Chris Metcalf's dashboard

Chris Metcalf replied on March 18, 2010 22:37 to the idea "Form views for data entry (and viewing)" in Socrata:

Ian, Naples -

"Create a new form" is now available in the "Filter, Visualize & More" menu. You can create new forms within Socrata, and then publish them like you'd publish a Social Data Player.

Thanks,

Chris Metcalf
Technical Program Manager
chris.metcalf (at) socrata.com

Chris Metcalf replied on March 18, 2010 00:16 to the question "Automation capabilities" in Socrata:

It sounds like more of what you're looking for is a way of attaching the "metadata" about a dataset, such as the dataset and column descriptions, to the Excel file or CSV that you're using to do imports. Is this correct?

Please feel free to contact me directly via email (chris.metcalf (at) socrata.com), and we can work through what your use case is.

Thanks,
Chris

Chris Metcalf replied on March 17, 2010 20:00 to the question "Automation capabilities" in Socrata:

Thomas -

Most of those things can be done through the API, although they're not all fully documented yet, and those APIs are currently subject to change.

Let me know a little bit more about what you're trying to do and I'll see if I can help.

Thanks,

Chris Metcalf
Technical Program Manager
chris.metcalf (at) socrata.com

Chris Metcalf replied on March 16, 2010 20:15 to the question "how do i request access to database?" in Socrata:

Sounds good. I'll update this thread if I have any further questions or updates.

Chris Metcalf replied on March 16, 2010 18:09 to the question "how do i request access to database?" in Socrata:

That's not a feature we currently offer, so I'd like to discuss it some with you to see what you're looking for.

If I understand you properly, you're looking for some sort of form that a user can fill out in order to request access to be able to edit your dataset, correct? You'd then get an email or other notification and be able to create a Contributor share with them so they could log in and modify your dataset.

Sound good?

Thanks,

Chris Metcalf
Technical Program Manager
chris.metcalf (at) socrata.com

Chris Metcalf replied on March 12, 2010 18:53 to the question "languages available for socrata" in Socrata:

Yuri -

Currently Socrata is available only in English, but we're exploring what it would take to translate and localize it for other countries. What languages are you interested in, and how are you thinking of using Socrata?

Thanks,

Chris Metcalf
Technical Program Manager
chris.metcalf (at) socrata.com

Chris Metcalf replied on March 03, 2010 03:45 to the question "How can I access data views using javascript?" in Socrata:

Well, that came quicker than expected. I pinged the developer who was working on the Javascript mockups, and he pushed them to Github for me.

You can find our Javascript code sample on Github at:

http://github.com/socrata/socrata-js-...

Feel free to update this thread if you have any questions or encounter any problems. Also, if you use Github, feel free to fork our project and send a pull request if you fix or improve our sample code.

Thanks,

Chris Metcalf
Technical Program Manager

Chris Metcalf replied on March 03, 2010 03:31 to the question "How can I access data views using javascript?" in Socrata:

We're actually working on a basic read-only Javascript library designed for exactly what you're looking to do - create simple mashups based on data in Socrata data sites. It uses a technique called "JSONP" to have our server actually create a callback with your code. You can read more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON#JSONP

As for your question about curl, I'll have to revise the documentation to be clearer. The *nix curl utility is a command line utility that can be used for performing simple HTTP requests. I simply used curl for my examples since it is language agnostic and is about the lowest common denominator you could find for performing RESTful service requests.

I'll update this thread when the Javascript sample code is available, which should be very soon. Watch this space!

Chris Metcalf replied on February 17, 2010 18:29 to the idea "Tracker should have a single story view to make link sharing more efficient" in Pivotal Labs:

It would be awesome to have a way to view a single story full screen. This would be great for developers who wanted to focus on a particular story, and it'd also be nice as the default view for when you click-through on a story URL.

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
There needs to be a way to view stories full-screen.

Chris Metcalf replied on February 11, 2010 22:34 to the question "Help me figure a percentage please" in Socrata:

Linda -

Unfortunately we don't (yet) support calculations in Socrata datasets, so you'd need to export that dataset as XLS or CSV, load it into Excel, perform the calculation, and then re-import it.

We're exploring a "Calculated Column" datatype, which would allow you to create a new column based on calculations from other columns. That would allow you to perform that calculation.

Thanks,

Chris Metcalf
Technical Program Manager
chris.metcalf (at) socrata.com

Chris Metcalf replied on February 02, 2010 08:24 to the question "Socrata Browser Requirements?" in Socrata:

Cora -

Well, IE6 certainly shouldn't be _crashing_ - the worst you should be seeing is the layout not looking quite right or no all the functionality working.

Are there particular pages they're reporting errors on? Are they at least up to date with the latest IE6 service packs?

Thanks,
Chris

Chris Metcalf replied on February 02, 2010 02:38 to the question "Socrata's plans for secure login & sessions via SSL and HTTPS?" in Socrata:

Tom -

We actually already support login via SSL, so all of your authentication information is already protected by that security. Your Socrata login and password are safe from being captured by malicious parties. We also force SSL connections for other pages such as the "My Account" page.

Were you looking for support for HTTPS connections across all pages on the site? Are you dealing with sensitive data in your datasets themselves?

Thanks,

Chris Metcalf
Technical Program Manager
chris.metcalf (at) socrata.com

Chris Metcalf replied on January 29, 2010 04:59 to the praise "Nice job!" in Socrata:

Thank you!

Chris Metcalf replied on January 29, 2010 04:58 to the question "Socrata Browser Requirements?" in Socrata:

We try our best to make the embedable Social Data Player usable in all web browsers, there are a number of limitations presented by older web browsers like IE6. IE's Javascript performance, for example, is several orders of magnitude slower than that in modern browsers like IE8, Firefox, and Chrome, and can cause performance problems while dealing with large datasets.

What particular issues are you seeing in IE6?

Thanks,

Chris Metcalf
Technical Program Manager
chris.metcalf (at) socrata.com

Chris Metcalf replied on January 28, 2010 21:35 to the problem "Can't Add A New Column!" in Socrata:

Lacy -

Can you send me the URL of the dataset you're trying to add a column to? I'll try to see if I can reproduce your issue from our end.

Thanks,

Chris Metcalf
Technical Program Manager
chris.metcalf (at) socrata.com

Chris Metcalf set one of Chris Metcalf's replies as an official response to "Form views for data entry (and viewing)" in Socrata

Chris Metcalf replied on January 28, 2010 21:34 to the idea "Form views for data entry (and viewing)" in Socrata:

We're currently working on a feature that will in fact allow you to create forms and have them automatically submitted to Socrata datasets. Expect to see that in the next few weeks. At first it will be fairly basic, but we'll be adding more features to it in the future.

Thanks,

Chris Metcalf
Technical Program Manager
chris.metcalf (at) socrata.com

Chris Metcalf replied on January 28, 2010 21:32 to the question "Is there a form for submitting data??" in Socrata:

Jason -

We're currently working on a feature that will in fact allow you to create forms and have them automatically submitted to Socrata datasets. Expect to see that in the next few weeks.

Thanks,

Chris Metcalf
Technical Program Manager
chris.metcalf (at) socrata.com