hands-on approach to empower users and ease the learning curve for using CARTO Workflows.

It showcases a wide range of scenarios, from simple building blocks for your geospatial analysis to more complex, industry-specific workflows tailored to suit specific use cases.

Take a look at our catalog of workflows examples here!

Improved import capabilities in Workflows

October 25th, 2023

New Workflows

We have added a new mechanism to import a workflow into your account. Just download an example from the gallery, drag and drop into your CARTO Workspace (or browse a file from your computer) and the workflow will be automatically re-created in your account.

And also we have just added a new way to import data into a workflow. Either from a local file in your computer, or from a URL, this new feature facilitates the task of incorporating data into your analytical pipelines.

New Pie Widget available in Builder

October 18th, 2023

New Builder

The new Pie Widget is designed to simplify the visualization of complex categorical data in Builder, making it more user-friendly and insightful.

Thanks to this new feature you can quickly and easily analyze data proportions and category weights, allowing for better understanding of each data category within your dataset. This enhancement empowers users to make more informed decisions by providing a clearer view of their data.

Getting started with CARTO

CARTO is the only cloud-first spatial platform built for accelerated, modern GIS. It runs natively on top of your cloud data warehouse platform (e.g. Google BigQuery, Snowflake, AWS Redshift, etc.), providing easy access to highly scalable spatial analysis and visualization capabilities in the cloud — be it for analytics, app development, data engineering, and more.

CARTO Platform

CARTO unlocks the power of spatial analysis in the cloud, extending the visualization, analysis and development capabilities of the leading cloud data warehouse platforms, such as Google BigQuery, Snowflake and Amazon Redshift.

Find out how to get the most out of our Location Intelligence platform with our product documentation:

Data and Analysis

Development tools

APIs

Get Help

Preview Builder maps during edition

March 31st, 2024

New Builder

This new feature simplifies the map-making process by letting Editor users switch seamlessly between editing and previewing. With Preview mode, these users can easily see how the map will look like to viewers, allowing them to review and refine it before sharing. This smooth workflow ensures that maps are well-presented and meet the highest standards of clarity and effectiveness.

Additionally we've enhanced our map-sharing functionality to deliver a smoother and more intuitive experience. This update focuses on streamlining the process of sharing maps with others, ensuring a more seamless interaction. Dive into the details of these improvements in our documentation.

Introducing: deck.gl v9

March 27th, 2024

New CARTO for Developers

A new major version of deck.gl is out. deck.gl is the open-source visualization library that powers all CARTO visualizations, and one of the main components of CARTO for Developers.

• For a complete changelog, visit the official deck.gl what's new.

• To address breaking changes, read the official deck.gl upgrade guide. Changes in the CARTO module are also addressed there.

• We have also published a complete set of new examples using CARTO + deck.gl.

We're very happy to see CARTO joining efforts with many other contributors from the vis.gl and OpenJS Foundation communities. Read more about this release in the CARTO blog.

Support for scheduling the execution of workflows

March 21st, 2024

New Workflows

With this new capability, analytical pipelines created with Workflows can be scheduled so they are executed on a specific period:

• Hours: The workflow will be executed every X hours, at o'clock times.

• Days: The workflow will be executed every day at a specific time.

• Weeks: The workflow will be executed weekly, on a specific day, at a specific time.

• Months: The workflow will be executed monthly, on a specific day, at a specific time.

• Custom: Use a custom expression to define the schedule.

CARTO leverages native scheduling capabilities on each data warehouse to provide this functionality in all CARTO Data Warehouse, BigQuery, Snowflake and PostgreSQL connections.

Support for private embedding of CARTO Builder maps

March 14th, 2024

Improvements Builder

Maps created with CARTO Builder can now be embedded anywhere — even when they're not shared publicly. With private embedding you can restrict and maintain control over who can view these maps when embedded on web pages or apps.

To leverage private embedding simply share your map with the organization or with the specific groups you want to share the map with. These users need to be previously logged-in to CARTO to view the embedded map. Learn more at our Embedding maps documentation.

New Workflows components for low-code geospatial analytics

February 29th, 2024

New Workflows

During the last few weeks, we’ve been progressively adding new and improved components in CARTO Workflows:

• Case When component for supporting column values based on conditional expressions.

• Edit Schema component (replacing Refactor Columns): clean schemas, rename and cast columns.

• Added ‘Append’ mode to Save as Table.

• Added ‘Maximum distance’ setting to K-Nearest Neighbors.

• Added Extract from JSON for extracting values from JSON columns using the native syntax from each data warehouse.

• Added ‘Mode’ setting to H3 Polyfill and Quadbin Polyfill components.

• Subdivide to split larger geometries into easier-to-process smaller features.

• New UI for Draw Custom Features component

• Composite Score Supervised: Create composite scores with the supervised method using this component. Take a look at the example template.

• Composite Score Unsupervised: Create composite scores with the supervised method using this component. Take a look at the example template

Extended support for URL parameters in Builder maps

February 21st, 2024

Improvements Builder

Exciting news – CARTO Builder has expanded its URL parameter capabilities to include widgets, SQL parameters, search locations, and feature selections. Now, when viewers interact with these elements, the URL updates in real time, making it easier to share customized map views. This update opens up possibilities for creating varied views from a single map, simplifying sharing, and minimizing the need for multiple map versions. It also enhances the embedding of maps into websites or apps, providing a seamless user experience without unnecessary redirections.

Distinguish Users by authentication method

February 19th, 2024

Improvements Workspace

We have added a new column to the Users and Groups table of the Organization Settings which displays the authentication method used by each user (Google Account, Username/Password, SSO or Github). This will help Admins better manage their organization, avoid confusion and identify users quickly.

Support for configuring and executing your workflows with an API call

February 8th, 2024

New Workflows

We are excited to announce the release of a comprehensive set of new features in CARTO Workflows designed to provide the ability to trigger the execution of your workflows by calling an API.

• Variable definition: Define variables that can be used within components' settings. These variables can also be configured as parameters, allowing for inputing dynamic values during API calls.

• Expression support: Introducing expressions! Embed logic directly into component settings, enabling the use of SQL operators in conjunction with variable and column values from your data.

• API endpoint for triggering workflows: Enable an API endpoint to initiate a workflow execution. This endpoint exposes all parameters set as variables, facilitating smooth integration.

• Workflow status polling: Easily monitor the status of workflow execution.

• Output definition and storage: Define the output of a workflow API execution, which will be stored in a temporary table. The Fully Qualified Name (FQN) of this table is included in the API response for effortless access post-execution. This output can be used along with other options like exporting result to a bucket, saving to a static table or send an email with the result.

• Controlled caching behavior: Have control over caching behavior across all execution modes: UI, Scheduled (Beta), and via API.

All these elements have been built to enable users to integrate workflows into larger analytical processes, and to embed asynchronous analytical capabilities into web applications.

Improvements when sharing map and workflow links to new users

January 15th, 2024

Improvements Workspace

We have released a set of improvements that affect the experience of new users when they open a shared map or shared workflow for the first time. Previously, you had to invite those users or have them sign up manually. Now:

• If your organization uses Single Sign-On (SSO), all maps and workflows shared links will redirect to your SSO login page for easier adoption and onboarding of new users

• The unauthenticated screen for all shared maps and workflows has been redesigned for clarity

• Users can now login or signup through the map/workflow link, and they will be automatically redirected to the desired map/workflow once successfully authenticated

New CARTO Academy - tutorials, videos and templates to boost your spatial analysis skills

January 11th, 2024

New Documentation

We are happy to announce the launch of our new CARTO Academy, with detailed tutorials, videos and templates to boost your spatial analysis skills and make you a proficient user of the CARTO platform.

Among others, in this new CARTO Academy you will find materials to get you started with Spatial Indexes, tutorials to help you build stunning visualizations and spatial analyses with CARTO Builder, step-by-step tutorials and templates for Workflows, and guides to develop your advanced spatial analysis skills with Google BigQuery, Snowflake and AWS Redshift.

This page will always reflect the latest changes in the CARTO platform. Older release notes will be archived and are available in the left menu and the search bar.

Control layer presence in Builder’s map layer list

March 19th, 2025

Improvement Builder

Manage your maps, workflows, and connections at scale with our new Resources APIs

March 19th, 2025

New CARTO for Developers

As organizations expand their usage of CARTO and break the GIS data silo using cloud-native maps and workflows, it becomes important to have the right tools to manage all resources at scale. This is why, starting today, all users in CARTO have access to a new set of API endpoints where they can programmatically list and delete their maps, workflows, and connections.

Additionally, to empower Superadmins on their journey to enable CARTO for large organizations, we're exposing the following functionality via the new APIs:

• List all the maps, workflows, and connections in a CARTO organization

• Bulk delete of multiple assets with a single API request

• Transfer the ownership of an asset (map, workflow, or connection) to another user

Connect to Databricks using OAuth authentication

March 13th, 2025

New Workspace

Users can now connect to their Databricks account using OAuth authentication, with both Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and User-to-Machine (U2M) authentication flows supported! This adds an extra layer of security for Databricks users since OAuth tokens are automatically refreshed by default and do not require the direct management of the access token. For these reasons, Databricks is strongly recommending its users to choose OAuth over Personal Access Tokens.

Visualize rasters in Builder, directly from your data warehouse

February 27th, 2025

New Builder

Raster visualization is now available in Builder, marking a major milestone in CARTO’s end-to-end support for raster data. With this release, you can seamlessly import, analyze, and visualize raster datasets stored in Google BigQuery, Snowflake and Databricks—all within CARTO.

Introducing AI Agents for maps - now available in Public Preview

February 20th, 2025

New Builder

✨ Stay tuned—this is just the beginning. We’re already working on making AI Agents faster, smarter, and more powerful to elevate your mapping experience even further.

Expanding CARTO for Databricks: Location Data Services & Data Enrichment

February 18th, 2025

New Workflows

We’re introducing Location Data Services (LDS) support and new data enrichment components in CARTO for Databricks, enabling more seamless geospatial analysis across different user roles and workflows.

• Data Enrichment Components: These new Workflows components simplify use cases like demographic enrichment, POI data integration, and trade area analysis. Users can enhance datasets with information from CARTO’s Data Observatory or their own geospatial sources, whether structured as spatial indexes, points, or polygons. By embedding enrichment within CARTO Workflows, users can more easily integrate this step into their existing analysis.

These updates further reduce complexity for Databricks users working with spatial data. Data scientists can leverage LDS functions directly within their Databricks environment, while Workflows opens up more advanced spatial analysis to less technical users. By bringing LDS and enrichment into CARTO Workflows, we make it easier to build complete geospatial pipelines without writing custom code.

Bringing cloud-native spatial analytics to your desktop GIS with the new CARTO QGIS Plugin

February 6th, 2025

New Integrations

Simply connect your cloud data warehouse to CARTO, install the QGIS plugin, and gain full control over your geospatial data in a familiar GIS environment. This enables smooth workflows for spatial data management, enrichment, and analysis while ensuring your data remains centralized and up to date in your cloud ecosystem.

Connect to Snowflake using Key-pair authentication

February 3rd, 2025

New Workspace

Snowflake users can now connect to their Data Warehouse using Key-pair authentication! This is a much more secure alternative to basic username/password authentication as it is highly resistant to brute-force attacks, eliminates password management complexities, and can be easily used as the authentication mechanism for scripts and applications.

Support for aggregating data sources by identical geometries in Builder

January 30th, 2025

New Builder

Are you working with datasets where multiple rows share the same geometry but have varying attributes, such as administrative boundaries, roads, or infrastructure locations?

With this update, you can:

• Aggregate geometries in your layer to ensure optimal performance.

• Aggregate styling and interaction attributes to retrieve relevant information linked to your aggregated feature.

• Maintain widget functionality over the original source, enabling drill-down operations for deeper analysis.

Expand and tailor Workflows functionality with Extension Packages

January 30th, 2025

New Workflows

With this new release, users and partners can now extend the capabilities of our low-code analytics tool CARTO Workflows by creating, integrating and distributing custom components tailored to their specific spatial analytics needs.

Additionally, we have published a set of extensions readily available to be installed from the Workflows UI. The initial release boasts a curated collection of extensions, including:

Support for sharing maps with specific users

January 17th, 2025

New Workspace

We've introduced the ability to share maps with individual users! Previously, maps could only be shared with your entire organization, specific user groups, or made publicly accessible via a link.

