↕ Roundtripping

Understanding the standard format, and roundtripping your data.

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Appending versus uploading

If you want to add new information, you use Append. If you want to replace it, you use Overwrite. Every time you upload a file, all the worksheets you upload are either appended to the existing data or overwrite the existing data.
  • If you just want to correct something, you usually download the file, correct details and upload it again, using overwrite.
  • If you want to add new statements, sources or questions, you usually use append.

Roundtripping = (editing and re-uploading the data)

You can edit the downloaded data and upload it again. Assuming you select overwrite when uploading, this is what we call roundtripping and is a simple and powerful way to tweak your file.
Each table in Causal Map corresponds to a worksheet in Excel. If you don’t want to make changes to one or more of the four tables - for example, the links table - simply leave it as it is and upload using overwrite. Or you can completely delete any worksheets which have not been changed - it comes to the same result.
If you delete specific rows (but don’t delete the whole worksheet) this will delete the corresponding links, statements or sources in the Causal Map file.
  • The app will read any tabs with any of these (lowercase) names: links, statements, sources, questions, and will ignore other tabs.
  • Each tab must have a header row with the names of the fields.
  • Don't have empty fields aka columns in your file, just delete them

Adding new data for the first time or appending new data to existing data

If you want to add just new statements, sources, or questions, the simplest way is just upload, using append, a fresh Excel file containing , as appropriate:
  • just one worksheet called statements containing just the columns text and optionally source_id and if appropriate question_id.
  • and/or just one worksheet called sources containing just the column source_id and any other columns you want, e.g. gender, location, etc.
  • and/or just one worksheet called questions containing just the columns question_id and question_text .
You can do this all at once or in batches, it doesn’t matter.