Upload your data gets a makeover!

What’s new?

In addition to the 800+ preloaded datasets readily available in Community Insight, you can also add in your own organisational datasets. Up until now, this has been restricted to postcode level data.

However, we know that you collect and hold data at a number of other geographic levels and have added functionality so that you can quickly and easily add your own data into Community Insight for a range of geographies.

You can now upload datasets held at output area (OA), lower layer super output area (LSOA), middle layer super output area (MSOA) and Local Authority area (LA) level, as well as postcodes. This gives you more freedom to customise and curate Community Insight, by opening up a wider pool of potential datasets you can upload.

Please note: Community Insight Scotland users will use Data Zones, Intermediate Geographies and Districts instead of LSOAs, MSOAs and LAs.

 

What can you do with this new functionality?

Why any geography?

At OCSI we are always adding new and exciting datasets to Community Insight, which are available for everyone to use. However, there are three conditions indicators must meet in order to be loaded into Community Insight. The datasets must :

  • Have national coverage
  • Be available at small area level
  • Be open data

The new functionality provides you will the ability to load in any dataset to Community Insight. Therefore, if you have data which covers your local areas only, data only available at Local Authority level or private purchased data you can now load these indicators into Community Insight. These will be visible only to people with access to your account.

Local data

For example, your organisation may hold data related to patches within neighbourhoods, such as arrears or complaints. This data might be published at smaller OA levels. Using the new functionality this data can now be loaded into Community Insight. Once loaded into the tool, you could:

  • Visualise the data on the map to identify hotspot areas
  • Use the Dashboard to see how your stock groups compare on local datasets
  • Use the Dashboard to compare this local data with the standard national datasets to see if the local picture matches the national picture.

Local Authority level data

We often receive requests to add Local Authority level data to Community Insight. We do not load such datasets in as once the data is apportioned down to match stock groups it is no longer an accurate representation for that local area.

However, you can now add your own Local Authority data to view on the maps if you so wish. We have also set a threshold on the zoom feature so that you can only visualise the data on the map at LA level, if you try to scroll in further to see the data at MSOA or LSOA level, it will not change.

Below are some examples of LA level datasets that have been requested before:

  • Fly tipping data
  • Amount of grant money given
  • Social mobility
  • Indicators from the London Data Store, such as sport participation

You can now load these datasets into Community Insight.

Private Data

If your organisation has purchased or licensed private data this can also now be loaded into Community Insight (As long as your license agreement allows for the use of the data in this way).

 

How to use this new functionality?

In Community Insight you have always been able to upload your own data at postcode level using the Manage your Data feature on the Group Admin drop-down menu item. This new development has built upon and extended that feature to allow you to load in your organisation’s data at standard area level: OA, LSOA, MSOA or Local Authority (LA).

Have a look at the Knowledge Base for a step by step guide to uploading data in Community Insight.

What codes can you upload?

Upload your Data uses standard area codes and accepts both 2001 and 2011 LSOA codes. Take a look at the Knowledge Base for more information on the format to upload data in. If you use different formats for your data and want to know if they are compatible with the upload your data tool, please get in touch and we can talk this through with you.

 

More improvements to Upload Your Data

As part of the development work for this project, we added some tweaks and tidies

Edit metadata

You can now edit some of the metadata for your datasets. This applies to the parts of metadata that are purely aesthetic (e.g. the description, name of the indicator, text on the legend). So now if you spot a typo or receive feedback on your metadata, you can easily change this!

Please note: You will not be able to change the parts of the metadata that affect the way that data is aggregated (e.g. choosing whether the data is summed or averaged), so take care in ensuring that you pick the right option the first time around!

Feedback on upload results

We have made improvements to the user experience once you have uploaded your data. When you click the final “import” button, you will now see a pop-up indicating that the upload is working.

 

Let us know!

Any feedback on the process would be greatly appreciated. Do let us know at support if you have any questions.