Connect CARTO and Google BigQuery using Workload Identity Federation

January 10th, 2025

New Workspace

We’re excited to announce that CARTO now supports connecting to Google BigQuery via Workload Identity Federation! This new capability enables secure, seamless authentication without requiring service account keys, making it easier to manage access and improving security for your cloud-native maps, workflows and applications.

With Workload Identity Federation, you can set up a trust relationship between CARTO and your Google Cloud projects for a smooth integration — In other words, you will be managing permissions to each of your CARTO users directly in Google Cloud, using IAM rules.

Another benefit of this method is that it provides a framework to effortlessly scale and distribute granular permissions across large-scale teams using CARTO and BigQuery. To get started:

Develop completely custom widgets powered by H3 and Quadbin spatial index-based sources

January 7th, 2025

Improvement CARTO for Developers

Today, we're extremely happy to announce that developers can now build completely custom widgets using spatial index sources as well. These sources aggregate the data in a spatial index system, such as H3 or Quadbin, for increased performance and scalability. The main benefits of the new framework-agnostic widgets apply to spatial index-based widgets as well:

• Build anything using H3 and Quadbin sources: from scorecards to bar charts, tables, time series, and everything in between.

• Bring your own UI: Use your favorite charting library or custom HTML components.

• Easily sync your widgets with the deck.gl map.

• Seamlessly use widgets to filter the map and other widgets, fully leveraging your cloud data warehouse computing power.

• Built using JS and Typescript only, they are fully compatible with the framework of your choice (Angular, React, Vue...), adding minimal dependencies.

Improved SSO group management

December 13th, 2024

Improvement Workspace

Discover spatial data like never before: Meet the new Data Observatory Catalog!

December 4th, 2024

Improvement Data Observatory

We’re thrilled to announce a major update to the CARTO Data Observatory catalog! The new version introduces a completely redesigned interface, making it easier than ever to browse and discover spatial datasets. Whether you're searching for demographic insights, mobility or environmental data, the improved catalog helps you navigate a vast array of options with greater clarity and efficiency.

In addition to the new design, the updated catalog now includes richer metadata for each dataset. You can access detailed descriptions, links to product documentation, Frequently Asked Questions, and relevant use-cases for each product, enabling more informed decision-making when assessing external datasets to enrich your geospatial analysis.

Avoid exposing SQL in your CARTO applications with Named Sources

November 24th, 2024

New CARTO for Developers

There are no trade-offs between simplicity, flexibility and security: developers using CARTO can now use Named Sources to avoid exposing the SQL queries used under the hood in their applications, and without necessarily having to add additional backend or proxy services.

Fully deploy CARTO within Snowflake using Container Services

November 21st, 2024

New Deployment Methods

You can now deploy your own instance of CARTO fully inside of Snowflake, as a Native App using Snowflake-managed Container Services.

From additional security benefits (from a closed environment within Snowflake) to streamlined installation, there are multiple reasons to be excited about this new deployment method, currently in BETA for specific customers.

Seamless data source switching in Builder maps

November 21st, 2024

New Builder

Builder users can now modify the location or connection of data sources directly in Builder without breaking the map configuration. This ensures that maps retain their overall configuration, as long as the fields in the updated data source have the same name and type.

For map components such as style properties, widgets, or interactions that rely on properties not found in the updated data source, the configuration will gracefully fall back to its default settings, ensuring the map remains functional.

Reusable custom color palettes in Builder

November 11th, 2024

New Builder

Admin users can now define custom color palettes for their CARTO organization, removing the need to manually add custom color styling in each new Builder map individually. This is a quick and easy way to apply styles consistently across various maps, available to all Editors within an organization.

Databricks support for CARTO Workflows

October 31st, 2024

New Workflows

We are thrilled to announce that CARTO Workflows now supports direct connections to Databricks, significantly enhancing our integration capabilities for the Databricks platform. This new feature empowers Databricks' vast community of data engineers, data scientists, and analysts to seamlessly perform geospatial analysis within CARTO Workflows.

This release caps off a series of Databricks-focused updates rolled out over recent months:

By embedding these tools directly in Databricks, we are breaking down the geospatial data silo, making geospatial insights more accessible and actionable for enterprise teams.

Search, highlight and zoom with Builder's Table widget

October 17th, 2024

Improvement Builder

You can now easily search for specific features within the Table Widget, making them quick to locate. Hover over a table row to instantly highlight the corresponding feature on the map, and with a click, the map will automatically zoom to and center on that feature.

We’ve also improved the widget’s configuration, allowing you to label, format, and reorder columns without altering your data source.

New basemap selector in Builder

October 15th, 2024

New Builder

Elevate your point visualizations with the new _carto_point_density property

October 14th, 2024

New Builder, CARTO for Developers

New framework-agnostic widgets in CARTO for Developers

October 9th, 2024

New CARTO for Developers

Developers using CARTO + deck.gl are scaling and accelerating their geospatial apps with powerful layers, using live data from their cloud data warehouse. Now, they can also add scalable, interactive charts and widgets to their geospatial applications.

• Use flexible and scalable data models to achieve exactly and quickly what you need: From scorecards to bar charts, tables, time series, and everything in between.

• Bring your own UI: Use your favorite charting library or custom HTML components.

• Easily sync your widgets with the deck.gl map.

• Seamlessly use widgets to filter the map and other widgets, fully leveraging your cloud data warehouse computing power.

• Built with JS and Typescript, they are fully compatible with the framework of your choice (Angular, React, Vue...), adding minimal dependencies.

Dynamic aggregation of point layer into clusters

October 7th, 2024

New Builder

We've introduced a new functionality in Builder to dynamically visualize your point data as clusters, helping you gain deeper insights and uncover trends more effectively. By aggregating point data into clustering, you can:

• Reduce Visual Clutter: Automatically group nearby points into clusters as you zoom out, helping you maintain clarity and readability, even with dense datasets.

• Enhanced Performance: Clustering improves performance by reducing the number of individual features rendered, making it easier to handle large datasets without compromising speed.

• Meaningful Aggregation: See patterns emerge as points are grouped into clusters, helping you identify hotspots, trends, and areas of interest quickly and effectively.

• Interactive Exploration: As you zoom in and out, clusters dynamically adjust, revealing individual points as you get closer, giving you seamless interaction with your data at different scales.

Enforcing SSO for all users within an organization

October 4th, 2024

New Accounts

We've introduced a new toggle in the settings that allows Admins to enforce SSO within their organization. When enabled, every single user in that organization will have to authenticate using Single Sign-On, regaldless of their role. Users that try to authenticate with other mechanisms, such as User/Password and Google Account will not be allowed to log in.

New Export Feature and Enhanced Security for Workflows

September 26th, 2024

New Workflows

We’re pleased to introduce several updates to Workflows designed to improve both functionality and security:

Export Data from Any Node

Enhanced Security for Enterprise-Ready Components

In line with our ongoing platform-wide security initiative, we've implemented the following updates:

• You can now specify a custom bucket location when using the Send by Email component, giving you control over where your data is sent.

These updates make Workflows an even more powerful tool for enterprise users while maintaining a focus on security and ease of use.

Require Viewer Credentials for Snowflake OAuth connections

September 11th, 2024

New Workspace

Users can now require viewer credentials for their Snowflake OAuth connections. When this option is enabled, anyone accessing data through the connection — whether they're consuming maps, running workflows, or using the data explorer — will need to authenticate with their own credentials.

Monitor what's happening in your CARTO organization with the new Activity Data

August 30th, 2024

New Workspace

Administrator can now easily export (manually or programmatically via API) a comprehensive data collection of everything that happened within their CARTO organization.

The new Activity Data can be then analyzed to deeply understand things like:

• Basic engagement indicators: weekly active users, workflows run per week...

• Most used features: most used workflow components...

• Quota consumption: who is consuming more quota and why

• And many more insights about your CARTO organization

Improved asset ownership transfer

July 31st, 2024

Improvement Workspace

We've introduced an improved flow for transferring user assets (maps, workflows, connections, etc) when deleting a user or when downgrading an Editor/Admin to Viewer. From now on, Admins will be able to select the specific user that will receive the assets.

Dynamic aggregation of point layer into H3 cells

July 31st, 2024

New Builder

We've introduced a new functionality in Builder to dynamically visualize your point data as H3 aggregations, helping you gain deeper insights and uncover trends more effectively.

By aggregating point data, you can:

• Simplify Complex Data: Aggregate large volumes of point data into meaningful patterns and trends, making it easier to interpret and analyze.

• Enhance Performance: Improve rendering times and performance, especially with large datasets, by reducing the number of individual points displayed.

• Identify Hotspots: Quickly identify areas of high density or activity, helping you make data-driven decisions.

• Visual Clarity: Reduce visual clutter by grouping nearby points, providing a clearer and more informative map visualization.

Simply select this new visualization type and enjoy the benefits of aggregated data visualization, all with exceptional performance thanks to CARTO's native support for spatial indexes.

Enhanced layer panel and spatial source definition in Builder

July 29th, 2024

Improvement Builder

We are excited to introduce an improved panel in Builder for configuring your layers. This update significantly enhances the UI and UX of this panel, making the experience of creating visualizations in Builder even more enjoyable and efficient.

The redesigned panel features a cleaner layout and includes a new 'Data' section at the top. In this new section, you can define the spatial definition of the data source linked to your layer. This is especially useful if your source contains multiple spatial columns or if Builder cannot recognize the spatial column by looking at our default conventions.

Workflow Templates now available directly from your workspace

July 29th, 2024

New Workflows

• Integrated Collection: Access a wide range of workflow templates hosted on the CARTO Academy website, now readily available in the CARTO Workspace.

• Simplified Process: Users no longer need to visit the Academy site to download and import templates. The new feature allows you to easily recreate templates by selecting ‘New Workflow > From template’ within the Workspace.

• Enhanced Usability: This integration ensures that all available templates can be accessed with just a few clicks, promoting best practices and facilitating quicker setup of workflows.

This feature is designed to ease the learning curve by providing immediate access to valuable workflow templates that illustrate both building blocks for common geospatial analytics and more complex use cases, like industry-specific analysis for Telco, Insurance, Retail and CPG, Out of Home advertising, etc

Zoom to layer extent in Builder maps

July 19th, 2024

New Builder

We are excited to introduce the zoom to layer functionality in Builder, which allows you to easily zoom to the layer extent, providing an immediate view of your dataset. When layers are filtered by widgets or parameters, the zoom focuses on the filtered data, ensuring you see exactly what's relevant.

Additionally, we have incorporated a "Show only this/Show all layers" feature, allowing you to quickly toggle all layers on and off with a single action, especially useful for maps including multiple layers.

New Workflows Components for Creating Tilesets

July 15th, 2024

New Workflows

We are excited to introduce a powerful new set of components in Workflows that significantly enhance your geospatial data processing capabilities. These components are designed to facilitate the creation of various types of tilesets, allowing for efficient visualization and analysis of large spatial datasets. Here are the key features:

Create Vector Tileset

Generate vector tilesets from point, line, or polygon tables, enabling smooth and interactive map experiences.

Create Point Aggregation Tileset

Aggregate point data along with their properties into tilesets, ideal for visualizing dense point data on maps.

Create Quadbin Aggregation Tileset

Generate tilesets by aggregating quadbin indices, providing a fast and scalable way to manage spatial hierarchies and visualize large datasets.

Create H3 Aggregation Tileset

Utilize H3 hexagonal indexing to create aggregated tilesets, perfect for detailed spatial analysis and representation.

Support for organizing and filtering maps and workflows with tags

June 28th, 2024

New Workspace

We are happy to announce a new system that allows users to classify and filter maps and workflows in the CARTO Workspace with tags. With this new feature, editor users will be able to create, apply and filter maps and workflows by tags, considerably improving the organization of assets within CARTO. With this new enhancement:

• You can create, apply and remove tags by editing the Map/Workflow properties from the Workspace;

• We have added a tag filter to the Workspace so you can filter by one or several tags;

• Once a tag filter is applied, you can copy the URL for sharing that Workspace view internally;

• Tags will be automatically removed when they are no longer applied to any map or workflow.

Network planning and coverage analysis for Telco with the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery

June 28th, 2024

New Analytics Toolbox

This release includes procedures for:

• Path profile analysis to evaluate the line of sight and identify potential obstructions between two points;

New space-time analysis capabilities in the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery

June 28th, 2024

New Analytics Toolbox

Heatmap visualizations at scale for massive point-based data

June 20th, 2024

New Builder, CARTO for Developers

We are thrilled to announce density heatmap visualization supporting very large scale point-based datasets! This new feature allows you to render massive point datasets as a heatmap in a scalable and performant manner. Available now in Builder, you can easily identify hotspot patterns and gain insights from your data.

