Getting Started on our Open Data Platform
What is Open Roseville?
The Open Data Portal, Open Roseville, makes the data generated by the city openly available to the public to increase transparency, accountability, promote research and economic development, and improve our performance management.
Open Roseville provides:
- Datasets
- Charts
- Stories
- Maps
- Performance measures
- Financial data through our Open Budget Application
We're working with service areas across the city to expand and maintain the datasets available.
Top Tips for Getting Started
With so many features, the Socrata platform can be overwhelming. However, each individual feature is relatively straightforward to start using. Here, we provide quick information to accomplish some common tasks. On the tutorials tab, we include links to more detailed documentation and step-by-step videos.
(1) Easily Find What You Need with our Data Catalog
At the top left of the page is a link to our Data Catalog. You can also find another link in our Featured Content area. The catalog is a great "home base" for navigating the site. It is simply a list of all of our content on our Open Data Platform, including datasets, visualizations, stories, etc. You can click the categories, types, or tags on the left side of the screen to filter the list down to what you want. You can do the same thing, but with your own terms, in the search bar at the top.
(2) View Our Stories
Stories are a great way to see and interact with up-to-date data and understand context and trends using visualizations that we have created. Stories are a way we can explain or analyze an issue through a combination of text and dynamic visuals. You can find all of our stories in the Data Catalog. Click on "Stories" under "View Types."
(3) Previewing and Downloading Data
Once you click a dataset within the catalog, you will be taken to its "Primer" page, which contains all its metadata, a fancy word for "information about the data." Metadata describes the data; it provides an understanding of what the data is and how to use it. To download the data, at the top of the Primer page, click the "View Data" button. From there, you will see an "Export" button at the top right that will open a tab with many download options.
(4) Creating Your Own Visualizations
One of the more powerful features within Socrata is the ease with which anyone can start visualizing and interacting with data. Click here to view the Tutorials available on our site.
Links to More Videos and Helpful Articles
The Socrata platform is a powerful tool with many features that are beyond the scope of this introductory page. We encourage you to just explore the site and see what it can do. Most of the features and controls are intuitive and can be learned with just a bit of exploration. For the full Socrata help documentation page see Socrata's Support Page.