Product Update: Deprecating Classic Maps and Visualizations

Pardon Our Dust

For those of you who follow our Deprecation Roadmap, you may have noticed that a big change is coming soon to the Socrata platform: the deprecation of the creation of Classic Maps and Classic Visualizations.

Socrata first added mapping and visualization capabilities to the platform in the early days of the platform, while we were still learning a lot about our users, Open Data and how governments use, share, and explore information. Over the last 3 years, we have been investing heavily in incorporating that learning, and now offer new mapping and visualization experiences which offer more interactivity, more flexibility, and a much easier-to-use experience for all Socrata assets. We have heard from users that having these parallel experiences can be confusing, and can lead end users to miss out on useful capabilities for analysis and insight.

To address that feedback, we will be driving all users to our modern, supported set of data visualization tools and deprecating the ability to create classic maps and visualizations.

What will happen to my existing maps and charts?

At first, nothing will change for your existing content. We understand that many of our customers have invested hours in creating delightful and insightful visuals, and we will continue to support the consumption of existing visuals.

Over the next year, however, we will migrate all assets to our new experiences to create a consistent look and feel for all Socrata end users.

In the first half of 2019, we will be migrating Classic and Mondara maps over to the new mapping experience. This should be a seamless and entirely positive change - our new mapping tools support all of the capabilities of legacy maps, and so much more! To learn more about our new mapping capabilities, check out our user guides here. The asset IDs will not change, and usage stats and catalog rankings will be preserved.

Over the second half of 2019 and early 2020, we will migrate all classic visualizations over to the new visualization canvas. Similarly, we will preserve asset IDs, usage stats, and catalog rankings for all existing assets.

Why? 

At the end of this process, all users and administrators will benefit from a more consistent, easier-to-use, and more powerful data exploration and analysis capability within the Socrata platform. This will make the platform easier to learn, easier to train on, and allow us to deliver future updates more quickly and efficiently.

Our goal is always to deliver useful, usable, and delightful experiences for all of our customers and the citizens they serve. While it will involve some significant changes to existing assets, we believe this migration will be a tremendous step in the right direction and make the Socrata experience more delightful than ever.

Will I still be able to edit or update existing classic visualizations or maps?

Yes. You will still be able to make updates or edits to any classic visualization or map.

If you have any questions, concerns, or feedback about these plans or any of our new experiences, please reach out to us at datainsights-support@tylertech.com - we are always happy to hear from you!