Geographic unit relationships can be updated in two ways.

1. If you need to update a few relationships, this can be done individually within the FDW.

2. If you need to update many relationships, this is best done by uploading a relationship table.

Relationship Types

Relationship Types must be one of the predefined options:

• Successor: There was no change or barely any change in this administrative unit between geographic unit set versions.

• Merge: Parts of, or the whole of, two or more administrative units were joined together to create a new administrative unit.

• Split: An administrative unit was divided to form new administrative units.

• Aggregate: An administrative unit becomes a higher-level administrative unit, e.g., Admin2 becomes Admin1.

• Redistribute: Parts of an administrative unit were divided and redistributed to become part of new administrative units.

• Demotion: An administrative unit becomes a lower-level administrative unit, e.g., Admin1 becomes Admin2.

Updating Geographic Unit Relationships in the FDW

To add individual unit relationships:

1. Go to Metadata Management > Spatial > Geographic Unit Relationships.

2. Click Add Geographic Unit Relationship.

3. Choose a From Unit and a To Unit. You can search for units by typing in the name of a unit into the drop down menu.

4. Choose a Relationship Type.

5. Click one of the Save options.

Preparing and Uploading Relationship Tables

Relationship tables provide a path for the system to follow when looking at data across different administrative versions, e.g., comparing ML_1983 to ML_2016.

Preparing tables

Relationship tables should be completed before they are uploaded.

To prepare a relationship table for upload:

1. Find the relevant relationship table spreadsheet.

2. Go to flow chart tab and copy paste the appropriate data set by set (FNID, Admin name, relationship type, etc) starting from left to right

• Copy all the relationship for changes from 1993-1996 from top to bottom

  • Once you finish that, copy all the relationships for changes from 1996-1997, etc. 

• This makes sure the data are ordered chronologically

• For cases where there is only one start row that splits into multiple rows in the flow chart (Splits, redistributes, etc), make sure you copy the starting information for each individual split

Copied information

Copy start information for second row

• Upload Requirements

  • Relationship table sheet must be first in the workbook (farthest left)

  • Relationship table has to follow exact format below from_name, from_fnid,relationship type, to_name, to_fnid

  • Older FNID goes on the left hand side, newer FNID goes on the right

• There must only five columns of information in the Relationship table tab.

  • If there are multiple relationship sets, the oldest start-years are listed first, and when all relationships for that year are done, begin again for the next set

Uploading Relationship Tables to FDW

1. Go to Metadata Management > Spatial > Geographic Unit Relationships.

2. Click Import Geographic Unit Relationships.

3. Click Choose File.

4. Choose a format from the dropdown menu. This will likely be xls(x).

5. Click Submit.

6. Confirm the import.