GeoPacks

Overview

GeoPacks are designed to work with your data without having to be stored in your source database. Packs provide three types of data:

1. Geographical Labels
2. Geographical Fields (WKT Points, and sometimes Polygons)
3. Demographic Metrics

Packs are structured to have one or more levels of geographical data. When there are multiple levels of data, the levels will be structured in a logical hierarchy. Each level of the hierarchy will contain Geographical Labels of different formats and a Geographical Field containing a WKT Point (and sometimes a Polygon). The pack will also have Demographic Metrics associated with the lowest level of the hierarchy which are aggregated up depending on which hierarchy level you are using at the time.

Geographical Labels

In order to identify the various levels of data in the pack, and link the pack to your own data, Geographical Labels are included in various formats.

If we look at a simplified version of the Australian Postcode GeoPack it contains the following three level hierarchy:

1. State
2. LGA (Local Government Area)
3. Postcode

Some levels of this hierarchy may have different ways to identify the geography. For example, the State level can be identified as its full name, or using a three letter code. In this case, there are multiple Geographical Labels for the State field; State Label and State Code. An example of possible label fields for this pack would be:

These label fields are used to link the pack data to your source data, and as such you must select the label that matches the formatting in your source database. For example, if you're linking on State field and your data is stored as VIC, you would link on the State Code field. If your data is stored as Victoria, you would link on the State Label field.

WKT Points or Polygons

GeoPacks contain WKT Points and/or Polygons that are linked to each level of Geography contained in the pack, which can then be linked to corresponding records in your data.
Yellowfin combines all the geography for a level into one field, and chooses between point and polygon based on the map selected.
From there, the packs contain centroid POINT data for each level. The packs may also contain POLYGONs for every level, but it does depend on the pack.

Demographic Metrics

If we look at the same simplified Australian Postcode GeoPack as above, it contains various different fields of census information. Most packs contain many demographic fields, but this simplified example contains two; Total Population and Median Age:

Example

If we look at the actual Australian Postcode GeoPack, rather than the simplified example described above, when we link that pack to the Postcode field in Ski Team (the tutorial database) we get this: