Developers and Data Analysts
We make available to you the same tools as are used by our inhouse data analysts and programmers to extra data and include it in reporting tools.
Putting metrics data in your own reports
- Download one-off snapshots of the data in comma separated values (CSV) format.
- Generate live signed links to an HTML table, JSON table or richer format JSON output of the data.
- Use links in spreadsheets and business intelligence tools such as Tableau and Microsoft BI to fetch the latest data each time you load a sheet or visualisation.
The data tool also helps you construct sophisticated /data method calls for embedding in programs.
Go straight to the data
The data tool gives you direct access to the data for any combination of metric types, areas and time periods. You can output raw values, perform statistical operations and summarise values. The results can be viewed online or downloaded in various ways for use in other tools.
Here are some sample data queries (you'll need to be signed in to see the result of the query)
Learn and use web methods
The application programming interface (API) exposes more than 80 different web methods for getting data on metrics, areas, time periods and associated metadata, including or standard lists.
Security and signing web methods
You need to sign-in and go to our API keys page to obtain a token and keys for using the API. These tell us who is using the API and protect against excessive use. Anyone signed up can get a key but usage is capped to a small amount unless you subscribe.
You're give a “token” which can be appended to any API call. You should not expose the token so use the “application key” and “secret” instead to generate a public private key (PPK) for links you expose.
The web methods tool and data tool will generate signed keys to any web method for you. You can also sign web methods programmatically. Always use the PPK method unless you need OAuth to access data that is limited to certain users.
Make use of Linked Open Data
If you are familiar with the principles of Linked Open Data, you can make reference to Uniform Resource Identifiers for our standard lists and Natural Neighbourhoods. You can also use the URI search tool to search URI sets that are common in local government.
You can run full SPARQL queries on the lists that make up the Local Government Business Model in the Standards Linked Data pages.