New Features: Enhancing sharing and security for Honeycomb Maps in Snowflake

We are excited to announce one of the most significant updates to Honeycomb Maps since launch. This release is all about making Honeycomb Maps work seamlessly at enterprise scale, with features that our customers have been asking for: fine-grained permissions, enhanced security, and powerful administrative controls.

We’ve partnered closely with Snowflake through the Snowflake Startup Accelerator program to use some of their newest and most innovative features. Thank you to all the Snowflake team members who have helped us build this!

Why We Built These Features

Many data teams that work with location data are limited in how they can share their work. Analysis done in tools like Python or QGIS is very powerful, but it is difficult to share widely across a company in a secure and easy-to-use way.

Over the past year, we've seen Honeycomb Maps grow from a tool used by small data teams to a critical part of how large enterprises like Wolt and GLS visualize and analyze their location data. As more teams within these large organizations adopt Honeycomb Maps, they've told us they need better ways to manage who can access what, share maps securely, and maintain control as usage scales.

With this update, Honeycomb Maps provides an enterprise-grade location data platform with secure map sharing out-of-the-box.

What's New

A Modern Home Page Tailored to User Roles

We've completely redesigned the Honeycomb Maps home page to give users an experience tailored to their role in the organization. When users open Honeycomb Maps, they'll now see:

• Featured maps - Admins can highlight the most important maps for the organization, putting them front and center for all users
• Personal maps - Quick access to maps each user has created
• Shared maps - Maps that have been shared with each user
• Dynamic navigation - The sidebar adjusts based on a user's permissions, showing only what's relevant to them

This makes it much easier for teams to find the maps they need, especially in organizations where hundreds of maps might be created across different departments.

Fine-Grained Map Sharing

One of the most requested features has been better control over who can view and edit maps. We've built a comprehensive permissions system that gives teams complete control:

Map-level permissions:

• View - Users can see the map but cannot make changes (they can interact with filters and sliders)
• Edit - Users can modify the map and share it with others
• Owner - Full control, including the ability to delete the map

Easy sharing options:

• Share maps with specific individuals by entering their email or username
• Share with the entire organization with a single click
• Grant different permission levels to different users on the same map

Maps are private by default, which means analysts can work on their analysis without worrying about it being visible before they're ready to share. When they do share, they have complete control over whether recipients can just view the work or collaborate on it.

Application Roles for Different Types of Users

To make Honeycomb Maps work smoothly across large organizations, we've introduced three application-level roles that let data teams control how different users interact with the platform:

These roles can be mapped to existing Snowflake roles, which means teams can leverage their organization's existing access control structure rather than managing permissions separately.

We are seeing advanced customers tie these roles into their existing IT Service Management (ITSM) platforms so that users can self-serve request the role they need.

Enhanced Security with Restricted Caller's Rights

One of the most powerful features in this release is support for Snowflake's Restricted Caller's Rights. Previously, to use Honeycomb Maps, data teams needed to grant the application specific permissions to access tables in their Snowflake account. This created additional overhead and complexity during setup.

With Restricted Caller's Rights, Honeycomb now runs queries using each user's individual permissions. This means:

• No need to manage separate permissions for the Honeycomb Maps application
• Users will never see data they don't have access to
• If a map uses sensitive data and is shared with someone without access, those data sources simply won't load for that user
• Data security is enforced at the Snowflake database level, where teams already have robust controls

This simplifies and strengthens the security model. Existing data governance policies work seamlessly with Honeycomb Maps without additional configuration.

Administrative Controls That Scale

Data platform teams need visibility and control as Honeycomb Maps usage grows. Our new admin interface provides:

• User management - See all users who have accessed Honeycomb Maps, when they first logged in, and their assigned roles
• Map management - View all maps across the organization, including private maps
• Featured maps - Highlight the most important maps to surface them to users
• Map recovery - Restore maps that were accidentally deleted

This makes it much easier to understand how Honeycomb Maps is being used across an organization and ensure that teams can recover from mistakes.

More Robust Map Storage

Behind the scenes, we've made a significant architectural change. Maps are now stored in Snowflake Hybrid Tables rather than in a Snowflake Stage. This might sound technical, but it brings real benefits for data teams:

• Backup and restore - Maps can be backed up using standard Snowflake backup procedures
• Programmatic access - The maps, users, and maps_permissions tables can be queried directly using SQL
• Integration with data pipelines - Maps can be created programmatically using tools like dbt
• Increased reliability - Data stored in tables is more durable than data in stages

For teams with sophisticated data governance and backup requirements, this change means Honeycomb Maps fits naturally into existing infrastructure.

Performance Improvements

Beyond the new enterprise features, we've also made significant performance improvements:

10x faster line rendering - We've rebuilt our line layer rendering using GeoArrow, which means you can now visualize up to 25,000 lines on a map while maintaining smooth performance. This is especially useful for visualizing delivery routes, transportation networks, or any other linear features.

Improved query reliability - We've enhanced how Honeycomb loads data from Snowflake, making maps load more consistently, especially under heavy concurrent usage.

Better polygon detection - Honeycomb now better detects and handles MultiPolygon columns, making it easier to visualize complex geographic features.

Using These Features

The new features are available now to all users of the Snowflake Native App. If your team is already using Honeycomb Maps in Snowflake, this update will roll out automatically.

If you're evaluating Honeycomb Maps for your organization and interested in bringing powerful, interactive location data visualization to your Snowflake environment, you can install the app directly from the Snowflake Marketplace or get in touch with our team to schedule a demo.