Required field suggestions for contractor and permit status changed

[mmartin78]

The optional contractor and permit status changed datasets are a great addition. However, they both have only one required field or column (i.e. PermitNum). Providing a dataset with only this required field would add no value (makes no sense). For this reason, should consideration be given to make some of the recommended fields required?

[mheadd]

A good point - it's unlikely that a jurisdiction would choose to publish either of these optional files if they didn't have at least some of data in the recommended and optional fields.

Here is an example of one jurisdiction publishing these optional files.

I believe that it was structured this way to provide maximum flexibility for jurisdictions that want to publish these optional files. Decisions on making fields required (for any of the files in the BLDS standard) were largely based on information we had regarding the availability of that data from jurisdictions. Not all jurisdictions have all of the data elements described in the standard available, and there was concern that making some fields required that a good number of jurisdictions didn't have would discourage the publishing of any data.

In the case of these optional files, I do not know if we had enough information to make an informed decision on whether the fields you mention should be deemed required. Instead, the decision was made to make the recommended & optional.

Hope this helps.