Use custom geographies in Sidekick

When to use custom geographies

Use custom geographies when the boundaries available in mySidewalk don't match the area you need to analyze. This is particularly valuable when your organization works with boundaries that are unique to your mission.

Example use cases

• Building a Community Profile for a specific neighborhood your organization has defined (note that some neighborhoods are available in mySidewalk, too)

• Creating an Executive Brief for a business improvement district

• Comparing data across several custom service areas

• Analyzing census tracts or ZIP codes within a custom boundary

• Generating a quarterly report scoped to a tax increment financing district

• Answering ad-hoc data questions about a study area that doesn't align with standard geography

Getting started

Step 1: Prepare your boundaries

Custom geographies in Sidekick come from your existing user data library—the same layers you've uploaded or drawn elsewhere in mySidewalk. If you already have custom boundaries in your library, you're ready to go.

If you haven't uploaded boundaries yet, you'll need to do that first using the standard upload or drawing tools. Sidekick will point you in the right direction if you don't have any eligible layers.

What makes a layer eligible:

• Contains a single polygon or multipolygon boundary (one shape per layer)

• Is a boundary-only layer (not a data layer with tables attached)

Layers with multiple shapes, point or line geometries, or geo-referenced data tables won't appear in the selection list.

Step 2: Select your geography

Look for the geography selector in the Sidekick conversation interface. Click it to open a panel showing your eligible custom layers.

From there:

1. Search or scroll to find the layer you need

2. Click to select it

3. The selector updates to show the number of geographies you've selected 

You can select up to five custom boundaries per conversation (each from a separate layer). You can also mix custom and system geographies—for example, comparing your custom service area against the containing county or state. Just mention the system geographies you want to use in your prompt. 

Step 3: Start working

Once a geography is selected, Sidekick uses it automatically. Ask questions, run comparisons, or build deliverables—Sidekick scopes everything to your selected boundary.

What you can do with custom geographies

Ask questions about your area. Sidekick retrieves data for your custom boundary using apportionment, so you can get indicators, trends, and comparisons just like you would with a system geography.

Build deliverables. All existing templates—Community Profile, Executive Brief, Policy Brief, and others—work with custom geographies. Sidekick adapts the output to your boundary.

Compare across boundaries. Select multiple custom geographies, or mix custom and system geographies, and Sidekick will generate side-by-side comparisons.

Explore system subgeographies within your boundary. Use your custom area as a containing geography. For example, ask Sidekick to "rank census tracts within my service area" or "show ZIP codes in this district."

Select geographies mid-conversation. You don't need to choose your geography before you start. Attach a custom boundary at any point—partway through an analysis, or after seeing initial results.

Example questions and prompts

• Create a Community Profile for [my uploaded neighborhood boundary].

• What's the poverty rate in my service district, and how does it compare to the county?

• Rank the census tracts within my custom area by median household income.

• Build an Executive Brief comparing my three downtown districts.

• Show population trends for my catchment area over the last 10 years.

• That analysis was helpful—now run the same comparison for my west side boundary. (mid-conversation selection)

What to know about data availability

Custom geographies work through apportionment—a method that estimates data values for non-standard boundaries based on underlying geographic data. A few things to keep in mind:

• Most common indicators work well. Population, income, employment, housing, education, and other widely available metrics are apportionable for custom boundaries.

• Some data may not be available. Certain specialized indicators or data sources may not support apportionment for custom areas. When this happens in a template, Sidekick adapts—it may omit a section, suggest an alternative, or note the limitation.

• Very small or very large areas may affect accuracy. Apportionment works best with boundaries that are roughly neighborhood-to-regional in scale. Extremely small areas may yield less precise estimates.

• Complex geometries may take longer. If your boundary has an intricate shape, data retrieval might take a bit more time than a standard geography.

If Sidekick encounters an issue with your boundary, it will let you know and suggest next steps.

Current limitations

Custom geographies in Sidekick are designed for the most common use cases. A few things aren't supported yet:

• Multi-feature layers. If you have a layer with multiple shapes (e.g., 10 neighborhood polygons in one layer), you'll need to separate them into individual layers before using them in Sidekick. Each layer should contain one boundary.

• Points and lines. Only polygon boundaries are supported. Point-based and line-based layers won't appear in the selection list.

• Custom sub-areas. You can't use your own custom boundaries as subgeographies within another custom boundary. System subgeographies (census tracts, ZIP codes, block groups, etc.) are available as sub-areas within your custom boundary.

• Uploading or drawing from Sidekick. Boundaries need to be created using mySidewalk's existing upload and drawing tools first. You can't create new boundaries from within a Sidekick conversation.

Tips for getting the best results

• Name your layers clearly. When you upload or draw boundaries, use descriptive names. Those names appear in the Sidekick selection list and in your generated deliverables.

• One boundary per layer. Structure your custom geographies as individual layers—one shape per layer. This makes them eligible for selection and keeps your library organized.

• Tell Sidekick how to use the geography. Just like with uploaded documents, the more direction you give, the better the output. Instead of "Create a report," try "Create a Community Profile for my downtown service district, and compare it to Marion County."

• Start with a question, then build. Use Ask mode to explore your custom area first. Once you understand the data landscape, move into Build mode for a complete deliverable. This helps you anticipate any data gaps before generating a full report.

• Check your output. Review the data sources, time periods, and geographies Sidekick used to make sure they match your needs. Custom geography outputs include methodology notes indicating that apportionment was used.