Improved Data Importing Capabilities in Workflows

June 19th, 2024

New Workflows

We are excited to introduce enhanced data importing capabilities in CARTO Workflows. This new release includes a variety of features designed to simplify and expand the ways you can import data into your workflows, providing greater flexibility and functionality.

New Features:

Import from URL Component

Sunset of Previous Method

Quick Import from your desktop

• Files uploaded in this manner remain accessible within each workflow, ensuring consistent data availability and management.

Support for calling external API services from Workflows

June 3rd, 2024

New Builder

We are thrilled to announce a powerful new feature for Workflows: the ability to connect your workflows with external API services. With this new capability, we enabling use cases like the following:

• Retrieve Data from External APIs: Augment your datasets by pulling in information from APIs such as Google Environment APIs, government, cadaster, parcel data, and other specialized data sources.

• Trigger Actions via API: Automatically trigger external processes, send notifications, or execute commands directly from your workflows, like:

  • Notify on chat applications: Send real-time notifications to your company's channels to keep your team updated on workflow executions.

  • Integrations with automation tools: Integrate with automation tools to trigger external actions from a Workflow execution.

• Send data from your Workflows to external APIs: Use data from any node in your workflow to build the body for a request.

Support for custom basemaps in Builder

May 16th, 2024

New Builder

A basemap is a crucial component of any map, providing essential context, spatial features, and the visual foundation for your creations. To meet the unique needs of each organization, we now enable you to bring your own basemap directly into your CARTO organization.

Performance optimizations in Builder maps

May 14th, 2024

Improvement Builder

We are excited to introduce a set of enhancements in CARTO Builder designed to further improve the performance of our interactive map visualizations. With these improvements, Builder will:

• Load only essential properties: Builder will now load only the essential properties from your tables or SQL queries when they are needed in the map. This reduces unnecessary data transfer and speeds up processing.

• Reduce tile requests: The number of tile requests has been significantly reduced, resulting in faster map loading times and a smoother user experience.

• Limit simultaneous queries: To enhance stability and prevent overload, Builder will limit the number of simultaneous queries, ensuring a more reliable performance.

These enhancements are part of our ongoing commitment to providing the best possible experience with CARTO Builder.

Redesigning our Developers section in CARTO Workspace

April 29th, 2024

Improvement Workspace

We believe that all paths to success start from the CARTO Workspace, and the path to successfully developing powerful geospatial apps isn't an exception. With this in mind, we've carefully redesigned the experience when accessing the Developers section, and these are the highlights:

• • This change unifies the management of API Access Tokens and OAuth Clients (previously known as Applications) in a single section, making more clear what each method is best for.

Extended support for raster data sources in Imports, Data Explorer and Workflows

April 24th, 2024

New Workspace, Workflows

We're happy to introduce a suite of powerful new features that are set to enable working with raster data in CARTO. Before these were available, working with raster data required using external CLI applications and dealing with SQL queries manually in order to leverage the analytical capabilities of the CARTO Analytics Toolbox for Snowflake and BigQuery.

Raster Tables in Data Explorer: Dive deeper into your raster data in the data warehouse with full support for raster tables in the Data Explorer. Gain access to a specific set of metadata and custom actions for raster tables.

Generate PDF reports from your Builder maps

April 17th, 2024

New Builder

We’ve launched a new feature that allows you to download detailed PDF reports of your interactive Builder maps. These reports capture everything from the current map extent to widgets, parameters, and the map description.

Whether you're sharing insights with colleagues, presenting to stakeholders, or documenting your analysis, this new feature packs the richness of your interactive maps into a portable, easy-to-share format.

Get quicker, better answers with the new AI-powered help sidebar

April 11th, 2024

Improvement Workspace

A new AI-powered help assistant can now be found in the Help sidebar, available at all times from CARTO Workspace, Builder and Workflows.

It will provide quick answers based on our documentation and will link to the most relevant resource. With our documentation evolving and growing in size and depth, this AI-powered tool will save precious time and will guide you in the right direction without leaving CARTO. Ask anything!

Preview Builder maps during edition

March 31st, 2024

New Builder

Introducing: deck.gl v9

March 27th, 2024

New CARTO for Developers

Support for scheduling the execution of workflows

March 21st, 2024

New Workflows

• Hours: The workflow will be executed every X hours, at o'clock times.

• Days: The workflow will be executed every day at a specific time.

• Weeks: The workflow will be executed weekly, on a specific day, at a specific time.

• Months: The workflow will be executed monthly, on a specific day, at a specific time.

• Custom: Use a custom expression to define the schedule.

CARTO leverages native scheduling capabilities on each data warehouse to provide this functionality in all CARTO Data Warehouse, BigQuery, Snowflake and PostgreSQL connections.

Support for private embedding of CARTO Builder maps

March 14th, 2024

Improvements Builder

Maps created with CARTO Builder can now be embedded anywhere — even when they're not shared publicly. With private embedding you can restrict and maintain control over who can view these maps when embedded on web pages or apps.

New Workflows components for low-code geospatial analytics

February 29th, 2024

New Workflows

During the last few weeks, we’ve been progressively adding new and improved components in CARTO Workflows:

Extended support for URL parameters in Builder maps

February 21st, 2024

Improvements Builder

Distinguish Users by authentication method

February 19th, 2024

Improvements Workspace

We have added a new column to the Users and Groups table of the Organization Settings which displays the authentication method used by each user (Google Account, Username/Password, SSO or Github). This will help Admins better manage their organization, avoid confusion and identify users quickly.

Support for configuring and executing your workflows with an API call

February 8th, 2024

New Workflows

We are excited to announce the release of a comprehensive set of new features in CARTO Workflows designed to provide the ability to trigger the execution of your workflows by calling an API.

All these elements have been built to enable users to integrate workflows into larger analytical processes, and to embed asynchronous analytical capabilities into web applications.

Improvements when sharing map and workflow links to new users

January 15th, 2024

Improvements Workspace

• The unauthenticated screen for all shared maps and workflows has been redesigned for clarity

• Users can now login or signup through the map/workflow link, and they will be automatically redirected to the desired map/workflow once successfully authenticated

New CARTO Academy - tutorials, videos and templates to boost your spatial analysis skills

January 11th, 2024

New Documentation

Enhancements to export data from Builder maps

December 20th, 2023

Improvement Builder

Additionally, when exporting data as CSV, it now includes the geometry column in WKT (Well-Known Text) format, if applicable. This enhancement simplifies data handling and boosts compatibility with various geospatial tools, making integrations smoother.

ML Generate Text component available for Workflows

December 18th, 2023

New Workflows

It can be used to interpret results from an analysis, using different variables on your data to compose a prompt that will be evaluated on each row.

With this new addition, Generative AI capabilities are handy and readily available from Workflows.

Export Workflows results to a bucket

November 28th, 2023

New Workflows

The node's data will be exported as a series of files, which URLs will be stored in a table. Just inspect the Data tab in the results panel to access the links to each file.

This component is currently available for all CARTO Data Warehouse and BigQuery connections.

Improvements to the Results panel in Workflows

November 27th, 2023

Improvement Workflows

We have added a few improvements to the results panel in Workflows that are focused on better usability and data exploration capabilities:

• Renovated, sleeker design;

• See when the workflow was executed for the last time;

• Easily find the number of columns and rows of a result;

• Explore the complete result with pagination for optimal performance;

• Copy the content of a page to the clipboard, ready to be pasted into a spreadsheet;

• Analyze statistics of each column:

  • Frequency of the Top 20 categories for string, date and timestamp columns;

  • Maximum and minimum values, average and sum for numeric columns.

• SQL control code is hidden to facilitate readability.

Introducing a new Usage quota and a new Location Data Services credits system

March 28th, 2023

Improvement Workspace

In order to give more flexibility to our users, we have removed a lot of the quotas that were feature-specific, such as maps, public maps, apps or connections, and we have replaced them with a combined usage metric, the Usage quota, that will be the main driver of consumption for all new customers through the CARTO platform.

Additionally, we have changed the way LDS credits are calculated. Before, they were monthly and separated by service: geocoding and isolines. Now, we've combined them into a single annual quota that results in more capacity and better flexibility.

Importing geospatial files into Amazon Redshift using CARTO

March 14th, 2023

Improvement Workspace

With this new functionality, CARTO users working with Amazon Redshift will be able to quickly get their geospatial data ready for advanced analysis and visualization, from no-code tools like Builder or Workflows to geospatial development libraries such as CARTO for deck.gl.

Merchant universe matching analysis to understand market penetration for CPG players available in the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery

March 7th, 2023

New Analytics Toolbox

New Builder SQL Analyses available for Redshift and Snowflake connections

March 3rd, 2023

New Builder

A set of new analyses have been added to Builder, to reach the same level of support on different data warehouses:

• Create buffers: Available now for Redshift and Snowflake connections.

• Intersect and aggregate: Available now for Snowflake connections.

• K-means clustering: Available now for Redshift and Snowflake connections.

Enabling users to share workflows with their organization

February 24th, 2023

Beta Workflows

Additionally, we have adapted the Workflows main page in the Workspace to allow searching workflows and managing the existing ones, in line with what’s available in the Maps section.

CARTO Workflows in public beta now with support for Snowflake, Redshift and PostgreSQL

February 1st, 2023

Beta Workflows

New functions to generate routing matrices and isolines natively in BigQuery

January 31st, 2023

Beta Analytics Toolbox

Adding raster support in BigQuery with a new module in the Analytics Toolbox

January 31st, 2023

Beta Analytics Toolbox

New space for private data available for every user in the CARTO Data Warehouse

January 26th, 2023

New Workspace

The new dataset "private" is a unique dataset for each user, and all the tables and tilesets in this dataset will only be available to that user. Private datasets have a unique qualified name that identifies the user, extracted from their email.

Search, list view and breadcrumbs when browsing your data in Builder and Workspace

January 24th, 2023

Improvement Builder Workspace

An important step of most processes in CARTO is to browse and select data sources and data locations:

This is especially beneficial if you have a large number of projects/databases, schemas/datasets, or tables and tilesets: where previously you would need to scroll indefinitely, now you can perform a quick search.

Dynamic aggregation of point layers into Quadbin grids

January 23rd, 2023

New Builder

This produces a very significant increment in performance, but also allows aggregating data from the original features to make sure that all data is taken into consideration.

Some highlights:

• Available for all point tile layers from all data warehouses

• Implemented with pure SQL in our Maps API, no external dependencies such as the Analytics Toolbox or third-party libraries.

• It allows aggregating properties from the original points and also the number of points per cell.

• Inherits all the advantages and features of the previously existing Spatial Index layers.

• The aggregation happens transparently so no need to manually type any SQL code to aggregate the points.

CARTO Workflows in public beta with support for Google BigQuery and CARTO Data Warehouse

January 18th, 2023

Beta Workflows

New documentation layout

January 18th, 2023

Improvement Documentation

Our documentation portal just got a new look and feel! This new layout should provide the following benefits:

• Cleaner look that uses more screen space if available

• A search bar to quickly find content

• All the documentation is organized and available on the left menu

• All pages now have an "On this page" index on the right sidebar __ to quickly locate sections

Multiple editor users working on the same map

January 13th, 2023

New Builder

Collaborating on CARTO maps is finally possible, in asynchronous mode. This is helpful in setups such as production-ready maps, where the original owner might be out of the office; or in situations where the data, analysis, and cartography are each accomplished by different users. This is how it works:

1. The map owner first needs to enable collaboration for that map.

2. From that moment, all editors with access to the map will be able to edit it.

3. If two editors try to edit at the same time, the last one will be locked out, with the option of requesting to take over editing.

Happy collaboration!

Support for organizing and filtering maps and workflows with tags

June 28th, 2024

New Workspace

We are happy to announce a new system to allow users to classify and filter maps and workflows in the CARTO Workspace with tags. With this new feature, editor users will be able to create, apply and filter maps and workflows by tags, considerably improving the organization of assets within CARTO. With this new enhacement:

• You can create, apply and remove tags by editing the Map/Workflow properties from the Workspace.

• We have added a tag filter to the Workspace so you can filter by one or several tags.

• Once a tag filter is applied, you can copy the URL for sharing that Workspace view internally.

