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April-2020 Release Notes

about 4 years ago by [email protected]

March 2020 was an unprecedented month for SafeGraph. We dedicated significant time and effort to build products for COVID-19 response such as Weekly Patterns and Social Distancing Metrics, and we will continue to do this for the foreseeable future. Despite this focus, we are no April fool! :smirk: We will always find time to make noteworthy improvements to Places. Fasten your seatbelts; we're taking the April-2020 release notes for a ride :car: :memo: (v2020-03-30/1585562556 shipped 2020-04-06).

Highlights

  • Another massive increase in OWNED polygon coverage. This month, the percent OWNED polygons for branded, no-parent (i.e., important POI) went up from 84.1% to 88.6% :chart-with-upwards-trend: :black-square-button:
  • +5,985 Full-Service Restaurant (722511) POIs with +2,368 places in the U.S. and +3,617 places in Canada :meat-on-bone: :cocktail: :hamburger:

Table of Contents:

Core Places and Brands

Enhancements - Core Places and Brands

  • Last month SG Places had 6,018,280 points-of-interest. This month SG Places has 6,047,377 points-of-interest (net + 29,097 places). These are +10,013 US Places and +19,084 CA places.
  • We've added +40 new brands covering hotels, banks, retail, and more:confetti-ball:
    New Brands Include...
    • The Big Apple Food Stores (cnbrown.com/big-apple), SG_BRAND_f09e0c7afddd306e) with 85 US and 0 CA places. Parent = CN Brown
    • boards Inn & Suites (stayboarders.com), SG_BRAND_29ef451d7a4dfb7d) with 137 US and 0 CA places. Parent = Cobblestone Hotels
    • Cobblestone Inn & Suites (staycobblestone.com), SG_BRAND_53e289c6675648ba) with 105 US and 0 CA places. Parent = Cobblestone Hotels
    • Key West Inn (staykeywesthotels.com), SG_BRAND_6e7a3e30c8db1d0b) with 21 US and 0 CA places. Parent = Cobblestone Hotels
    • Allsup's (allsups.com), SG_BRAND_4c5d9138d9303e105b26178be842275e) with 307 US and 0 CA places.
    • OnCue (oncueexpress.com), SG_BRAND_42a2d83db06b7f0e6e7b48a6bebe975c) with 61 US and 0 CA places.
    • Fairfield National Bank (fairfieldnationalbank.com), SG_BRAND_10c3234a47d40c19) with 9 US and 0 CA places. Parent = Park National Family of Community Banks
    • Carolina Alliance Bank (carolinaalliancebank.com), SG_BRAND_e38f46c18d349fc5) with 7 US and 0 CA places. Parent = Park National Family of Community Banks
  • Sam's Club Fuel Center (samsclub.com/fuel), SG_BRAND_4b5bfd27bae4de88) with 495 US and 0 CA places. Parent = Sam's Club
  • and 31 more!

Enhancements - Categories

  • Improved accuracy for high-impact categories like Full-Service Restaurants, Malls, and All Other General Merchandise Stores.
    • Full-Service Restaurants (722511). Net POI count change: US: +2,368 CA: +3,617 :fork-and-knife:
    • Malls (531120). Net POI count change: US: -8 CA: +1,647. New source for more complete coverage in CA :handbag: :maple-leaf:
    • All Other General Merchandise Stores (452319). Net POI count change: US: -730 CA: -62. This is a very broad category, and we prefer more specific classifications where possible.

Enhancements - New Core Places Columns

  • Core Places now provides 4 optional columns (opened_on, closed_on, tracking_opened_since, tracking_closed_since) that capture the year and month (yyyy-mm) we first noticed a POI open or permanently close. The tracking_opened_on and tracking_closed_on columns will increase in fill as we gradually expand the number of brands we track openings and closings for. To add these columns to Shop downloads, check the box next to "Include closed POI?"under "Additional Settings." Enterprise customers should coordinate with their SafeGraph account representative to add these columns to standard deliveries. See the Core Places schema for column definitions and the Places Manual for details on our methodology.

Bug Fixes and Known Issues - Core Places and Brands

  • We recently discovered that some brands permanently closed many or all of their locations, some merged, and a few split. In other cases, the brand name changed or we simply did not have complete coverage until recently. These corrections resulted in significant changes in the total number of POI for each affected brand, but the new count is correct. For transparency, we'd like to list some of these corrections as examples in no particular order:

  • Avenue (SG_BRAND_1dc37a5030f45641). Net POI count change: US: -258 CA: 0. Bug: All locations permanently closed.

  • Dressbarn (SG_BRAND_1e1a600b8e0df14754dae21a44ba3dae). Net POI count change: US: -532 CA: 0. Bug: All locations permanently closed.

  • Charming Charlie (SG_BRAND_278a3e38d55b55ac21d4b8e252041b16). Net POI count change: US: -261 CA: 0. Bug: All locations permanently closed.

  • Crazy 8 (SG_BRAND_345be7218d41f7b5b35d92edee4a5532). Net POI count change: US: -43 CA: 0. Bug: All locations permanently closed.

  • Portrait Innovations (SG_BRAND_ec24f87328fa68618c63c7e473ec2516). Net POI count change: US: -96 CA: 0. Bug: All locations permanently closed.

