Formatting your CSV file

This is the most important and difficult part of this feature.

Formatting your columns

Columns need to be formatted exactly as the software expects for the data to upload. This is either using latitudes and longitudes, or addresses. If you know the latitudes and longitudes of your services, use this option, as it uploads directly into Community Insight Australia. If you only know the addresses, your data will be sent to a third party to be coded into latitudes and longitudes. As this process is not controlled by the Community Insight Australia team, it is open to errors we cannot control.

 

locations 2 OR  locations 3

Preparing the spreadsheet

  1. Services must be uploaded using a CSV file. If your service list is in an Excel file, open your Excel document, click file > Save As > and where it says ‘Save as type’, choose ‘CSV (Comma delimited)’. This will transform your file into a CSV file, which you can upload. You may get a pop-up saying that this file format doesn’t support some features in your workbook, answer ‘Yes’ to keep using the CSV format.
  2. Remove any additional header or title rows

Unique name/number

Decide (if it’s not obvious) which column contains your unique name or number and make it column A, with ‘Unique name/number’ as its heading. This name or number will appear when you roll over the service on the map. Then:

  1. Remove or rename any duplicates.
  2. The name or number cannot be more than 50 characters long, so shorten any that are
  3. Remove any empty rows that break up the data, and any rows containing other types of data, like additional headings
  4. Remove any rows at the bottom that might not be part of the dataset

Formatting using latitudes and longitudes

Make ‘Latitude’ the heading of column B and Longitude the heading of column C and fill these with the latitudes and longitudes of the places in column A. Do not have any empty cells. If you do, either look up the longitude and latitude and fill them, or delete the row. Below is an example of a spreadsheet that is formatted correctly.

locations 4.png

Formatting using addresses

You need to have the entire address in one column. If you have several address columns and are using Excel 2013 or later, you can do this by typing the address in the top row and clicking ‘DATA’ > ‘Flash Fill’ as in the example below. Check it has filled all the way down and use this as your column of addresses.

locations 5.png

Service Types

  • You can assign up to thirty service types to your properties
  • Each of these service types will be allocated a different icon
  • Each service type can be turned on and off by users as they view the map (not affecting anyone else’s view)
  • Each service can only be assigned one service type
  • Upper and lower case matters e.g. School and school will be interpreted as two service types
  • If you do not specify a service type for any service it will be assigned the default service type, “Unclassified Service Type”
  • The default, “Unclassified Service Type”, will count as one of your thirty service types
  • The service type column can be left completely blank – this means that all your addresses will have the same description and icon.