• Tags will be automatically removed when they are no longer applied to any map or workflow.

Network planning and coverage analysis for Telco with the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery

June 28th, 2024

New Analytics Toolbox

This release includes procedures for:

• Path profile analysis to evaluate the line of sight and identify potential obstructions between two points;

New space-time analysis capabilities in the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery

June 28th, 2024

New Analytics Toolbox

Heatmap visualizations at scale for massive point-based data

June 20th, 2024

New Builder, CARTO for Developers

We are thrilled to announce density heatmap visualization for vast point datasets! This new feature allows you to render large point datasets as a heatmap in a scalable and performant manner. Available now in Builder, you can easily identify hotspot patterns and gain insights from your data.

Improved Data Importing Capabilities in Workflows

June 19th, 2024

New Workflows

We are excited to introduce enhanced data importing capabilities in CARTO Workflows. This new release includes a variety of features designed to simplify and expand the ways you can import data into your workflows, providing greater flexibility and functionality.

New Features:

Import from URL Component

Sunset of Previous Method

Quick Import from your desktop

• Files uploaded in this manner remain accessible within each workflow, ensuring consistent data availability and management.

Support for calling external API services from Workflows

June 3rd, 2024

New Builder

We are thrilled to announce a powerful new feature for Workflows: the ability to connect your workflows with external API services. With this new capability, we enabling use cases like the following:

• Retrieve Data from External APIs: Augment your datasets by pulling in information from APIs such as Google Environment APIs, government, cadaster, parcel data, and other specialized data sources.

• Trigger Actions via API: Automatically trigger external processes, send notifications, or execute commands directly from your workflows, like:

  • Notify on chat applications: Send real-time notifications to your company's channels to keep your team updated on workflow executions.

  • Integrations with automation tools: Integrate with automation tools to trigger external actions from a Workflow execution.

• Send data from your Workflows to external APIs: Use data from any node in your workflow to build the body for a request.

Support for custom basemaps in Builder

May 16th, 2024

New Builder

A basemap is a crucial component of any map, providing essential context, spatial features, and the visual foundation for your creations. To meet the unique needs of each organization, we now enable you to bring your own basemap directly into your CARTO organization.

Performance optimizations in Builder maps

May 14th, 2024

Improvement Builder

We are excited to introduce a set of enhancements in CARTO Builder designed to further improve the performance of our interactive map visualizations. With these improvements, Builder will:

• Load only essential properties: Builder will now load only the essential properties from your tables or SQL queries when they are needed in the map. This reduces unnecessary data transfer and speeds up processing.

• Reduce tile requests: The number of tile requests has been significantly reduced, resulting in faster map loading times and a smoother user experience.

• Limit simultaneous queries: To enhance stability and prevent overload, Builder will limit the number of simultaneous queries, ensuring a more reliable performance.

These enhancements are part of our ongoing commitment to providing the best possible experience with CARTO Builder.

Redesigning our Developers section in CARTO Workspace

April 29th, 2024

Improvement Workspace

We believe that all paths to success start from the CARTO Workspace, and the path to successfully developing powerful geospatial apps isn't an exception. With this in mind, we've carefully redesigned the experience when accessing the Developers section, and these are the highlights:

• • This change unifies the management of API Access Tokens and OAuth Clients (previously known as Applications) in a single section, making more clear what each method is best for.

Extended support for raster data sources in Data Explorer and Workflows

April 24th, 2024

New Workspace, Workfows

We're happy to introduce a suite of powerful new features that are set to enable working with raster data in CARTO. Before these were available, working with raster data required using external CLI applications and dealing with SQL queries manually in order to leverage the analytical capabilities of the CARTO Analytics Toolbox for Snowflake and BigQuery.

Raster Tables in Data Explorer: Dive deeper into your raster data in the data warehouse with full support for raster tables in the Data Explorer. Gain access to a specific set of metadata and custom actions for raster tables.

Generate PDF reports from your Builder maps

April 17th, 2024

New Builder

We’ve launched a new feature that allows you to download detailed PDF reports of your interactive Builder maps. These reports capture everything from the current map extent to widgets, parameters, and the map description.

Whether you're sharing insights with colleagues, presenting to stakeholders, or documenting your analysis, this new feature packs the richness of your interactive maps into a portable, easy-to-share format.

Get quicker, better answers with the new AI-powered help sidebar

April 11th, 2024

Improvement Workspace

A new AI-powered help assistant can now be found in the Help sidebar, available at all times from CARTO Workspace, Builder and Workflows.

It will provide quick answers based on our documentation and will link to the most relevant resource. With our documentation evolving and growing in size and depth, this AI-powered tool will save precious time and will guide you in the right direction without leaving CARTO. Ask anything!

Improved SSO group management

December 13th, 2024

Improvement Workspace

Discover spatial data like never before: Meet the new Data Observatory Catalog!

December 4th, 2024

Improvement Data Observatory

We’re thrilled to announce a major update to the CARTO Data Observatory catalog! The new version introduces a completely redesigned interface, making it easier than ever to browse and discover spatial datasets. Whether you're searching for demographic insights, mobility or environmental data, the improved catalog helps you navigate a vast array of options with greater clarity and efficiency.

In addition to the new design, the updated catalog now includes richer metadata for each dataset. You can access detailed descriptions, links to product documentation, Frequently Asked Questions, and relevant use-cases for each product, enabling more informed decision-making when assessing external datasets to enrich your geospatial analysis.

Avoid exposing SQL in your CARTO applications with Named Sources

November 24th, 2024

New CARTO for Developers

There are no trade-offs between simplicity, flexibility and security: developers using CARTO can now use Named Sources to avoid exposing the SQL queries used under the hood in their applications, and without necessarily having to add additional backend or proxy services.

Fully deploy CARTO within Snowflake using Container Services

November 21st, 2024

New Deployment Methods

You can now deploy your own instance of CARTO fully inside of Snowflake, as a Native App using Snowflake-maaged Container Services.

From additional security benefits (from a closed environment within Snowflake) to streamlined installation, there are multiple reasons to be excited about this new deployment method, currently in BETA for specific customers.

Seamless data source switching in Builder maps

November 21st, 2024

New Builder

Builder users can now modify the location or connection of data sources directly in Builder without breaking the map configuration. This ensures that maps retain their overall configuration, as long as the fields in the updated data source have the same name and type.

For map components such as style properties, widgets, or interactions that rely on properties not found in the updated data source, the configuration will gracefully fall back to its default settings, ensuring the map remains functional.

Reusable custom color palettes in Builder

November 11th, 2024

New Builder

Admin users can now define custom color palettes for their CARTO organization, removing the need to manually add custom color styling in each new Builder map individually. This is a quick and easy way to apply styles consistently across various maps, available to all Editors within an organization.

Databricks support for CARTO Workflows

October 31st, 2024

New Workflows

We are thrilled to announce that CARTO Workflows now supports direct connections to Databricks, significantly enhancing our integration capabilities for the Databricks platform. This new feature empowers Databricks' vast community of data engineers, data scientists, and analysts to seamlessly perform geospatial analysis within CARTO Workflows.

This release caps off a series of Databricks-focused updates rolled out over recent months:

By embedding these tools directly in Databricks, we are breaking down the geospatial data silo, making geospatial insights more accessible and actionable for enterprise teams.

Search, highlight and zoom with Builder's Table widget

October 17th, 2024

Improvement Builder

You can now easily search for specific features within the Table Widget, making them quick to locate. Hover over a table row to instantly highlight the corresponding feature on the map, and with a click, the map will automatically zoom to and center on that feature.

We’ve also improved the widget’s configuration, allowing you to label, format, and reorder columns without altering your data source.

New basemap selector in Builder

October 15th, 2024

New Builder

Elevate your point visualizations with the new _carto_point_density property

October 14th, 2024

New Builder, CARTO for Developers

New framework-agnostic widgets in CARTO for Developers

October 9th, 2024

New CARTO for Developers

Developers using CARTO + deck.gl are scaling and accelerating their geospatial apps with powerful layers, using live data from their cloud data warehouse. Now, they can also add scalable, interactive charts and widgets to their geospatial applications.

• Use flexible and scalable data models to achieve exactly and quickly what you need: From scorecards to bar charts, tables, time series, and everything in between.

• Bring your own UI: Use your favorite charting library or custom HTML components.

• Easily sync your widgets with the deck.gl map.

• Seamlessly use widgets to filter the map and other widgets, fully leveraging your cloud data warehouse computing power.

• Built with JS and Typescript, they are fully compatible with the framework of your choice (Angular, React, Vue...), adding minimal dependencies.

Dynamic aggregation of point layer into clusters

7th October, 2024

New Builder

We've introduced a new functionality in Builder to dynamically visualize your point data as clusters, helping you gain deeper insights and uncover trends more effectively.

By aggregating point data into clustering, you can:

• Reduce Visual Clutter: Automatically group nearby points into clusters as you zoom out, helping you maintain clarity and readability, even with dense datasets.

• Enhanced Performance: Clustering improves performance by reducing the number of individual features rendered, making it easier to handle large datasets without compromising speed.

• Meaningful Aggregation: See patterns emerge as points are grouped into clusters, helping you identify hotspots, trends, and areas of interest quickly and effectively.

• Interactive Exploration: As you zoom in and out, clusters dynamically adjust, revealing individual points as you get closer, giving you seamless interaction with your data at different scales.

What is the new version of the CARTO platform?

Is the previous version of CARTO going to be deprecated?

How can I log into the legacy CARTO platform?

What happens to my current CARTO subscription? Will I have to pay extra to access the new platform?

Can I login to both versions of the CARTO platform with the same credentials?

Will all my data in the previous platform be readily available when I access the new version of CARTO?

Will I be forced to move all my data to the new version of the CARTO platform?

Is CARTO’s Student Package still available?

Can I setup a Single Sign-On integration in the new platform?

Where can I see my current quotas and usage?

What is the new version of the CARTO Platform?

In October 2021, we launched a fully revamped version of the CARTO platform. The new platform offers a complete cloud native experience, allowing to run CARTO on top of the leading cloud data warehouse platforms (e.g. Google BigQuery, AWS Redshift, Snowflake, etc.), eliminating ETL complexity and limits on scalability.

This new platform works completely independent of the previous version of CARTO; hence, requires a different set of user credentials to access. You can learn more about the new platform with our User Manual.

Is the previous version of CARTO going to be deprecated?

No, we don’t have plans to deprecate the previous version of our platform for our existing Enterprise customers, so you don’t need to worry about that now. However, it is important to note that any new product developments will happen only in the new version of CARTO.

You can continue to login to the previous version of CARTO from this page.

Free trials for the new CARTO platform are already available on our Sign up page. We also welcome all of our existing enterprise customers to contact us so we can provision them an account to the new platform for the reminder of their subscription term.

How can I log into the legacy CARTO platform?

Although direct login to the legacy platform was removed from CARTO's website homepage in February 2024, you can continue to log into your account in the previous version of CARTO from this page.

What happens to my current CARTO subscription? Will I have to pay extra to access the new platform?

If you are an existing CARTO Enterprise customer, we will give you an account to the new version of our platform without any additional cost for the reminder of your subscription term. Please get in touch with your CARTO representative or our Support team and we will provision you an enterprise account to the new platform according to your subscription plan.

Can I login to both versions of the CARTO platform with the same credentials?

No, the two platforms are completely independent, and hence they require their own set of credentials to login. In our login page users can select which version of CARTO they want to access. To access your old account, select “CARTO Dashboard”.

Will all my data in the previous platform be readily available when I access the new version of CARTO?

No, by default it is not. Both versions of the platform are completely independent. Get in touch with your CARTO representative or our Support team, and we can assist you to migrate your datasets across our two platform versions.

Will I be forced to move all my data to the new version of the CARTO platform?

No, you won’t. If you are an existing CARTO customer you can enjoy both versions of the platform. If you are an existing enterprise customer, and you would like to make available in the new platform some of the tables you have in your existing account, please get in touch with your CARTO representative or our Support team, and we can assist you to migrate data across our two platform versions.

Is CARTO’s Student Package still available?

Yes, it is. Check our guide here and learn how to activate your CARTO Student account using the Github Student Developer Pack.

Can I setup a Single Sign-On integration in the new platform?

Yes, check all the details in our SSO documentation. To get started, just get in touch with your contact or with support@carto.com and we’ll guide you through the process. In the end, users in your organization will see your SSO integration as the only way to access your organization.

