citydata-mesaaz-gov/open-budget-expenses-29q3-4ewh
Icon for Socrata external plugin

Query the Data Delivery Network

Query the DDN

The easiest way to query any data on Splitgraph is via the "Data Delivery Network" (DDN). The DDN is a single endpoint that speaks the PostgreSQL wire protocol. Any Splitgraph user can connect to it at data.splitgraph.com:5432 and query any version of over 40,000 datasets that are hosted or proxied by Splitgraph.

For example, you can query the open_budget_expenses table in this repository, by referencing it like:

"citydata-mesaaz-gov/open-budget-expenses-29q3-4ewh:latest"."open_budget_expenses"

or in a full query, like:

SELECT
    ":id", -- Socrata column ID
    "amended_budget", -- Represents amendments to the adopted budget to realign resources within the departments to achieve the desired results per the department's operational plan.
    "adopted_budget", -- Represents the budget as approved by formal action of the City Council which sets the spending limits for the fiscal year.
    "activity_name", -- The activity that the department was engaged in that led to the transaction. Activities are generally recurring activities such as accounting, inspections or planning.
    "business_objective_name", -- A major line of business that aligns with one or more of the Council's strategic initiatives; denotes a primary public purpose; and defines where the City allocates its resources.  Examples include Fleet Services and Economic Development.
    "full_time_equivalent", -- A position converted to a decimal equivalent of a full-time position based on 2,080 hours per year. The full-time equivalent of a part-time position is calculated by dividing the number of hours budgeted by 2,080 hours.
    "year_end_estimate", -- A projection of where the City will financially end for the fiscal year.
    "actual_expenditures", -- The transactions amount
    "expense_object_code_name", -- The type of expense being paid. In the private sector, this would be called a general ledger account, however in the government sector, these are most often referred to as objects. Examples include Payroll, Professional Services or Travel.
    "core_business_process_name", -- A collection of related programs and services that are designed and managed to achieve a common outcome or set of outcomes.  These include Patrol, Metro, and Criminal Investigations.
    "service_level_name", -- A group of core business processes related by a common purpose (mission, outcomes, and expected performance).  This level of structure is optional depending on departmental needs.  Examples include Operations Bureau and Investigations Bureau.
    "service_level", -- The number assigned to a group of core business processes related by a common purpose (mission, outcomes, and expected performance).  This level of structure is optional depending on departmental needs.
    "business_objective", -- The number assigned to a major line of business that aligns with one or more of the Council's strategic initiatives; denotes a primary public purpose; and defines where the City allocates its resources.
    "fund_name", -- The governmental segment that benefited from the transaction. Examples include Cemetery, Transit and Arts and Culture.
    "department_name", -- The department that benefited from the transaction.
    "department", -- The number assigned to the department that benefited from the transaction.
    "row_id", -- Unique row identifier
    "expense_object_code", -- The number assigned to the type of expense being paid. In the private sector, this would be called a general ledger account number, however in the government sector, these are most often referred to as object codes.
    "fund_category", -- A higher-level grouping of independent fiscal and accounting entity with a self-balancing set of accounts recording cash and/or other resources, together with all related liabilities, for the purpose of carrying on specific activities or attaining certain objectives in accordance with special regulations. Examples include Enterprise and Restricted Funds.
    "fund", -- The number assigned to the governmental segment that benefited from the transaction.
    "fiscal_year", -- A 12-month period of time to which the Annual Budget applies and at the end of which, a governmental unit determines its financial position and the results of its operations.  For the City of Mesa, the fiscal year is July 1 through June 30.
    "expense_object_category", -- The number assigned to the category of expense on the chart of accounts.
    "core_business_process", -- The number assigned to a collection of related programs and services that are designed and managed to achieve a common outcome or set of outcomes.
    "activity", -- The number assigned to the activity the department was engaged in that led to the transaction.
    "fiscal_year_date", -- A date representation of the Fiscal Year
    "expense_object_category_name", -- The grouping of expense types into categories on the chart of accounts. Category examples include Personal Services, Other Services, or Commodities.
    "appropriation_name", -- The type of appropriation of the transaction. These will either be the base operating budget or a capital improvement project.
    "appropriation" -- The number assigned to the type of appropriation of the transaction.
FROM
    "citydata-mesaaz-gov/open-budget-expenses-29q3-4ewh:latest"."open_budget_expenses"
LIMIT 100;

Connecting to the DDN is easy. All you need is an existing SQL client that can connect to Postgres. As long as you have a SQL client ready, you'll be able to query citydata-mesaaz-gov/open-budget-expenses-29q3-4ewh with SQL in under 60 seconds.

This repository is an "external" repository. That means it's hosted elsewhere, in this case at citydata.mesaaz.gov. When you querycitydata-mesaaz-gov/open-budget-expenses-29q3-4ewh:latest on the DDN, we "mount" the repository using the socrata mount handler. The mount handler proxies your SQL query to the upstream data source, translating it from SQL to the relevant language (in this case SoQL).

We also cache query responses on the DDN, but we run the DDN on multiple nodes so a CACHE_HIT is only guaranteed for subsequent queries that land on the same node.

Query Your Local Engine

Install Splitgraph Locally
bash -c "$(curl -sL https://github.com/splitgraph/splitgraph/releases/latest/download/install.sh)"
 

Read the installation docs.

Splitgraph Cloud is built around Splitgraph Core (GitHub), which includes a local Splitgraph Engine packaged as a Docker image. Splitgraph Cloud is basically a scaled-up version of that local Engine. When you query the Data Delivery Network or the REST API, we mount the relevant datasets in an Engine on our servers and execute your query on it.

It's possible to run this engine locally. You'll need a Mac, Windows or Linux system to install sgr, and a Docker installation to run the engine. You don't need to know how to actually use Docker; sgrcan manage the image, container and volume for you.

There are a few ways to ingest data into the local engine.

For external repositories (like this repository), the Splitgraph Engine can "mount" upstream data sources by using sgr mount. This feature is built around Postgres Foreign Data Wrappers (FDW). You can write custom "mount handlers" for any upstream data source. For an example, we blogged about making a custom mount handler for HackerNews stories.

For hosted datasets, where the author has pushed Splitgraph Images to the repository, you can "clone" and/or "checkout" the data using sgr cloneand sgr checkout.

Mounting Data

This repository is an external repository. It's not hosted by Splitgraph. It is hosted by citydata.mesaaz.gov, and Splitgraph indexes it. This means it is not an actual Splitgraph image, so you cannot use sgr clone to get the data. Instead, you can use the socrata adapter with the sgr mount command. Then, if you want, you can import the data and turn it into a Splitgraph image that others can clone.

First, install Splitgraph if you haven't already.

Mount the table with sgr mount

sgr mount socrata \
  "citydata-mesaaz-gov/open-budget-expenses-29q3-4ewh" \
  --handler-options '{
    "domain": "citydata.mesaaz.gov",
    "tables": {
        "open_budget_expenses": "29q3-4ewh"
    }
}'

That's it! Now you can query the data in the mounted table like any other Postgres table.

Query the data with your existing tools

Once you've loaded the data into your local Splitgraph engine, you can query it with any of your existing tools. As far as they're concerned, citydata-mesaaz-gov/open-budget-expenses-29q3-4ewh is just another Postgres schema.