DataWA is a comprehensive platform that brings together the ability to discover and publish data (catalogue.data.wa.gov.au) with geospatial data services and maps (SLIP). Our detailed toolkit contains useful information for publishers and users of data.

Are you in the right place?

This series of articles are for organisations that have geospatial data they would like to share.

Geospatial data comes in many different forms but most often falls into one of three categories:

1. Vector data (Geodatabases, Shapefiles, GeoPackages, etc.).
2. Raster data (aerial and satellite imagery, drone and UAV data, 3D models).
3. Point cloud data (LiDAR).

Important: If you’re publishing tabular data such as spreadsheets, financial, and reporting data, then this is not the place for you. Please visit Publishing your data on data.wa.gov.au.

Help: If you need help publishing your data with a location or spatial element (eg. locations of key assets), we can assist. Please get in touch with us.

Benefits of sharing your data on DataWA

Publishing your data on DataWA is beneficial for your organisation in a number of ways:

• Reduce your workload – making your data publicly available will reduce the number of calls and emails to your organisation requesting the data and free up the time spent responding to those requests.
• Assistance provided – our data experts are available to assist you with technical problems or updating your data.
• Exposure to a wider audience – the wide range of visitors to DataWA will be exposed to your company’s data and branding.
• Improving efficiency – DataWA’s shared platform aims to eliminate duplication, which means less time, effort and money wasted.
• Multiple formats – DataWA accommodates multiple data APIs and data formats.
• Rich data visualisations and analytics – your raw data will be visualised at no cost to you, allowing both you and your customers to explore it from a new angle. Power rich interactive visualisations can be utilised for your stakeholders, website and publications.
• Part of the bigger picture – DataWA is an established platform with nearly 70 contributing organisations providing over 900 datasets across 10 different topics, allowing your data to contribute to the wider context.
• Set and forget – DataWA’s experts will help you to set up scheduled refreshes to keep your data up-to-date.
• No hosting and storage hassles – DataWA run the infrastructure and IT side of things so you don’t have to worry about hosting and storage.
• Secure data sharing – not all data can be shared publicly, but other agencies and stakeholders still need to know what datasets exist. DataWA allows you to control who can see your data and how much data they see.
• Understand who is using your data – DataWA can provide reports on who is searching for and accessing your data.

Info: Making your data discoverable doesn’t have to mean that it has to be published in full for everyone to use. Where appropriate – such as for sensitive data – it’s possible to publish data securely so that it is only shared with those you authorise. For data that is sensitive but with parts that can be published publicly, it’s also possible to exclude certain attributes in the data from the public view.