Where can I see my current quotas and usage?

To understand the current plan limits (quotas) and how far are you from reaching them, there’s a section located in Workspace > Settings > Subscription > Quotas where you can check all this information at any time. Check Understanding your Organization Quotas for examples and more information.

Why should I migrate to the new version of the CARTO platform?

Is CARTO going to provide me assistance if I would like to migrate to the new platform?

What type of objects can be migrated between platforms?

Can I migrate my maps from the previous version to the new version of CARTO?

What information will you need to provide to receive assistance with the migration?

Do I need to provide an authorization for CARTO to work on my platform migration?

If my data tables are migrated to the CARTO Data Warehouse in the new platform, are there any associated costs with its usage?

Will the platform migration tasks interfere with the standard service?

Why should I migrate to the new version of the CARTO platform?

The new platform offers you a complete cloud native experience, and unparalleled geospatial analysis and visualization capabilities on top of the leading cloud data warehouse platforms (i.e. Google BigQuery, Snowflake, AWS Redshift and Databricks), eliminating the need of complex ETLs and the limits of scalability that our previous platform had.

In the new CARTO, we have implemented a new and more powerful version of CARTO Builder, further advanced our Data Observatory and Development tools, and created a new suite of geospatial analytics functions that can be run natively in the aforementioned cloud data warehouse platforms.

Our teams are currently laser focused on evolving both functionality and user experience to make the new CARTO the most powerful spatial analytics platform available in the market. Although we currently do not have any plans to deprecate the previous version, we recommend you to start your new projects in the new CARTO platform. CARTO will not be doing any further developments on the components of the old version of the platform, which will remain “as is”.

Is CARTO going to provide me assistance if I would like to migrate to the new platform?

CARTO offers technical assistance for platform migrations to all our enterprise customers at no additional cost. If you have an Enterprise plan and you would like our assistance to migrate to the new version of our platform, please contact your CARTO representative or the Support team at support@carto.com.

What type of objects can be migrated between platforms?

We can only offer migration support between platform versions for data tables and your active Data Observatory subscriptions.

Can I migrate my maps from the previous version to the new version of CARTO?

No. Unfortunately, since the technology stack between platforms is completely different, we cannot offer compatibility of maps built in the previous version of CARTO with our new technology. If you have TAM hours in your Support package, please ask your Customer Success Manager for an evaluation of the effort required to build your maps in the new platform.

What information will you need to provide to receive assistance with the migration?

In order for us to assist you with the migration to the new CARTO platform, we will need to receive the following information about your CARTO account in the previous version of the platform:

• The name(s) of the CARTO organization(s) in the previous version of the platform that you want to migrate to the new version;

• The name of the CARTO organization in the new platform to which you want to migrate your data to;

• A list of the data tables to migrate;

• An estimate on the size of the tables that you want to migrate;

• Whether you have a cloud data warehouse from the supported ones (i.e. Google BigQuery, AWS Redshift, Snowflake, Databricks) or your own PostgreSQL database to which you want to migrate the data to use it with the new platform. If not, we will migrate your data to your instance in the CARTO Data Warehouse.

Do I need to provide an authorization for CARTO to work on my platform migration?

Yes. For us to be able to actively assist you with the platform migration, we will need you to send us a written authorization with the following text in order to give us the required permissions:

If my data tables are migrated to the CARTO Data Warehouse in the new platform, are there any associated costs with its usage?

CARTO provides an instance of the CARTO Data Warehouse and monthly usage quotas with every subscription plan depending on the tier. Please get in touch with your CARTO representative to understand the service level associated with your subscription plan. You can read more information on this topic here.

Will the platform migration tasks interfere with the standard service?

Any task associated with the platform migration is not expected to interfere with your CARTO service. In any case, CARTO will agree with you on a timeframe to carry out the migration activities, so you are completely informed on when these will be performed and therefore reduce the chances of any interference with your own usage of your CARTO accounts.

My screen is stuck on the "Creating an Organization" page.

How can I join an existing organization on CARTO?

Can I be a member of multiple CARTO organizations?

I have previously used CARTO (including signing up for a free trial). Can I create a new organization or user with the same email?

Can I extend my free trial to longer than 14 days?

Can I start multiple free trials with CARTO?

My screen is stuck on the "Creating an Organization" page.

If you have never signed up for CARTO before, this can normally be fixed by clearing your browser’s cache. If you have previously used CARTO or created another CARTO organization - including a free trial - please see the FAQs below.

How can I join an existing organization on CARTO?

A CARTO user with an admin role from your organization will be able to add you to their organization through the CARTO Workspace via Settings > Users and Groups.

If you have a previous or existing CARTO login (including free trials) which are not attached to this organization, you will not be able to immediately join. In this instance, you should contact your customer success manager or support@carto.com who can help you.

Can I be a member of multiple CARTO organizations?

You cannot join multiple CARTO organizations with the same email address. If you have a requirement like this, you should contact your customer success manager or support@carto.com who can help you.

I have previously used CARTO (including signing up for a free trial). Can I create a new organization or user with the same email?

CARTO accounts are currently limited to one account per email, including historic accounts. If you have specific requirements around this, please contact your customer success manager or support@carto.com who can help you.

If you are attending a CARTO event where a free trial is a requirement, please contact the event organizers who will be able to coordinate this for you.

Can I extend my free trial to longer than 14 days?

In most cases free trials are limited to 14 days. Please fill in our Request a demo form to discuss your requirements if you weren’t able to evaluate the platform within 14 days.

Can I start multiple free trials with CARTO?

Free trials are limited to one per user. Please fill in our Request a demo form to discuss your requirements if you weren’t able to evaluate the platform with a single trial.

If you are attending a CARTO event where a free trial is a requirement, please contact the event organizers who will be able to coordinate this for you.

What methods can I use to create a map layer?

How can I run spatial analyses in Builder?

How does the export mechanism from Builder works?

What methods can I use to create a map layer?

To add a data source to a map as a new layer you can either:

• Pick a table or tileset from one of your active connections to cloud data warehouses

• Add data resulting from applying a custom SQL Query. You can also leverage the SQL functions available in CARTO’s Analytics Toolbox.

• Importing data from a local or remote file. Right now we currently support GeoJSON, Shapefile (in a zip package), and CSV files. We’re working to support more formats in the future.

How can I run spatial analyses in Builder?

To run spatial analysis in Builder, you can use the SQL Editor, which is accessible when adding a data source as a custom query. The SQL Editor allows you to execute SQL commands directly in your cloud data warehouse (e.g., BigQuery, Snowflake, etc.), taking advantage of the full capabilities of the platform, including functions and operations available there. Additionally, you can leverage UDFs from the Analytics Toolbxo for enhanced spatial analysis. While the SQL Editor is ideal for performing simple analysis or utilizing SQL Parameters, for more complex or multi-step analysis, we recommend using Workflows. Workflows enable you to perform detailed, step-by-step analysis and save the results as a materialized table, which can then be used as a source in Builder. This approach provides greater flexibility and scalability for more advanced spatial analysis tasks.

How does the export mechanism from Builder works?

The export mechanism in Builder leverages the built-in export functionality of the connected cloud data warehouse to handle and process data. This ensures efficient export of datasets, aligning with the performance optimization strategies of the underlying platform.

When using BigQuery specifically, the export process stores data in a Google Cloud Storage (GCS) bucket. For performance and scalability, BigQuery splits the exported data into multiple smaller files rather than a single large file. This behavior is expected and is a result of BigQuery’s internal strategies to parallelize the export jobs for optimal performance.

What cloud data warehouses can I use with CARTO?

What are the device/web browser requirements for CARTO?

When I connect to a data warehouse, do you copy or store any data?

What happens if I do not have any cloud data warehouse platform to connect?

Can I import geospatial files into CARTO’s new platform?

What are the Location Data Services (LDS) providers configured by default in a CARTO organization?

What cloud data warehouses can I use with CARTO?

CARTO’s new platform is designed to give you a fully cloud native experience, allowing you to run CARTO on top of your leading cloud data warehouse platform of choice (i.e. Google BigQuery, Snowflake, AWS Redshift, Databricks, and any PostgreSQL-based data warehouse platform).

What are the device/web browser requirements for CARTO?

CARTO is designed to work in all modern browsers that meet the following criteria:

• Complete support, including hardware acceleration, for WebGL2

• A browser version not older than 2 years

This includes the latest stable versions of Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Opera, but other browsers using standard technology and meeting the criteria above should be compatible as well.

While CARTO should work in all browsers meeting the criteria above, the best performance and compatibility are expected with Chromium-based browsers.

Please note that the user's device must also have hardware that supports these features. A desktop device with a dedicated GPU and at least 8 GB of RAM is recommended.

When I connect to a data warehouse, do you copy or store any data?

No, your connection allow us to perform queries against your data on your behalf, and the results are either stored again in your data warehouse or rendered in the client, as visible maps. CARTO being fully cloud native means no storage needs, less security concerns and no need for data replication or complex ETL processing.

What happens if I do not have any cloud data warehouse platform to connect?

For users who do not have any cloud data warehouse platform to which they want to connect CARTO, we are offering cloud storage and computing resources in what we call the CARTO Data Warehouse. A CARTO Data Warehouse connection is offered by default with your CARTO subscription.

Can I import geospatial files into CARTO’s new platform?

Yes, at the moment you can import both local or remote (via URL) Shapefiles, CSV or GeoJSON files. You have more details available in the corresponding section of our User Manual.

What are the Location Data Services (LDS) providers configured by default in a CARTO organization?

CARTO offers access to Location Data Services (LDS) such as geocoding, isolines and routing by leveraging the APIs of 3rd party service providers. Since December 2023, by default, CARTO uses TomTom APIs for geocoding and routing, and TravelTime for isolines.

CARTO retains the right to adjust the default configuration of these services at its sole discretion when deemed necessary. Other options to the default can be made available under special commercial and usage terms.

What frameworks and libraries can I use for developing custom apps with CARTO?

Are “CARTO for deck.gl” and “CARTO for React” compatible with the new version of the platform?

What frameworks and libraries can I use for developing custom apps with CARTO?

You can use any framework or visualization library because CARTO is based on industry-standards. If there is not a hard requirement, we recommend using deck.gl for visualization and CARTO for React for creating apps that extend the platform functionality.

Are “CARTO for deck.gl” and “CARTO for React” compatible with the new version of the platform?

Yes, you can use both tools with the previous and the new version of the platform.

Does CARTO provide an SDK for the development of Mobile applications?

CARTO does not currently offer an SDK for the development of mobile apps as a component of our cloud native platform. In order to develop mobile applications with geospatial data, we recommend using the relevant SDK of your cloud vendor, or from products such as Google Maps, Apple Maps, Mapbox or Maplibre.

Particularly for the visualization of small datasets with spatial data (< 30MB), all SDKs will support visualization of GeoJSON files (e.g. Google’s Maps SDK for Android), and CARTO’s Maps API can be the technology to serve them.

The Mobile SDK in the previous version of the CARTO platform will not be further developed, and we don’t recommend starting new projects with it.

Explain your Workflows with rich markdown notes and custom node names

June 30th, 2023

New Workflows

We have just added a couple of new features in Workflows that are going to improve a lot the explainability of your multi-step analytical pipelines.

• Rich notes supporting Markdown syntax.

• Update nodes with more relevant and descriptive names.

Remove CARTO footer from public and embedded maps

June 30th, 2023

Improvement Workspace

Starting today, users with the ability to customize branding and appearance can also remove the CARTO brand and social icons from their public and embedded maps.

This is a setting that is applied to all maps created in the organization. Additionally, administrators can decide whether new users receive the generic CARTO onboarding materials, to further customize the experience for new users. Learn more about how to activate these customizations.

Custom aggregation operations for Formula Widget

June 27th, 2023

New Builder

We are excited to introduce the latest enhancement to the Formula Widget in Builder, which allows users to create their own custom aggregation operations.

This new feature provides advanced capabilities for users to tailor calculations and derive precise insights from their data using SQL Expressions.

With custom aggregation operations, users have the flexibility to define calculations that align precisely with their unique analytical requirements. They can incorporate business-specific formulas and apply complex mathematical operations to single or multiple columns from their data source.

This level of customization empowers users to unlock valuable insights and perform advanced calculations that go beyond standard aggregations.

