March - 2021 Release Notes

[Jeff_Ho_SafeGraph]

February flew by in a hurry . We paid special attention to customer feedback in the U.S. while gearing up for our MVP launch in the UK (tentative April 2021) . Welcome to the March 2021 release notes (2021-02-26/1614326588 shipped 2021-03-05).

Highlights

• Record high precise polygons
• Hundreds of brands flagged with new store openings/closings :no-entry-sign:

Table of Contents:

• Core Places & Brands
  • Core & Brand - Enhancements
  • Core & Brand - Brand Openings and Closings
  • Core & Brand - Bug Fixes & Known Issues
  • Categories - Enhancements
  • Drops
• Geometry
  • Geometry - Enhancements
  • Geometry - Bug Fixes & Known Issues
• Patterns
  • Patterns - Enhancements

Core Places and Brands

Enhancements - Core Places and Brands

• Last month SG Places had 6,987,432 points-of-interest (including closed POIs). This month SG Places has 6,995,036 points-of-interest (net 7,604 places). These are 6,283 US Places and 1,321 CA places .
• We’ve added 11 brands including…
  • Equinix (SG_BRAND_414c733778a64317) with 72 US and 15 CA places.
  • Fastenal Distribution Centers (SG_BRAND_c1c36856352b5870), parent brand: (Fastenal, SG_BRAND_50660a822ab2e47648b72750d4256f7b) with 16 US and 2 CA places.
  • Rosati’s (SG_BRAND_d48489b7d3cbced5) with 166 US and 0 CA places.
  • Bright Horizons (SG_BRAND_547f42dcf6ee5d5d02cb4c9b5a343958) with 630 US and 0 CA places.
  • Connect Hearing (SG_BRAND_05a9d164896a3f54), parent brand: (Sonova, SG_BRAND_68de1bef44c13396) with 336 US and 284 CA places.
  • and 6 more!

Brand Openings and Closings

• We rely on POI metadata to track store openings and closings , and we are especially interested in understanding open/close dates for branded POIs. It can take more than a month to infer open/close dates, so we report brand open/close metrics on a one month delay.
  • In this release, we flagged 379 brands with at least one store closure in January 2021, and 338 brands with at least one store opening in January 2021.
  • Learn more about our open/close columns here.

Bug Fixes and Known Issues - Core Places and Brands

• We discovered a few brand count fluctuations as a result of updated sourcing and metadata bugs. These corrections resulted in significant changes in the total number of POIs 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:
  • Giant Eagle ( SG_BRAND_b383276b7ba564c03eab20de61f06b92 ). Net POI count change: US: -284 CA: 0 . Bug: Previously included POIs from child brands “GetGo” (SG_BRAND_77e00d4d1af0a3db) and “Market District” (SG_BRAND_6f5098fe9e355e54).
  • Rosati’s Chicago Pizza ( SG_BRAND_944d5e24cfc93afa ). Net POI count change: US: -167 CA: 0 . Bug: Previously included POIs from separate “Rosati’s” brand (SG_BRAND_d48489b7d3cbced5).
  • Games Workshop ( SG_BRAND_2207a58020b5fe85 ). Net POI count change: US: -49 CA: 0 . Bug: Previously included POIs from child brand “Warhammer” (SG_BRAND_d0fb2980106864e4).
  • RSG Roofing Supply Group ( SG_BRAND_ee503cad5c797dfa42f6d3615f069279 ). Net POI count change: US: -65 CA: 0 . Bug: Consolidated with parent brand “Beacon Roofing Supply” (SG_BRAND_1b2818c0478264ea).

