As part of the HDX roadmap, we have been working on a number of improvements to ensure the platform meets the needs of our data community. One area is notifications: providing automated emails to users when there are changes to the datasets they are interested in. This pro-active push will save users from going to HDX to check if data has been updated. 

To get started, we are testing this feature on a limited number of datasets. These ten datasets were chosen based on their popularity, the frequency of updates and how the data is shared (either manually or through an API). The feature is open to anyone who uses HDX, with or without an HDX account. 

A dataset on HDX includes a number of resources or files. A notification will be sent when the following changes are detected within a dataset: 

  • A new resource was created
  • A resource was updated 
  • A resource structure changed for tabular data (i.e., new column added/removed) 
  • A resource was deleted

The initial test datasets include: 

When you are on the dataset page, you will see an option to sign up to receive an email notification when the dataset has been updated. We are testing two prompts – one that appears at the top of the page under the dataset title and another that appears at the bottom of the page as a pop-up (see images below). Once you verify your email address, you will start receiving notifications with information on how the resources/files have changed. 

Feedback

Let us know what you think about this feature by sending an email to hdx@un.org. If you sign up to test dataset notifications, you will have the opportunity to provide feedback through a brief survey. 

We are grateful to the team at ustwo which undertook the initial user research on notifications for the HDX site. You can read more about their process and recommendations here.