[Os-datawrangling] Fwd: How I got stuck on Openspending

Sun Aug 25 23:44:53 UTC 2013

All,

I wanted to share with you this great update from Conchita, from our last
Data Clinic a few weeks bak. I think this is really helpful, as we are
trying to find out where the current issues are with the OpenSpending
platform and help section.

@Concha: As a start I wanted to hear if you have already had a look at our
fresh and revised help section?
http://blog.openspending.org/help

I would encourage the rest of you to pitch in, if you can help with
suggestions. Thanks in advance!

Best,
Anders

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Conchita Catalan <ccgbcn at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Aug 15, 2013 at 11:34 AM
Subject: How I got stuck on Openspending
To: rufus.pollock at okfn.org, Anders Pedersen <anderspeders at gmail.com>

Hello Anders, hello Rufus

Sorry it's taken me a week to send this, I am on an island and have no easy
access to an internet connection.  I didn't send it to the list

How I got stuck trying to contribute to openspending. Concha Catalan

First of all, even if I am having difficulties, I am learning a lot at
openspending, so thank you all for all you're doing! I am writing this
detailed account by request...

General comments- The following would be helpful (for me)

screen shots

for dummies explanations ;)

I couldn't understand or follow all the steps but I decided to reduce my
document to the part corresponding exclusively to the Department of
Agriculture

I started to read this

http://blog.openspending.org/help/

I read the first sections with no problem

Introduction

What is OpenSpending?

What types of financial data can go into OpenSpending?

How does OpenSpending represent data?

I got to Adding Data to OpenSpending

Overview

Gathering data

and it all made sense. I had an xlsx file to start with, so it looked
possible. I must say the initial file I tried to use was very large (over
13,000 rows, 25 columns) so that did not help. I use OpenOffice, so I
opened the file and saved it as CSV. But when I tried to open it again a
box asked me what kind of conversion I wanted to open it in and I didn't
know what to do, so I got stuck there.

What could be added here:

How to convert xls and xlsx files to csv files with Openoffice.

Can you share a link to the CSV file either in Google Drive or in Dropbox?

Thanks for this suggestion for the conversion guide, Concha.

Formatting data

in section CSV I didn't know what the following line means: “CSVs accepted
by OpenSpending are denormalized, meaning that they do not save space by
removing redundant values.”

And in section The OpenSpending format

Point 4 is as follows and I found this confusing. I had a budget with 25
columns (name of dept, name of dept section, name of program, who the money
went to, program code, receiving organization, its code,...) each with
different info and the last one with an amount of money, so for me this
meant that maybe I had to remove lots of columns, but which ones?

4- Rows are data points. Rows should contain only one type of information:
one transaction or one budget line. One row must represent a maximum of one
time period. (Rows cannot represent multiple transactions.)

Point 5 is as follows and this I found confusing, too. I wasn't sure about
what “the resulting item” had to look like. Maybe a screen shot or a link
to an example would be useful here.

5- No blank rows or cells. Each row of an imported data file should contain
all of the information required to construct the resulting item.

6 OK

Point 7 is as follows. I gathered this means “number the rows” This could
be rephrased for spreadsheet amateurs like me with instructions like 1-
Place the cursor in box A1 and click Insert column, 2- Write “1” in your
new box A1, “2” in your new box A2

A unique identifier. There must be a column (or a combination of columns)
whose values uniquely identify each row. The easiest way to create such an
identifier is to add a dummy column to the dataset in which you put a
number that increases for each row. You can do this in Excel by typing the
numbers into the first two rows, selecting both cells and dragging down the
lower right corner of the cell to extend the series. -

What I decided to do was to extract the data about the Agriculture
Department and start again from there. I look forward to your advice :)

All the best,
Concha

Visita http://barcelonalittleshell.blogspot.com.es
www.opengov.cat

-- 

Anders Pedersen

Community Coordinator  |  skype: anpehej  |  @anpe

The Open Knowledge Foundation

Empowering through Open Knowledge

http://okfn.org/  |  @okfn  |  OKF on Facebook  |  Blog  |  Newsletter

OpenSpending | http://openspending.org | @openspending

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