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General Data Help

Frequently Asked Questions

  • One of your links is broken. Can you help?

    This site links to a large number of external sites. If you find a broken link, let us know and we'll find the current url for you. Please use our Contact form to report the link, and be sure to provide a current email address so we can get back to you once we have a corrected link.

  • What is CI:Now?

    CI:Now is a nonprofit local data intermediary based in San Antonio, Texas. We turn local data into information communities can use for planning, trending community change over time, and measuring results. Please visit the Who We Are page for more information on CI:Now, and the How We Can Help page to learn more about what we do. You can keep up with our data news by following @CINow on Twitter or subscribing to our monthly newsletter.

  • Why is there data only for 12 counties? Can I contact CI:Now for information on my county?

    CI:Now primarily serves Bexar and 11 surrounding counties in south central Texas, but some statewide datasets can be found here in the Data Explorer by searching on "state" in the keyword field. The ACS Sidekicktool also includes U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey data for all of Texas at several different geographic levels (e.g., county, ZIP code tabulation area, school district).

  • I'm looking at an indicator but I don't see any resources attached to it. Am I searching wrong?

    We do our best to maintain the content in Data Explorer, but sometimes we miss things. If you find an indicator with no resource attached, we'd really appreciate your letting us know so we can fix it.

  • Why doesn’t CI:Now have the subject/place/variable I’m interested in?

    As a general rule, datasets are acquired by CI:Now for one (or more) of three reasons: (1) CI:Now staff determine that the data are of significant interest to a large proportion of the population of the 12 CI:Now counties; (2) an agency contracts with CI:Now to compile data in a specific subject area such as children or mental health, or in a specific geographic area such as Comal County; and/or (3) a third party collects primary (e.g., survey results) or secondary data (e.g., vital statistics) and “donates” those data to CI:Now to expand the warehouse of information available to the community.

    Primarily because of methodological problems with small sample or population sizes but also because of the importance of preserving confidentiality, data are less likely to be available for small or less populous geographic areas. Similarly, datasets may not be broken down by all variables of interest (e.g., age, census tract).

    CI:Now welcomes data partners and suggestions for additional indicators or datasets. But because of limited human and financial resources, staff must often make the difficult decision not to host an interesting or available dataset.

  • I’ve found the data I’m interested in, but some numbers are blanked out or marked “not available” on the map/table. Why is that?

    Data in certain “cells” (e.g, births in a single zip code or foreclosures rates among 18- to 25-year-old homeowners) may be grayed out on a map or marked “NA” in a table for one of two reasons: (1) either the data weren’t collected at all for that cell; or (2) the data have been “suppressed” because the numbers are too small to give a stable rate or protect confidentiality.

  • Why can’t I interact with the map of the indicator I’m interested in? I can’t change the layers or value ranges.

    First, check to be sure the data truly aren’t available in an interactive map. Some indicators are available in both static (.pdf) and interactive maps to make them as accessible as possible for different kinds of CI:Now users. If the data are available only as a pdf map, the most likely reason is that the data come from an administrative (client) dataset and CI:Now is restricting user-data interaction to maximize the protection of confidentiality.

Last revised 7/2021