Define geospatial inputs by drawing custom features in Workflows

June 26th, 2023

New Workflows

While working with Workflows, in some occasions a component needs to be defined as a custom geography (point, line or polygon). This is currently the case with "Table from GeoJSON" but this tool will also be used in other components that might need a custom geospatial input.

We have developed a new tool, accessible through the "Draw features" button to define custom geographies as inputs for components.

This new tool come in quite handy in cases where one or more steps in an analysis have to be defined by a manual input, allowing faster prototyping a providing a much better user experience.

Define a custom schema when importing files

June 20th, 2023

Improvement Workspace

When importing geospatial data to a cloud data warehouse, one of the challenges is to select the correct data type for each of the columns in the file, also known as schema. And in most cases, CARTO automatically does the job for you, because we analyze a sample of the data and infer the data type from it.

For those cases where the automatic detection isn't exactly what you need, CARTO now allows you to manually defined the schema of the imported file, both through CARTO Workspace and Builder, and through our Imports API.

An example where this new feature is useful is when dealing with postal codes, that depending on the country could be automatically detected as numbers instead of strings — it doesn't make sense to calculate the average postal code.

To read more about how to select a custom schema in your imports, read our Importing data documentation.

New batch of components to enable more powerful workflows and provide further flexibility in data transformation pipelines

June 14th, 2023

New Workflows

We have released a new batch of components in Workflows to keep increasing the possibilities and the value of this tool to enable the creation of data pipelines and spatial analyses for our users. The majority of components in this new batch are oriented towards providing more flexibility when manipulating and getting your data ready for the analysis. Here's the list of new components:

• Multi-Col Formula: it computes new values based on a given expression and a set of fields to apply the expression to;

• Multi-Row Formula: it creates a new table containing a new column computed using a multi-row formula based on one or several input columns;

• Find Replace: it finds a string in one column of a table and replaces it with the specified value from another table;

• Refactor columns: it refactors the columns in a table, allowing to change names and data types, and to select only certain columns from a table;

• Transpose: it rotates table columns into rows;

• Text to Columns: it adds new columns based on splitting the text string in a text column;

• Unique: it separates unique rows and duplicated rows;

• Row Number: it creates a new table with an additional column containing row numbers;

• Quadbin To Parent: it adds a new column named quadbin_parent with the value of the parent quadbin at a specific resolution;

• H3 To Parent: it adds a new column named h3_parent with the value of the parent h3 at a specific resolution;

• H3 KRing: it returns the neighboring indexes in all directions under the K distance size;

• H3 Distance: it computes the H3 grid distance between two H3 index column.

New function to generate point-to-point routes for different transportation modes in the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery, Snowflake and Redshift

June 6th, 2023

New Analytics Toolbox

In the lds module of the last release of the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery, Snowflake and Redshift we have now added the function to CREATE_ROUTES between given sets of origins and destinations (points) in a query, supporting different transportation modes and other advanced parameters. The function generates a new table with the columns of the input query plus a column with the resulting routes. Note that the routes are calculated by calling one of our external location data services providers. This functionality is also available from CARTO’s LDS API.

Space-time cluster analysis now available in the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery

June 6th, 2023

New Analytics Toolbox

In the last release of the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery we have available a new set of functions in order to perform space-time cluster analysis, for when data has both a spatial and a temporal component and you want to identify clusters looking at both dimensions at the same time (e.g. hotspots of demand for food delivery services in different periods of the day). Our implementation computes the space temporal Getis-Ord Gi* statistic for each area and timestamp according to the method described in this paper. This is supported now with two new functions in the statistics module of the toolbox, namely GETIS_ORD_SPACETIME_QUADBIN for quadbin indexes and GETIS_ORD_SPACETIME_H3 for H3 indexes.

Focus maps on user's device location

May 16th, 2023

New Builder

Finding your current location on CARTO maps is finally possible. This feature is specially helpful when users require the map zoom in to their current position in a seamlessly manner to obtain insights from their surroundings.

This is how it works:

1. Click the Focus on User's Device Location button.

2. Enable Location Services on your browsers if required.

The map display zooms in to your current location and a blue icon indicates your position on the map.

Access to the CARTO Data Warehouse SQL console

May 8th, 2023

Improvement Workspace

The CARTO Data Warehouse is a connection that comes pre-created for every CARTO organization, and it's fully managed by CARTO.

Until this release, it wasn't possible to manage the data available to this connection other than what was already available through Builder and Workflows.

Now, all users can introduce a Google account that they'll use to access the console. Once inside, you can run any SQL query, copy and edit existing tables or use other built-in features to import and migrate your data. Read more on how to get access to the CARTO Data Warehouse console.

New module in the Analytics Toolbox for Snowflake providing access to a set of geostatistical functions

May 5th, 2023

New Analytics Toolbox

Users of our Analytics Toolbox for Snowflake have now access to a new module named “statistics” offering functions to compute statistical measures on top of your spatial data. In this last release we have added support for computing the Moran’s I spatial autocorrelation and the Getis-ord Gi* statistics used for the identification of hotspots based on an input feature.

Support for operating with H3 indices in the Analytics Toolbox for PostgreSQL

May 5th, 2023

New Analytics Toolbox

In this last release of the Analytics Toolbox for PostgreSQL, we have added a new module named “h3” with a set of functions providing users support for operating over the H3 spatial index. H3 is a multi-resolution hexagonal global grid system with hierarchical indexing developed by Uber, offering important benefits when performing spatial analytics at scale. To learn more about Spatial Indexes and H3 in particular, please have a look at our Spatial Indexes 101 report and our documentation.

New functions to compute the “Area of Applicability” of a model built with BigQuery ML in the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery

May 5th, 2023

New Analytics Toolbox

Some areas due to their intrinsic characteristics or the data available are not suitable for running the predictive models given the large differences within the data used when training those models (e.g. training a model on big cities and then running predictions in areas of low population density). We have added new functions in the statistics module to allow users to compute the Area of Applicability (AOA) of a BigQuery ML model. It generates a metric which tells the user where the results from a Machine Learning (ML) model can be trusted when the predictions are extrapolated outside the training space (i.e. where the estimated cross-validation performance holds).

In the case of our Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery, this functionality is particularly useful when working with our BUILD_REVENUE_MODEL and PREDICT_REVENUE_AVERAGE procedures of the retail module.

Support for SQL Parameters in Builder

April 24th, 2023

New Builder

SQL Parameters are placeholders that can be used on any SQL Query data source in Builder.

Once defined, the actual value for the parameter can be set through a control UI in the right side panel’s 'Parameters' tab. This allows to manipulate the actual SQL Query through an UI, by both Editor and Viewer users.

Among many different use cases, some applications for this new feature are:

• Create 'Text' or 'Dates' parameters.

• Reduce the size of a data source before rendering the map.

• Allow viewer users to define custom values in the data source in a controlled way.

• Use the same parameter in one or more queries.

• Filter a dataset before aggregating it to a spatial index grid (H3 or Quadbin).

Learn more about how to set up and use SQL Parameters in your maps here.

Easier authentication for developers with our API Access Tokens UI

April 21st, 2023

New Workspace

Developers looking to create geospatial applications at scale usually face an authentication challenge: how to build the application so that data is accessed in a granular and secure way. And there are different solutions depending on your needs: from static API Access Tokens for simple, public applications to dynamic authentication using the CARTO login (with or without Single Sign-On).

Today we're making the creation and management of API Access Tokens much simpler, with a complete user interface to create, edit and delete tokens.

API Access Tokens are now the recommended method to start working with CARTO for deck.gl and the CARTO APIs, and we've updated the documentation and API reference accordingly.

Learn here how to create and manage your API Access Tokens.

Optimize your data for geospatial analysis in just a few clicks with our Table Optimization wizard

April 13th, 2023

New Workspace

CARTO is the ideal solution for geospatial visualization and analysis of large scale datasets, due to the scalability of the cloud data warehouses (eg: BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift, Databricks...). However, dealing with such large datasets requires special attention into performance and optimizations.

Now, whenever we detect that one of your tables could perform better according to our performance considerations, we'll show a warning in Data Explorer and Builder, and you'll be able to take action immediately.

In just a few clicks, you'll overwrite or generate an optimized copy of your data, that will perform faster and save computing costs.

To understand in detail how these optimizations work, head to the Optimizing your data guide.

Default role for new users and SSO just-in-time provisioning

April 10th, 2023

New Workspace

We are adding two new features for admins to manage new users more easily and predictably:

• Default role for new users: Admins can now choose which role should be applied to new users, and by default it will be set to "viewers" following the least-privilege principle. Find more information about roles in CARTO and about this setting.

• SSO Just-in-time provisioning: Admins that have integrated their own SSO login can now decide whether new users will get additional questions when onboarding or not. If it's enabled, we'll just provision their user as soon as they login, without any needed step. This new setting has been included in the documentation about SSO at CARTO.

Supporting labels in tile layers

April 6th, 2023

New Builder

CARTO Builder now supports adding labels to point layers loaded via tiles, with a set of improved features:

• Support for primary and secondary label on each point.

• Now using a better typography, increasing readability.

• Collision control: Now labels are displayed in a way that they don’t collision with each other, adapting dynamically on each zoom level.

• Custom colors for the font and outline, allowing much better customization capabilities.

Enabling users to create spatial scores using the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery

April 3rd, 2023

New Analytics Toolbox

In this month's release of the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery, we have published a new functionality that consists of a set of procedures within the statistics module to enable users to create spatial scores (also known as composite indicators or indexes) derived from a combination of different features. We have included 3 different procedures:

• CREATE_SPATIAL_COMPOSITE_SUPERVISED: to compute a spatial composite score as the residuals of a regression model which is used to detect areas of under- and over-prediction.

• CREATE_SPATIAL_COMPOSITE_UNSUPERVISED: to perform an aggregation of individual variables, scaled and weighted accordingly, into a spatial composite score.

• CRONBACH_ALPHA_COEFFICIENT: to measure the internal consistency of the variables used to derive the spatial composite score.

Multiple series and custom temporal aggregations in the Time Series Widget

September 30th, 2023

Improvement Builder

We have upgraded our Time Series Widget in Builder to boost your temporal data analysis experience. These enhancements bring a new level of customization to your data exploration, offering:

• Enhanced temporal precision: Our upgraded Time Series Widget empowers you with precise control over temporal data aggregation. You can now extract insights using custom time intervals and enjoy greater granularity, resulting in more accurate analyses.

• Analysis of multiple time series: Unlock the ability to analyze multiple time series simultaneously within the widget, enabling seamless concurrent analysis over time.

New components in Workflows for data enrichment, statistics and retail analytics

September 30th, 2023

New Workflows

We have released a new set of components in Workflows for Data Enrichment:

• Enrich Points

• Enrich Polygons

• Enrich H3 Grid

• Enrich Quadbin Grid

Each of them allows to enrich different types of geospatial data, and all of them allow using both a Data Observatory subscription or a custom table as source for the enrichment data.

Additionally, we have released a new component for advanced Statistics and for Retail Analytics, initially supported in Google BigQuery:

• Geographically Weighted Regression

• Commercial Hotspots

These additions to Workflows will make it a lot easier to leverage data enrichment and advanced statistical capabilities in CARTO, integrating these complex processes as just another step in a workflow.

Leveraging SSO in applications built with CARTO

September 7th, 2023

Improvement CARTO for Developers

Developers building applications with CARTO can now leverage their existing Single Sign-On (SSO) integration enabled in their organization to authenticate users.

Given the right setup, these applications will now be able to manage existing users and also first-time users coming from the SSO Identity Provider (IdP) that didn't exist previously in CARTO. The experience for these new users is seamless, without any action or step required. This is an extension of the Just-in-time provisioning setting available in CARTO Workspace.

The changes needed to fully leverage SSO and Just-in-time provisioning are covered:

• For custom applications: in a new Build a private application using SSO guide.

• For new and existing CARTO for React applications: in the Authentication guide.

Data Observatory subscriptions as data sources in Workflows

September 5th, 2023

New Workflows

We have just made Data Observatory subscriptions available in the Data Sources panel in Workflows.

This will make premium and public datasets a lot easier to work with: just drag and drop your available samples or subscriptions to the canvas and start building your workflow.

With this new addition to Workflows, the largest catalog of curated geospatial datasets is readily available to be integrated with your cloud native analytical pipelines with just a few clicks. Check this new feature documentation here.

Richer descriptions for Builder maps

September 4th, 2023

New Builder

We're delighted to announce the next level of map description functionality in CARTO Builder: Richer map descriptions with support for Markdown. This upgrade takes our previous map description feature to a whole new level.

