Bulk import your data

Add or update records in your database by importing a CSV file.

Use this guide to get started with the data management features of Ginkgo. You can use this dataset to demo the import features of the platform in this walkthrough:

Manhattan Ave merchants Citiesense demo.csv

Download a copy of the "Manhattan Ave merchants" spreadsheet above or reformat and use your own to try out the features in the following steps.

1. Find the Table you are adding your records to

Once logged in, navigate to the Tables interface: https://app.ginkgo.city/tables

This interface is designed for desktop screen sizes.

For the example in this walkthrough, we'll import a spreadsheet of Business records into our account for Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

2. Select the tab for the Table you want to work with

You can import your records into any of the following tables for your account.

There are currently 10 different Tables available for us to work with in Ginkgo. Select the one you're looking for.

For the example in this walkthrough we need to select "Tenants". This is where we can manage our Business records.

3. Import an existing spreadsheet as a .csv file of your records

Once you've selected the tab (in this case, we selected "Tenants"), you can click the blue import button to open the importer. Either select your file, or drag and drop it directly into the importer to begin the import.

Ginkgo will only recognize specific field names in your spreadsheet. Be sure to Download the template to make sure you're using the field names available for that table.

4. Review your data import

The import process may take a while depending on how many records you're importing. If there are errors, an error message will appear describing the error and the line that it occurred for so that you can retry for those records.

Tip: Geocoding your records correctly - It is important that you provide Ginkgo with a full geographic address for each record in the "address" field (ie: street number and name, city, state, zip code). If you only provide the building number and street, Ginkgo will not know which city or town the record should be located in and your records will not be located on the map correctly.

In our example with the Manhattan Ave merchants, the records already have mapping coordinates assigned to them which you can see in a field called the_geom. If your data does not have geographic attribute fields, such "Longitude" and "Latitude", you should leave this field blank. Otherwise, you can format your data as Well-Known Text (WKT) and add it to this field in order to preserve your geospatial data when it's imported into Ginkgo.

Once complete, you can review your records in the table and use the sorting tools to look up specific records. The image below shows the "Category" sorting feature being used to look up all records with "Service" as the category.