What is a SHID?
SHID is a unique identifier that mySidewalk uses for geographic boundaries in our system. It stands for “Spatial Hierarchical IDentifier” and was created to be human-readable as opposed to a random integer value.
How can I use it?
You can use SHIDs to associate your data with a geographic boundary that already exists in mySidewalk. For example, you can upload data for the state of Missouri using the Missouri SHID (country:us/state:mo) and our upload will automatically assign that data to the shape we know as Missouri.
Export SHIDs
The SHID values are included in downloads from Seek. Go to Seek and choose the geographies you need. (You will need to choose some data as well, but it doesn’t matter what you pick.) Once you have the geographies (and data) chosen, select Export from any view and then select Simple CSV. The export will have a column named "shid."
Add SHIDs to your file
Once you have the SHIDs, you can drop that column of values into the file you're uploading and save as CSV. You'll need to line up each row in your file with the corresponding SHID using one of the following methods:
Manually add a column to your .csv and put the appropriate value in the correct row.
Create a concatenate formula (excel or google sheets). This is especially useful when everything ahead of the last part is the same. Using ZIP code as an example, you could make a formula like: =concatenate("country:us/state:ks/zip:", [cell reference]). Once the cell is showing what you want make sure to copy and paste values (on top of your formula) so the csv upload has the right data in it.
Upload your file
Now that you have a CSV with SHIDs, upload it and mySidewalk will recognize the SHIDs during the upload process to ensure proper place matching.