Row Format

In the row-level format, every row represents one data point.

Sample file

Here is a sample file layout. In this file, BNNY is a topic representing the average weight (in pounds) of bunny rabbits across the country, for the female F and male M stratifications. All data is for the year 2021, and all weights are post-salad. The margin of error (moe) is also provided for some data. (This is optional.)

layer	geoid	topic	stratification	period	value	moe
state	AK	BNNY		2021	2.7	0.4
state	AL	BNNY		2021	2.7	0.4
state	AR	BNNY		2021	3.1	0.55
state	AZ	BNNY		2021	2.9	0.5
state	CA	BNNY		2021	3.2	0.3
state	CO	BNNY		2021	2.8	0.4
state	AK	BNNY	F	2021	2.8
state	AL	BNNY	F	2021	2.8
state	AR	BNNY	F	2021	3.2	0.3
state	AZ	BNNY	F	2021	3
state	CA	BNNY	F	2021	3.4	0.2
state	CO	BNNY	F	2021	2.9
state	AK	BNNY	M	2021	2.6
state	AL	BNNY	M	2021	2.6	0.4
state	AR	BNNY	M	2021	3.1	0.4
state	AZ	BNNY	M	2021	2.8
state	CA	BNNY	M	2021	3.1	0.1
state	CO	BNNY	M	2021	2.7
...	...	...	...	...	...	...

File format

Your file must be in CSV (comma-separated values) format. Its extension should be .csv. Excel documents need to be saved as CSV. Tab-separated format is accepted as well.
Rows represent data points: one row per data point. Each row is identified by its place (layer and geoid) and its topic, stratification, and period.
Your file should have the following columns: layer, geoid, topic, stratification, period, value, and optional se and moe for the standard error and/or 90% margin of error.
Each file can contain any number of places and any number of data points for any number of topics. There is no need to upload all data for a given topic at once, and you can upload data in any number of files.
By default, the data you upload does not replace any existing data (you will get an error if data already exists for the topic/population/period combination, called a “facet”). If you check the replace box, then your uploaded data will replace any values that currently exist in those facets. This is a safe way to update existing data.

Row format

Each row has a topic, stratification, and period. These use the following format:

topic - the key for the topic, which should be 3 to 8 uppercase characters, like BNNY or MZRBYI. These codes are used to uniquely identify topics and don’t necessarily have anything to do with the topic’s name.
stratification - the key for the stratification (demographic), or leave blank to represent the full population. All built-in stratification codes are provided in the full sample format file below. You can also create your own stratifications and use them.
period - the time period in years or months, in any of the following ways:
- A single year like 2020
- A multi-year period like 2016-2020
- A single month like 2020.02 (February 2020)
- A multi-month period like 2020.01-2020.03 (Jan - Mar 2020). Use this to represent quarters as well.
- Other formats may be accepted and we will intelligently attempt to parse them, but these are the officially accepted formats.

Each row also has a value, although this can be blank. Each row can have an optional standard error column (se) or 90% margin of error (moe) or 95% MOE (moe95). If a row has multiple, only the standard error will be used.

Topic	Stratification	Period	Explanation
`POP`		`2006`	Total population, in 2006
`INC`	`H`	`2008`	Median income for the Hispanic/Latino population, in 2008
`POP`		`2006-2010`	Total population, over the time period 2006-2010
`INC-F_2018-2020`	`F`	`2018-2020`	Median income for females, over the time period 2018-2020

If you use an incorrect topic, stratification, or time period, the upload validation process will catch this error and let you know.

Notes

The order of columns and rows does not matter.
Capitalization of column headers does not matter, but GEOIDs are case-sensitive.
Any cells with blank values will not be processed. It’s okay to have an entire row or column be blank (except for its headers).
Time periods must be between the years 1453 and 2100.
The data you provide will be checked to catch invalid entries, and you’ll be able to see which data points were invalid so you can fix them.
You can provide data for as many topics and places as you want in one file. You can upload data for places in different geographic layers in the same file. You could have ten topics and only one place, or ten places with only one topic, or a hundred topics and ten thousand places. You just need to have at least one topic and at least one place.
Any uploaded data for topics whose format is "Dollars" will be automatically inflation-adjusted to the current year (last year of the time period). If your data is already inflation-adjusted, you need to change it to a contemporary nominal value using rates from the CPI. Otherwise, it will be double inflation-adjusted and be wrong. You can also clear the "inflation adjustment year" for the topic to avoid this. Please contact us for help if you need assistance.

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