Data hosting guide:

Uploading data

Contents

Before you start

Upload your data

CSV geolocating

Dataset details

Import your data

Review & confirm

Help

Before you start

Familiarize yourself with our Data & Formatting Guidelines to ensure a smooth upload process. We recommend using the latest version of Chrome or Firefox.

You can upload the following file formats:

You can also use our sample data set or find a data set on the City of Toronto’s Open Data Portal.

If you have any questions or issues during this process, contact data@ratio.city.

Upload your data

This section is a step-by-step guide for uploading your datasets. To access the upload interface, go to the Data section via the navigation panel and click ‘Add or Replace a Dataset’.

Step 1: Upload your file

  • Drag and drop or select your file to upload

  • All uploaded datasets will be visible to all users within your organization

If you’re uploading a CSV, please note:

  • CSV files can only produce point layers (we do offer point to parcel conversion as an additional paid service; please contact data@ratio.city if you’re interested)

  • Since CSVs do not contain geospatial data, we need coordinates (preferred, more accurate), addresses, or both to geolocate the points

Step 1.5 (CSVs only): Address and/or coordinates for geolocating

00:00 Intro & CSV requirements

00:33 Confirm header row

00:45 Address fields

01:57 Coordinate fields

  • Confirm header row; having a header row is mandatory. If your CSV does not have one, please edit it to add one (using Excel/Google Sheets) before uploading it again

  • Setting up the address field for geolocation:

    • Addresses must have at least a street number and street name

    • Select the address field or fields (eg. if city is in a different column than the street address, select both)

    • Tag the address field information; the columns selected in the first step will appear in the 2nd section and you can drag and drop the tags accordingly

    • If there are no addresses in your CSV, just click ‘I don’t have addresses’ at the bottom of the page

  • Setting up coordinate field(s) for geolocation:

    • Coordinates can be in two fields or in one; pick the appropriate option

    • Select the correct column(s) with your latitude and longitude information

    • If there are no coordinates in your CSV, just click ‘I don’t have coordinates’ at the bottom of the page; if you do not have coordinate data, please note that your upload may take longer as we will have to geocode each address (it takes approximately 5 minutes per 1,000 records)

Step 2: Data set details

  • The information from this section will show up in the secondary panel when you click on the layer in Explore

  • Location: if your dataset has multiple cities, pick the region, province, or country that covers all of it.

    • If the city/region/province you are looking for is not available, please contact data@ratio.city to request it

    • The GTHA is not an official jurisdiction/region (like Peel Region), so if the dataset contains multiple cities from the GTHA that do not fit within one of the official regions, the location should be set to Ontario

  • Dataset name is how your completed layer will show up in the layer list; it’s best to pick something descriptive with keywords so it’s easy to search for

  • The ‘Source’ should describe who created this dataset—was it your organization or is it from an open data portal, etc?

  • Last modified date will appear as the version date in the secondary panel; this should show when the dataset was last updated/changed (not the upload date)

Step 3: Import your data

  • The fields you import are what show up in your map pop-ups—you’ll also be able to filter your dataset with these fields and create different visualizations with them; this step is optional

  • A field be completed in order to be imported; incomplete fields will not be included in your final data layer

  • We’ve labeled your fields using the column headers from your database as a starting point; you may edit the label name and description if you wish

  • The best match data type has also been auto-selected based on the contents of each field; you may change this in the data type dropdown

    • Some data types may be greyed out if they are not compatible with the contents of your data field. For example: if your field only contains text, you will not be able to select ‘whole number’ as the data type

  • Numeric data types require units to complete the field for import

    • Adding units will allow you to convert between metric and imperial measurements through your Settings & Profile page (accessible via the hamburger menu)

  • If you do not wish to import any fields at all, you can deselect all the fields with the checkbox at the top of the section

Step 4: Review & confirm

  • This final step will give you a preview of your map pop-up, which will show all the fields you’ve imported in Step 3 if you chose to do so

  • You can also select a field to use as your main label—this will be the main identifier that is displayed when interacting with your data on the map

    • The preview will update automatically as you select different main labels from the dropdown

  • Specifying the main label is optional; if you do not select one, we will use the first imported field by alphabetical order or none at all if you did not choose to import any fields in Step 3

    • If you ever want to update your main label, you can do so from the the cog icon in the Data section; just click ‘edit layer info’

Yay! Your layer upload was successful

Congratulations! You can click on ‘View layer’ from the progress popup or the data section to check out your newly uploaded layer in Explore mode.

Did something go wrong?

If there are any errors in your upload, you’ll be able to view the error summary and see how many (if any) records were dropped. Click the ‘download report’ button to get a copy of your error report.

The error report will give you the full error details on a per-record basis, so you can make updates to your dataset if you wish to and replace the layer.

If you’re not sure how to fix your dataset, please send us an email at data@ratio.city along with a copy of your report.

What’s next?

Your custom data layer is uploaded as a special dataset type called ‘Place’. Place layers are powerful and flexible. Click one of the links below to learn what you can do with your custom layers to unlock the full potential of your data.

Style data layer

Use our styling tools to create simple or data-driven map visualizations

Search & filter data

In Locate mode, you can filter your own data and cross-reference other Ratio.City datasets

Capture data in a report

Generate a report that has your data and all of Ratio.City’s data about a particular site