With the new richer map descriptions, you're not just adding text; you're crafting a more engaging user experience. The support for Markdown syntax allows you to include various text formats, headers, links, images, and even bullet-point lists, elevating the user's understanding and interaction with your map. To learn how to add Richer Map Descriptions to your maps, click here.

Support for Numeric SQL Parameter

August 9th, 2023

New Builder

We're thrilled to unveil our newest addition to CARTO Builder - the Numeric SQL Parameter, expanding our portfolio of supported SQL parameter types. This innovative feature offers users enhanced interaction with numerical data within Builder.

Leveraging the Numeric SQL parameter, users can seamlessly retrieve single or pair numeric values from a Control UI to update the underlying data sources. It's an excellent option for those requiring to filter data by specific numeric ranges or adjusting analytical outputs based on numerical inputs.

Learn more about how to set up and use SQL Parameters in your maps here.

Sharing controls for Applications

July 24th, 2023

New Workspace

We have added the possibility to control the visibility of Applications in CARTO through the usual sharing options (private, entire organization...), including the ability to share an application only with specific groups of users.

This is especially interesting to customize what applications are shown for each user in the CARTO Workspace depending on the groups that they belong to, and also to start developing applications privately, without the app shortcut being shown to other users. You will find more information for these use cases and other details in the Managing Applications section in this documentation.

Mapping groups to user roles in CARTO

July 20th, 2023

Improvement Workspace

Administrators in CARTO now have the possibility to automatically assign a role to their users based on the groups that they belong to. To do so, just enable this feature and map each group to a user role. For example, you can map the group acme_data_analysts to get the editor role in CARTO, and new users belonging to that group will automatically get the editor role as well.

This is a powerful approach to quickly onboard dozens or hundreds of users into CARTO while maintaining effortless and enterprise-grade controls over the privileges of each user. Learn more about mapping groups to user roles.

Viewer credentials mode when sharing BigQuery connections

July 13th, 2023

New Workspace

Previously, whenever you created a BigQuery connection using OAuth ("Sign in with Google") it had to remain private, to prevent other users from impersonating your personal credentials.

With the addition of the new viewer credentials mode when sharing connections, we're unlocking several benefits for organizations using BigQuery:

• Now you can collaborate in maps using a shared BigQuery OAuth connection

• Instead of creating one connection per user, you can create just one connection and share it with everyone, with fewer management issues.

• By requiring viewer credentials, you can leverage row-level security and other policies set in your data warehouse.

Search locations by latitude and longitude in Builder

July 6th, 2023

New Builder We are thrilled to introduce the enhanced Search Location Bar, formerly known as the Address Search Bar. This feature now includes the ability to search for locations using coordinates. Simply input latitude and longitude values, and instantly visualize the corresponding location on the map.

Whether you're exploring remote areas, analyzing specific points of interest, or seeking valuable insights, our coordinate search feature empowers you to navigate with precision and seamlessly uncover new possibilities.

Builder SQL Analyses available for PostgreSQL connections

December 29, 2022

New Builder

Customers relying on PostgreSQL and PostGIS for their geospatial data will now be able to create and execute analyses directly from Builder.

These analyses are created as dynamically generated SQL queries that are pushed down to a PostgreSQL database through a CARTO connection.

The result can be visualized, used as input for another step of the analysis, or persisted into a new table.

Additional options to configure the creation of isolines in the Analytics Toolbox

December 27, 2022

Improvement Analytics Toolbox

In the last release of the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery, Snowflake and Redshift we have added the possibility to configure more options as parameters when executing the functions to CREATE_ISOLINES. These new options, which depend on the LDS service provider, allow the user to configure more transportation modes such as truck or bike, the possibility of specifying departure or arrival times allowing the creation of reverse isolines, and other options like different routing modes. Additionally, we have added new confidence/relevance metadata to the results of the geocoding function GEOCODE_TABLE.

Importing geospatial files into PostgreSQL databases through CARTO Workspace

December 27, 2022

Improvement Workspace

CARTO Workspace now supports importing geospatial files through a PostgreSQL connection leveraging CARTO Import API.

With this new functionality, CARTO users working with a PostgreSQL database will be able to get their geospatial data ready for advanced analysis and visualization in Builder and CARTO for deck.gl.

New function to identify similar locations, such as merchants or stores, based on the characteristics of their trade areas in the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery

December 27, 2022

Beta Analytics Toolbox

We have released within the cpg module of the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery a new function named FIND_SIMILAR_LOCATIONS that allows users to identify which locations (e.g. merchants, stores) are more similar to a chosen location (e.g. top performant) based on the characteristics of their surrounding areas (or trade areas), which can be configured to be based on demographic features, environmental, nearby points of interest, footfall, etc. In this example we illustrate how to use this new analysis function to solve the aforementioned use-case.

Improvements for Google BigQuery connections: re-connect and billing project

December 5, 2022

Improvement Workspace

We’ve improved some scenarios for users who created a Google BigQuery connection:

• Now CARTO should behave smoothly when your credentials (Service Account or OAuth) have access to more than 2000 projects. You should be able to select any of them as your billing project, and the Data Explorer will also let you explore all of them in a quick search.

• Now it’s possible to repair Google OAuth connections. Before, if you connected using “Sign in with Google” (often referred as OAuth), this connection could break after this authorization is revoked. This could happen automatically after changing your password, for example. Using the new re-connect flow will authorize CARTO again in the same connection, so all your maps will continue working as usual.

Assisted process to install the Analytics Toolbox for Snowflake from the CARTO Workspace

November 29, 2022

Beta Analytics Toolbox

Today we are making available the option for Admin users to install the Analytics Toolbox in their Snowflake accounts with a simplified process assisted by the CARTO UI.

From the Settings section of the CARTO Workspace users can now install, update and uninstall the Analytics Toolbox for Snowflake without external support. All details for setting up your Snowflake resources and to carry out the installation process can be found in our documentation.

Announcing CARTO for React 1.4.7

November 18, 2022

New Developer Tools

A new version of CARTO for React has been released with the following main highlights:

• Support for parameterized queries. Now, a user can define queries that allow for external parameters to be injected into the query and create more powerful dynamic queries without having to modify the SQL; this, will result in filtering being applied from the backend side to the sources and will be reflected in layers and widgets. For more information, a guide has been included in our documentation and can be accessed here.

• Several bug fixes.

Batch simulation of locations in Site Selection application

November 15, 2022

New Applications

Batch simulation of candidate locations is now possible in the Site Selection application. Instead of simulating locations one by one, users can now use a CSV template to upload in bulk the location details of their candidates. They can subsequently edit and remove their locations in the application as they see fit before running a batch simulation.

This feature enables users to process in bulk lists of candidate locations often provided by separate research teams, rather than one by one.

Feature importance widget for revenue predictions in Site Selection application

November 15, 2022

New Applications

Users can now explore the impact of the revenue prediction model features directly through the Site Selection application.

For each simulated location and associated predicted revenue, the widget showcases the magnitude of the impact of the features included in the model (i.e. population, mobility, POIs, etc.), as well as whether they contribute to predictions positively or negatively.

Logarithmic scales in Builder

November 15, 2022

New Builder

Logarithmic scales are now available as a data classification option in Builder.

While they’re available for all kind of sources, a logarithmic scales based on powers of 10 will be the default option for aggregated data sources.

This new addition will make it easier to create better cartography when working with spatial indexes, as well as a handy additional method of classification for other types of maps.

Geocoding, Isolines and Tokens quotas now available for tracking in Workspace

November 7, 2022

Improvement Workspace

Following the release of geocoding and isolines for Google BigQuery, and the new layout for the Settings, we’re adding new trackers for quotas in Workspace so users can understand and predict their consumption.

1. We added a new “CARTO for Developers” section, including:

   • Existing quota: Applications, for applications created using Workspace

   • A new quota: Tokens, for tokens generated using the Tokens API

2. We also added a new “Location Data Services” section, including tracking for Geocoding and Isolines operations. These quotas are reset every month, and each unit represents a row processed.

3. Finally, the “Connections” quota was removed, and will be gradually removed so users can create as many connections as needed without any warnings.

Resolution selector and aggregation methods for categorical data in spatial index layers

November 7, 2022

New Builder

Users working with Spatial Indexes data (Quadbin or H3) in Builder have a couple of new additions that will help them create better and more insightful visualizations:

• The possibility of adjusting the aggregation resolution for a finer control over the aggregation.

• Aggregation operations for categories: MODE to get the most frequent category in the aggregated cells; ANY VALUE to get any of the aggregated categories.

Visualize very large datasets based on H3 thanks to our support for spatial index tilesets in Databricks

October 27, 2022

New Analytics Toolbox

Starting today, our Databricks users have the possibility to generate spatial index tilesets based on H3 natively in Databricks.

The tiler is a module of our advanced Analytics Toolbox for Databricks that allows to process and visualize very large spatial datasets stored in Databricks. If you are interested in it, please contact with support@carto.com to receive more information about it.

Data Enrichment functions in the Analytics Toolbox for AWS Redshift

October 25, 2022

New Analytics Toolbox

Users can now enrich their data tables in Amazon Redshift with features from both their Data Observatory subscriptions and from their other 1st party data tables.

Procedures for Data Enrichment are now included in the Data module of the Analytics Toolbox for Redshift, specific for working with point data, polygons or spatial indexes. Please check out our documentation to find all the details and examples.

Improvements and new design in login and signup

October 18, 2022

Improvement Workspace

Continuing our efforts to improve our sign up and login processes, we’re now launching a new experience. Users should be able to join CARTO in a more smooth way with these new additions:

• A screen now will offer users the chance to create a new organization or join an existing one if there are users from the same domain.

• The list of organizations to join now has details about the users, the plan and a search bar to find the desired organization.

• When you request to join an organization you can now cancel that request (if it was undesired or the admin is unresponsive).

• When following an invitation the signup form will now be already pre-filled.

• The process to join an organization is now simpler with less steps.

• Multiple bug fixes and minor improvements.

Leverage CARTO’s Analytics Toolbox and visualize data natively from your data warehouse without leaving your Python notebook

October 18, 2022

Beta Analytics Toolbox

CARTO now provides a set of Python packages to allow data scientists to work with our platform from within Python notebooks. These packages allow users to work with geospatial data in a fully cloud native way without having to leave their Python environment, and taking advantage of all the potential that Analytics Toolbox provides to execute advanced spatial analytics in Spatial SQL natively within the leading cloud data warehouse platforms.

Multiple editor users working on the same map

October 18, 2022

Private Beta Builder

Collaborating on CARTO maps is finally possible, in asynchronous mode. This is helpful in setups such as production-ready maps, where the original owner might be out of the office; or in situations where the data, analysis, and cartography are each accomplished by different users.

Spatial Index and Point Aggregation tilesets available from Data Explorer

October 13, 2022

New Workspace

Starting today, it is available to all users the possibility of generating both Spatial Index and Point Aggregation tilesets on their own data tables directly from the Data Explorer UI. This feature complements the existing workflow, with the possibility of generating tilesets of large datasets based on spatial index (H3 and quadbin) and points, by defining aggregations on the interested features. The platform detects automatically if the table is based on spatial indexes or points and provides the new options in the “Create Tileset” wizard.

New filter to select date ranges in your temporal data when creating maps in Builder

October 11, 2022

New Builder

We have just added a new exciting component to Builder. The new Date Filter allows you to reduce the size of a data source by selecting a specific time range from a date or timestamp column in your data.

It is available for dynamically tiled data sources, which basically means tables bigger than 30MB and Custom SQL queries. Find more information about data source sizes here.

When dealing with temporal series it is very common to find overlapping points, repeated geometries or spatial indexes… which make the analysis and visualization of the data cumbersome and difficult to visualize. This new component lets the user select a specific time range to filter their data, making all these problems easier to work around.

This new filter actually pushes down a SQL filter, which reduces the amount of data processed and transferred, while the Time-Series widget allows filtering the data when it has already been loaded in the browser. They can play very well together, using the filter to pre-select a time range to work with, and the Time-Series widget for finer client-side filtering, visualizing the series, animations, etc

As an Editor, you can decide whether or not to include the Date selector in the public map. This allows deeper data exploration for viewer and public users.

