Target data format

To run a selection on OpenDLP you need to provide data on targets (or “categories”) and data on respondents (or “people”).

In each case your data is either a tab in a google sheet, or is a .csv file that you upload onto the system. Whether you use a google sheet or a .csv file, the required format is the same.

Target data

A sample target data file is available to download. The following video goes through the key criteria to which your target data file must conform.

These criteria are reproduced below.

  1. There are columns headed category, name, min and max. (Other columns may be included – we recommend having a column for Notes where one keeps track of any key decisions to do with target-setting. However this is not mandatory)
  2. The category column contains the name of the various stratification categories – e.g. gender, age, ethnicity etc. – for which we will be setting targets.
  3. The name column contains the possible values of the various categories.
    1. E.g. for the gender category, in our sample file we consider values Female, Male and Non-binary or other.
    2. E.g. in our sample file we consider the age of respondents in terms of various “buckets”. Hence we call this category age_bucket and the possible values are 0-17, 18-24, 25-34 and so on.
    3. Note: it is vitally important that every single person in your respondents pool can be assigned exactly one of the values listed in the Categories file for each category.
  4. The min and max values are numerical values which specify the minimum and maximum number of people you want to select with the given category value.
    1. E.g. For the gender category and the female value, we might set min=10 and max=11.
    2. In order for the selection to be possible:
      1. The number of people to be selected must be greater than or equal to the sum of the min values.
      2. The number of people to be selected must be less than or equal to the sum of the max values.
      3. E.g. if we say we want to select 20 people for an event, but we specify that we want min 11 older and min 11 younger people, total min = 22, then these numbers are in conflict with each other.
      4. Similarly, the different max and min values must not be in conflict with each other, e.g. if we say we want a total max of 25 people in the gender category values, and a total min of 30 people in the age category values, then these numbers are in conflict with each other.