Managing Indicators (Admin)

Admin Only: Setting up an Indicator is an Owner/Admin function.

Indicators are objective, population-level, numerical measures that can be useful in understanding community trends and assessing the impact of collective community action on longer-term outcomes.

Indicator Overview

Each Indicator includes several fields:

• Category: An optional field for manual entry but required for batch imports. Often mirrors the Topic Area.

• Data Source: The source of the data (e.g., Dept. of Health and Human Services, U.S. Census, etc.).

• Indicator Name: The specific title of the Indicator.

• Description: A brief sentence or two providing more detail.

• Topic Area: The category the Indicator relates to (e.g., Health Behaviors, Substance Abuse Prevention, etc.).

• Initiative: The specific initiative to which the Indicator is related.

• Geographic Level: Optional field for City, State, Zip Code, County, or Census Tract. You can also create a custom geographic level.

  Note: If you include Geographic Level, you are then required to list all potential choices for that level.

Before You Start

• You must set up an Indicator first in the Administration section before data is uploaded or entered manually.
• Make sure all potential dropdown options are available for Category, Data Source, Topic Area, Initiative, and Geographic Level.
• The Indicator Name and Description are text fields (write-ins), so they shouldn’t have prepopulated choices.
• If importing data, the text used for Indicator Name and Description must match exactly for each data instance.
• Instructions for entering Indicator data can be found here, including a downloadable template.

Setting Up Your Choices

1. Under the Administration section of your CCB, click on Indicators.

2. If no Indicators have been set up yet, you will see a blank table.

   

3. Click on any of the Field Names (such as DataSource) to get a popup where you can enter all potential choices.

   Note: It is not recommended that you enable “Text line entry for other available,” since you will not be able to graph those text entries.

   

4. Separate each choice by using the pipe ”|” character.

   Note: Be sure there are no spaces on either side of your pipe. Also be sure there is no pipe character at the end of your list of choices.

5. When finished, your table should look something like this:

   

Completing the Indicator Data Import

1. Once you have your data with the headers in a saved Excel doc, it is ready for import. Download an Excel template here, if needed.

2. In the upper (non-Administrative) section of the sidebar, click on Indicators.

3. Click the Import button in the menu bar.

   

4. Choose the Excel file from your computer and upload it.

5. You’ll see the Form Field Mapping interface. Click on Auto Map first, which will automatically map most fields.

   

6. Drag and drop any remaining fields from the left column to the corresponding fields on the right.

   

7. Once mapping is complete, click Validate. If there are any errors, correct them. If not, click Upload File. You should see an “Import Successful” prompt.

Administration Section: Indicators

This is where you create options for Indicators and view existing Indicator options.

1. Go to Administration > Indicators.
2. Click on a field name to open a popup.
3. Slide any toggles to the right for On Listing if you want that field to display on the Indicator listing.
4. In Choices, enter the responses for that field, separated by a pipe (”|”) for each potential response.
5. Toggle the Text line entry for other available to the right if you want to add that option.
6. Add any Help text.
7. Click Save. Repeat as needed.