  • BAIRD / Hilliard Lyons (SG_BRAND_6d7424be5a5b47bd). Net POI count change: US: 116 CA: 0. Bug: Previously just Hilliard Lyons, now includes Baird as well (as Hilliard Lyon is now part of Baird).

  • Hardee's (SG_BRAND_2b6b8e67fe1433e4f73bbe2c306fb330). Net POI count change: US: -300 CA: 0. Bug: Previously included child brand Red Burrito.

  • Stanton Optical (SG_BRAND_1a21718075662c354a39d31c6d5161a3). Net POI count change: US: 78 CA: 0. Bug: More complete coverage.

  • Watermill Express (SG_BRAND_1b29fd93a75dc1c2e8f02ea05220581b). Net POI count change: US: 1179 CA: 0. Bug: More complete coverage.

  • NBT Bank (SG_BRAND_4255a706c2b8f064ce8b58c3f6b93504). Net POI count change: US: -76 CA: 0. Bug: Previously included atm-only locations.

  • Mavis Discount Tire (SG_BRAND_6e94fef414696888e1cada422b27692a). Net POI count change: US: 122 CA: 0. Bug: Renamed brand to "Mavis Tire & Breaks" (previously "STS Tire & Auto Centers") to encompass STS & all children.

  • ABRA Auto Body and Glass (SG_BRAND_20ccc30c3978ee175f064b6339cae019). Net POI count change: US: -321 CA: 0. Bug: Several locations now under Calliber Collision brand name.

  • American Eagle Outfitters (SG_BRAND_95a1de80f566759aafdc2a957a76de5a). Net POI count change: US: -285 CA: -24. Bug: Split apart so that American Eagle Outlet is separate brand from Aerie stores. If both Aerie and American Eagle are in the same place, then both brands will be included.

  • Capital One (SG_BRAND_69d59a17f8e7d182ae0e0368c9eec9ac). Net POI count change: US: 183 CA: 0. Bug: Updated file includes better branch coverage & includes Capital One Cafes.

  • Bad SGPID Churn -- Bad sgpid churn are undesired failures to maintain a consistent safegraph_place_id (sgpid) between releases (see discussion in March 2019 release). We internally track and estimate our performance in this domain and share these numbers in our release notes for maximum transparency. In this release:

    • We dropped 32,454 sgpids (21,790 branded and 10,664 non-branded).
    • We added 61,551 sgpids (21,666 branded and 39,885 non-branded).
    • Note: Some percent of these are true openings and closings, and the dropped sgpids of true closings are reflected in Core Places files that include closed POIs. The remainder are bad sgpid churn. We are continuing to work on better metrics to distinguish these cases.

  • Category Fill Rate We monitor category fill rate with 3 metrics: (1) category fill rate across the entire dataset, (2) category fill rate for branded POI, (3) category fill rate in the brand_info file (brand-level categories). We want all of these numbers to be 100%.

    • (1) All POI category fill rate. Last month 98.8%. This month 98.8%.
    • (2) Branded POI category fill rate. Last month 100%. This month 100% :100:
    • (3) Brand-level category fill rate (brand_info file). Last month 100%. This month 100%. :100:

Geometry

Enhancements - Geometry

  • Percent polygon_class = OWNED (as described in Oct 2019 release notes). We examine polygon_class for all safegraph_place_id that are both (i) branded and (ii) do NOT have a parent_safegraph_place_id; we call this group "branded, no-parent". We want 100% of "branded, no-parent" POI to have polygon_class = OWNED_POLYGON.

Bug Fixes and Known Issues - Geometry

  • Centroid-Radius Polygons -- As discussed in March 2019 release notes. We internally track centroid-radius polygons vs precise polygons and strive for 100% precise polygons. You can measure this yourself using the is_synthetic column.
    • This release, we saw a slight increase to 94.9% precise polygons (94.8% last month) :+1:
    • Here is how we are tracking on that metric over recent releases: Centroid-Radius Polygon Tracking.

Patterns

Enhancements - Patterns

  • To no surprise, the number of POIs with measured foot traffic, the total volume of visits, and the total number of unique visitors decreased sharply over March 2020. In last month's delivery, SG Patterns had 3,689,695 points-of-interest (US only). This month, SG Patterns has 3,626,236 points-of-interest (US only) (net -63,459 places) :chart-with-downwards-trend:
  • Last month SG Patterns had 1,044,548,923 visits from 46,843,490 visitors. This month, SG Patterns has 789,737,092 visits from 39,546,806 visitors (delta -254,811,831 visits, -7,296,684 visitors). 

Curious to find the specific records that were either **added, deleted, or saw an attribute change** from one release to the next? Visit "Calculating Diffs" in our [Data Science Resources](https://docs.safegraph.com/docs/data-science-resources#section-calculating-diffs) to get started. 


**Also check out these new ways to get SafeGraph data: **
  * Need some extra data on other SafeGraph products? Check out the [SafeGraph Data Bar.](https://shop.safegraph.com/) 
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  * Or just drop us a line! Your data needs are our data delights!

p.s. ** In case you haven't noticed, [SafeGraph Core Places & Geometry is now available in Canada](https://docs.safegraph.com/changelog/october-2019-release-notes#section-canada-places-version-1-0-available-for-core-places-and-geometry-in-october-release)**