Case Study: City and County of San Francisco achieves automatic open-data publishing and staff time savings with Socrata

“Set It and Forget It” Saves San Francisco Staff Time

The City and County of San Francisco needed a better way to handle hundreds of daily public information requests and improve transparency for high-profile data like campaign finance and lobbyist reports. Much of that information was distributed as PDFs, which forced reporters and staff into time-consuming, error-prone manual processing and frequent follow-up.

San Francisco deployed a Socrata open data portal and used Safe Software’s FME to automate nightly uploads and embed live charts on agency sites. The change delivered quick, accurate public access, broader media and citizen use, and significant staff time savings—what the team calls a “set it and forget it” solution.

City and County of San Francisco

Steven Massey

Information Technology Officer