New analytical functions to run Customer Segmentation use-cases for the CPG industry

October 6, 2022

Beta Analytics Toolbox

We have released in beta a new domain-specific module in the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery to solve advanced geospatial analysis for the CPG / FMCG sector, starting with customer segmentation. We now offer a set of procedures that allow users in that industry to solve this use-case end-to-end, from the generation of trade areas to running multiple segmentation scenarios of merchants based on a customisable set of spatial features. In this recent blogpost we showcase how to use these analytical routines with a specific example.

When creating a new workflow, I cannot see the data sources available in my connection - what may be happening?

Working with my data sources from a BigQuery connection I receive an error message about not having permissions to query the table or that the table does not exist on a specific region - What may be happening?

Working with my data sources from a Snowflake connection I receive the following error message: "cannot get Workflow schema" - What may be happening?

My workflow is producing the error message “No value assigned.” What could be causing this?

When creating a new workflow, I cannot see the data sources available in my connection - what may be happening?

This may be because the data warehouse connection associated with the workflow does not have the required permissions to run Workflows in the data warehouse, such as the permission of creating schemas in the Workflows temp. location (configured in the advanced options of the connection card). Please choose or create another connection with data owner permissions or modify the permissions in the current connection and try again. If the issue persists, please contact our support team at support@carto.com.

Working with my data sources from a BigQuery connection I receive an error message about not having permissions to query the table or that the table does not exist on a specific region - What may be happening?

In order to function, CARTO Workflows creates a temporal dataset in BigQuery named workflows_temp in where to store temporary objects needed to fully execute a workflow. In BigQuery, we create such dataset in the default region of the GCP project associated to the BigQuery connection. If you then want to include in a workflow data sources that are stored in another region different to the "default" one of your GCP project, then you need to create a new workflows_temp dataset in that other region and specify its location in the Advanced options of your BigQuery connection.

Working with my data sources from a Snowflake connection I receive the following error message: "cannot get Workflow schema" - What may be happening?

In order to guarantee a successful execution of a workflow via a Snowflake connection, please make sure that in the settings of the connection you have specified the database of your Snowflake account with which you want to work via that specific connection. This field is now required by CARTO Workflows. Note that you can edit an existing connection at any time.

My workflow is producing the error message "no value assigned." What could be causing this?

Usually this error occurs when either the input data sources have not finished loading, or the workflow has not had time to fully initialize before you’ve run it. This means that your later components have not had a chance to work out which values it will be receiving from the previous components.

This can usually be fixed by re-running the workflow.

Enforcing SSO for all users within an organization

October 4th, 2024

New Accounts

We've introduced a new toggle in the settings that allows Admins to enforce SSO within their organization. When enabled, every single user in that organization will have to authenticate using Single Sign-On, regaldless of their role. Users that try to authenticate with other mechanisms, such as User/Password and Google Account will not be allowed to log in.

For more details, check out our section on SSO.

New Export Feature and Enhanced Security for Workflows

September 26th, 2024

New Workflows

We’re pleased to introduce several updates to Workflows designed to improve both functionality and security:

Export Data from Any Node

A new Export button is now available on the Data tab for every executed node in your workflow canvas, allowing you to export data directly. This asynchronous export process can be tracked via the Activity Panel, similar to how exports are managed in Builder.

Enhanced Security for Enterprise-Ready Components

In line with our ongoing platform-wide security initiative, we've implemented the following updates:

• Send by Email now works without requiring attached data, offering more flexibility in workflow automation.

• You can now specify a custom bucket location when using the Send by Email component, giving you control over where your data is sent.

• Export to Bucket no longer uses public buckets. Users are now required to specify their own bucket locations, ensuring more secure data management.

These updates make Workflows an even more powerful tool for enterprise users while maintaining a focus on security and ease of use.

Require Viewer Credentials for Snowflake OAuth connections

September 11th, 2024

New Workspace

Users can now require viewer credentials for their Snowflake OAuth connections. When this option is enabled, anyone accessing data through the connection — whether they're consuming maps, running workflows, or using the data explorer — will need to authenticate with their own credentials.

This ensures that security policies set in the database, such as Row-Level Security, are enforced. For more details, visit our section on Sharing connections.

Monitor what's happening in your CARTO organization with the new Activity Data

August 30th, 2024

New Workspace

As organizations roll out CARTO to different teams and larger groups of users, it becomes increasingly important for administrators to understand and monitor how their organization is using CARTO, and this is now easy, powerful and flexible thanks to the new CARTO Activity Data feature

Administrator can now easily export (manually or programmatically via API) a comprehensive data collection of everything that happened within their CARTO organization.

The new Activity Data can be then analyzed to deeply understand things like:

• Basic engagement indicators: weekly active users, workflows run per week...

• Most used features: most used workflow components...

• Quota consumption: who is consuming more quota and why

• And many more insights about your CARTO organization

Want to get started? Head over to the CARTO Activity Data documentation. Make sure to also check the full Activity Data Reference, as well as the Examples where we share practical guides and SQL queries on how to analyze this data.

Improved asset ownership transfer

31st July, 2024

Improvement Workspace

We've introduced an improved flow for transferring user assets (maps, workflows, connections, etc) when deleting a user or when downgrading an Editor/Admin to Viewer. From now on, Admins will be able to select the specific user that will receive the assets.

For more information, check our documentation on Deleting users and Managing user roles.

Dynamic aggregation of point layer into H3 cells

31st July, 2024

New Builder

We've introduced a new functionality in Builder to dynamically visualize your point data as H3 aggregations, helping you gain deeper insights and uncover trends more effectively.

By aggregating point data, you can:

• Simplify Complex Data: Aggregate large volumes of point data into meaningful patterns and trends, making it easier to interpret and analyze.

• Enhance Performance: Improve rendering times and performance, especially with large datasets, by reducing the number of individual points displayed.

• Identify Hotspots: Quickly identify areas of high density or activity, helping you make data-driven decisions.

• Visual Clarity: Reduce visual clutter by grouping nearby points, providing a clearer and more informative map visualization.

Simply select this new visualization type and enjoy the benefits of aggregated data visualization, all with exceptional performance thanks to CARTO's native support for spatial indexes.

Enhanced layer panel and spatial source definition in Builder

29th July, 2024

New Builder

We are excited to introduce an improved layer panel in Builder for configuring your layers. This update significantly enhances the UI and UX of this panel, making the experience of creating visualizations in Builder even more enjoyable and efficient.

The redesigned panel features a cleaner layout and includes a new 'Data' section at the top. In this new section, you can define the spatial definition of the source linked to your layer. This is especially useful if your source contains multiple spatial columns or if Builder cannot recognize the spatial column by default.

Learn more about the spatial definition of your sources here. Also, explore our updated documentation section for layers to get the most out of this update.

Workflows Templates now available directly from Workspace

29th July, 2024

New Workflows

We are pleased to announce the integration of our collection of Workflow templates directly within the CARTO Workspace. This feature aims to streamline your workflow creation process, making it faster and more efficient to access and utilize pre-built templates.

• Integrated Collection: Access a wide range of workflow templates hosted on the CARTO Academy website, now readily available in the CARTO Workspace.

• Simplified Process: Users no longer need to visit the Academy site to download and import templates. The new feature allows you to easily recreate templates by selecting ‘New Workflow > From template’ within the Workspace.

• Enhanced Usability: This integration ensures that all available templates can be accessed with just a few clicks, promoting best practices and facilitating quicker setup of workflows.

This feature is designed to ease the learning curve by providing immediate access to valuable workflow templates that illustrate both building blocks for common geospatial analytics and more complex use cases, like industry-specific analysis for Telco, Insurance, Retail and CPG, Out of Home advertising, etc

Zoom to layer extent in Builder maps

19th July, 2024

New Builder

We are excited to introduce the zoom to layer functionality in Builder, which allows you to easily zoom to the layer extent, providing an immediate view of your dataset. When layers are filtered by widgets or parameters, the zoom focuses on the filtered data, ensuring you see exactly what's relevant.

Additionally, we have incorporated a "Show only this/Show all layers" feature, allowing you to quickly toggle all layers on and off with a single action, especially useful for maps including multiple layers.

Whether you're exploring vast datasets or gathering insights on geospatially distributed features, these new features will ensure a better exploration experience!

Learn more about this feature in our documentation.

New Workflows Components for Creating Tilesets

15th July, 2024

New Workflows

We are excited to introduce a powerful new set of components in Workflows that significantly enhance your geospatial data processing capabilities. These components are designed to facilitate the creation of various types of tilesets, allowing for efficient visualization and analysis of large spatial datasets. Here are the key features:

Create Vector Tileset

Generate vector tilesets from point, line, or polygon tables, enabling smooth and interactive map experiences.

Create Point Aggregation Tileset

Aggregate point data along with their properties into tilesets, ideal for visualizing dense point data on maps.

Create Quadbin Aggregation Tileset

Generate tilesets by aggregating quadbin indices, providing a fast and scalable way to manage spatial hierarchies and visualize large datasets.

Create H3 Aggregation Tileset

Utilize H3 hexagonal indexing to create aggregated tilesets, perfect for detailed spatial analysis and representation.

These new components enable you to transform your spatial data into highly efficient and scalable tilesets, which can be seamlessly integrated into your mapping applications. For more detailed information on how to use these components, visit our documentation.

Custom Markers in Builder

September 19, 2022

New Builder

Now users can include custom icons as markers for point data in Builder maps.This feature includes two differents ways of selecting an icon:

• Using one from our preset collection; based on the well-known Maki icon library, which is designed for cartography purposes;

• Uploading a custom icon in .png or .svg formats.

Different markers can also be defined by the values of a categorical column, and can even be rotated based on a numeric value; which enables different use-cases such as rotating an arrow based on azimuth for telecommunication antennas or the wind direction in weather maps.

Caching performance improvements

September 16, 2022

Improvement APIs

We have released a few changes in how we cache API requests in the CDN that will produce a significant improvement in the overall performance of the platform; specifically applying to Builder maps and applications developed using our APIs. Learn more about such changes in our documentation for developers at api-docs.carto.com; each end-point in Maps API and SQL API now contains a reference about our caching strategies.

In Builder, users have new a couple of new features:

• “Refresh data source”: to make sure users get non-cached versions of the data. Note that with this option your map will be skipping the CDN and getting the data each time from your data warehouse.

• “Refresh data source every X”: to allow the user to control the update frequency of the data displayed on public maps.

New layout in Settings section

September 15, 2022

Improvement Workspace

We have improved the layout in the Settings section in the CARTO Workspace; providing a better way to organize different areas by topic and providing a smoother interface for explaining the different Settings options for your CARTO account.

Performance improvements in Dynamic Tiling

September 13, 2022

Improvement APIs

A couple important fixes have been implemented to our Dynamic Tiling strategies. Dynamic Tiling is the technology CARTO has developed to dynamically generate tiles for medium sized dataset and layers loaded as SQL Queries from your cloud data warehouse.

• When working with points, many times widgets were not showing data due to our “visual aggregation” strategy when points were very close to each other. We have now removed this type of aggregation, and we are only applying a limit of 200k points per tile to prevent performance issues. If now you encounter widgets not showing data, you just need to zoom in to reduce the number of points per tile.

• With our previous strategy some polygons or lines that were falling in the intersection of multiple tiles were splitted for visualization purposes, which was making the same data point count multiple times in widgets. We have solved this problem by asking the user to identify a unique id property for the data source at the time of creating widgets.

Improvements in invitation & request management for Admin users

September 7, 2022

Improvement Workspace

As part of an active taskforce to improve our sign up and login processes, we have now released an improved interface for Admin users to manage invitations to join the CARTO organization and to manage user requests to join it.

Geocoding and isolines in Google BigQuery

August 26, 2022

New Analytics Toolbox - Builder - Workspace

We are very excited to announce that users of Google BigQuery can now geocode their tables with address data and create trade areas around locations based on drive/walk time isolines natively from their data warehouse. These procedures call external location data service providers such as TomTom, HERE and Mapbox. Please check the SQL Reference of our Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery for more details, and also refer to our examples on how to geocode your data and create isolines.

Note that these functionalities are also enabled from the Data Explorer and Builder tools.

Geostatistics functions in the Analytics Toolbox for AWS Redshift

August 26, 2022

New Analytics Toolbox

Users of AWS Redshift can now access a new set of geostatistics functions to expand the spatial capabilities of their data warehouse with CARTO’s Analytics Toolbox. We have released Getis-ord Gi*, Moran’s I and p-value methods that can run natively with your data hosted in Redshift. Learn more about these analytical functions in our product documentation.