omnicode0 / census

Downloads personalized data from census.gov and reduces data elements (columns) in excel or CSV output to match user desires.
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What functionality to include and what title should we have for Version 2? #5

Open omnicode0 opened 4 years ago

omnicode0 commented 4 years ago

We want a title of Version 2 to be descriptive of the desired additional functionality. It should improve on Version 1 in the following ways:

  1. Descriptive title
  2. Add some sort of incremental functionality to Version 1

So, any ideas of what functionality to include and what the title should be would be much appreciated. Refer to original README and think of our original intent to spur ideas.

omnicode0 commented 4 years ago

Well, first, Census removed the American FactFinder in 2018. So, we can no longer use our knowledge of that system to automate finding data. Where we CAN add value, however, is in pulling entire datasets by year for different Census Surveys.

Take County Business Patterns for example. It can be used to estimate the size of a local economy or the sales in a particular industry at a local level, perhaps. One could then use those baseline numbers to estimate the impact that a business entering or exiting the local area may have on employment, sales, average income, etc.

So, I think to add value to an economic researcher, we could do the following:

  1. list the surveys the Census has available. User selects the desired survey to pull data from
  2. list the available years for that survey. User selects desired years
  3. list the variables inside the dataset. User selects desired variables
  4. remove all variables except the desired variables
  5. output the location where the edited spreadsheet is located, probably put it in Downloads
omnicode0 commented 4 years ago

Based on the above, for Version 2, we could add the following functionality:

Along those lines, for Version 3: