What about non-spatial data?

[SeanBennell]

I understand ArcGIS Open Data uses feature services with to power the site but how about data, such as a local government budget,that is in csv format and is non-spatial. What would be the workflow for including that? Please don't tell me Esri never thought about Open Data that had no spatial component?!? I know how to publish a csv to feature service but only if there are addresses or xy data. How about non-spatial?

[GaëtanLAVENU]

Hi,

We have the same question from different customers in France.

Gaëtan LAVENU
Esri France

[OwenGeo]

Gaëtan/Sean,

The dev team has tabular dataset support planned for the next major release in July and is interested in hearing about how you'd like Open Data to support this type of dataset.

It would be great if you could please post some comments here about how you'd like to add and work with tabular data -- direct upload of a CSV, referencing a CSV by URL that is already on a web server, sharing directly from Esri Maps for Office, etc.?  Which are your most important workflows that you'd like to see supported?

[RobertBorchert]

I work with non spatial data quite a lot and incorporate it into my GIS.

The key is you have to have some sort of identifier to link that non spatial data to a real world location.

Without some sort of relation to locate it to something in the real world the idea of using non spatial data in a GIS is kind of moot and I would ask why you simply don't use Access, Excel, or Word to display your data.

Gaëtan/Sean,

The dev team has tabular dataset support planned for the next major release in July and is interested in hearing about how you'd like Open Data to support this type of dataset.

It would be great if you could please post some comments here about how you'd like to add and work with tabular data -- direct upload of a CSV, referencing a CSV by URL that is already on a web server, sharing directly from Esri Maps for Office, etc.?  Which are your most important workflows that you'd like to see supported?

[NateArnold]

+1 on this 🙂

Referencing data already on our web server would be great, since we're not using AGO for data hosting.  We already have our own open data catalog in place, but it lacks the multiple format download options of open data.  I'm actually working on a rolling 180 day crime export right now (csv with lat/long), and it would be great to upload this to our web server and have it published to open data. 

I imagine for others direct upload of csv (with an associated tool/arcpy element) to hosted AGO would be useful, plus as you mentioned upload from ESRI Maps for Office.

Nate

[Anonymous User]

Yes. Inclusion of this is very important or we would have a fragmented open data portal (agol for spatial and another for everything else). I agree with a CSV upload and/or xls so we can give business units an account so they can maintain this tabular data. Would be a nice option to register URL to existing data (ex. Geojson, csv, etc) on our servers. Office integration may be bonus.

[EamonnDoyle]

It would be ideal if ArcGIS Open Data were to support any of the data types that are supported by ArcGIS Online. This includes many non spatial data types. For these types I would suggest that ArcGIS Open Data includes them in search results as per ArcGIS Online. When such formats turn up as search candidates the data footprint/extent should be shown in the map. On clicking the item the User should get the same download option as per ArcGIS Online. It is not usually necessary or possible to visualize these data types geographically but it would be really useful to be able to list, discover and download them.

Eamonn

[KevinShipman]

It would be ideal if ArcGIS Open Data were to support any of the data types that are supported by ArcGIS Online.

I agree.

Specifically for my agency and our organizational subscription, MS Office, pdf, image types, and all Esri formats would be necessary. Curious to see where Open Data goes; it looks as it may be a much better landing point for public and agencies as far as where they end up finding our data. Right now they land under our "Agency Featured Data" group page. Not terrible but not the most appealing either. They are constantly getting stuck on having to check the 'view ArcGIS desktop' box there anyway.

Again supporting most/all data types would be very useful.

[GaëtanLAVENU]

It would be ideal if ArcGIS Open Data were to support any of the data types that are supported by ArcGIS Online. This includes many non spatial data types. For these types I would suggest that ArcGIS Open Data includes them in search results as per ArcGIS Online. When such formats turn up as search candidates the data footprint/extent should be shown in the map. On clicking the item the User should get the same download option as per ArcGIS Online. It is not usually necessary or possible to visualize these data types geographically but it would be really useful to be able to list, discover and download them.

Eamonn

I agree. In France, I know about one hundred of Open Data sites and they all offer access to spatial data, standalone table and other type of documents (PDF, ZIP, Images files, ...). Il will be very disappointing if ArcGIS Open Data was restricted to Feature Services.

Gaëtan LAVENU
Esri France

[Anonymous User]

In a recent update we added support for non-spatial data, through Services. If your Feature or Map Service contains a table, we treat it just like any other layer in the service. When the table is found and viewed, we do not show the map. All the same filters apply to non-spatial data as spatial data.

Andrew