Enhancements - Categories

Below are some noteworthy category count changes:

• Gasoline Stations with Convenience Stores (447110) . Net POI count change: US: + 1,404 CA: +392
• Clothing Accessories Stores (448150) . Net POI count change: US: -385 CA: -42

Category Fill Rate – We monitor category fill rate with 2 metrics: (1) category fill rate across the entire dataset, and (2) category fill rate for branded POI. We want both of these numbers to be 100%.
(1) All POI category fill rate. Last month 99.2%. This month 99.2%.
(2) Branded POI category fill rate. Last month 100%. This month 100%

Drops

We ingest data from many sources, and due to source changes and processing changes, Placekeys churn over time. In this release, we dropped 32,779 Placekeys (14,826 branded and 17,953 non-branded).
Major reasons for drops:

• ~1k dropped as result of improved deduplication
• ~2k dropped as a result of bug fixes for branded POIs
• ~6k dropped due to address encoding changes
• ~15k dropped due to changes to the Where part

To keep track of the status, predecessors, and latest successor of each Placekey, try using the new Lineage API.

Geometry

Enhancements - Geometry

• While OWNED polygons are preferred, it does not mean that SHARED polygons are inherently bad. It only means that the exact shape of each POI within the polygon is not discernible, but the general location can be identified by the centroid ( latitude & longitude ).
• When enclosed = FALSE, it indicates that there are reasonable means to derive a unique polygon for the POI (even when parent_placekey is not null), and we strive for 100% of branded, non-enclosed POIs to have polygon_class = “OWNED_POLYGON.”
  • Last month, the percent OWNED polygons for branded, non-enclosed POIs was 78.1%
  • This month, the percent OWNED polygons for branded, non-enclosed POIs is 77.9%
    • Here is how we’re tracking on this metric across releases: OWNED vs SHARED Polygons in SafeGraph Places Release History.
    • See the September-2020 release notes for details about the enclosed column and tweaks to this metric.

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, precise polygons increased slightly to 96.0%.
    • Here is how we are tracking on this metric across releases: Centroid-Radius Polygon Tracking.
    • See here for a short list of POI categories which we do not require precise polygons

Patterns

Enhancements - Patterns

• In last month’s delivery, SG Patterns had 4,403,563 points-of-interest (US only). This month, SG Patterns has 4,402,283 points-of-interest (net -1,280). We are investigating a spike in visits during the last week of February and will provide an update once we can confirm whether the spike is a bug or real-world behavior.
• Last month, SG Patterns had 785,676,535 visits from 35,674,674 visitors. This month, SG Patterns has 747,684,503 visits from 31,115,312 visitors (delta -37,992,032 visits, -4,559,362 visitors).
• Neighborhood Patterns, which provides more generalized foot traffic flows across census block groups, saw 1,667,169,458 raw stops ( -202,602,852 from last month) from 336,399,851 raw devices ( -35,117,520 from last month).
• Interested in foot traffic patterns for Canadian POIs? Reach out to your customer success manager for a sample!

**International Expansion**
Want to see **SafeGraph Places across the pond?** [Learn more about our upcoming UK launch](https://www.safegraph.com/blog/coming-soon-uk-places-data)! 🇬🇧

**In case you missed it,** check out [last month's release notes](https://docs.safegraph.com/changelog/february-2021-release-notes). 📝

**Calculating Diffs**
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.

**Fill Rates**
See the [Summary Statistics](https://docs.safegraph.com/docs/places-summary-statistics) page for all Core and Geometry column fill rates as well as a breakdown of POI count by `naics_code` .

**Explore**
Browse SafeGraph Core & Geometry data at your own pace [in these webmaps.](https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/8e5e066486f94f0ea698e507d46987f7)

**Also check out these new ways to get SafeGraph data:**

* Need some extra data or other SafeGraph products? Check out the [SafeGraph Data Bar.](https://shop.safegraph.com/)
* Heavy AWS User? Check out our [listings in the AWS Data Exchange](https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/search/results?filters=vendor_id&vendor_id=7d5ff8ca-105f-4856-9d99-5f2f1d83223c).
* Are you an Esri or ArcGIS user? Check out our FREE data [SafeGraph Places in the Esri Marketplace](https://marketplace.arcgis.com/listing.html?id=3425348e4bee4059af2b353e52df43c2) and enjoy [SafeGraph Places in Esri Basemaps](https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-living-atlas/mapping/new-places-in-esri-vector-basemaps/).
* Snowflake user? Check out our page on the [Snowflake Data Exchange](https://www.snowflake.com/datasets/safegraph/) :snowflake:
* Or just drop us a line! Your data needs are our data delights!