screen. You should save

Transcription

1 How to use the Florida Senate DistrictBuilder software for local redistricting Log on to select District Builder, and request an account. This will only take a few steps to set up and they will you a login account in hours. (you willl need to allow popups from the website) This document is just a quick guide and does nott cover all features A detailed Help manual available online if you need more technical information and gives you a thorough tour throughh the software. Detailed plan statistics can be printed as a reportt or exported as a spreadsheet Plans from MyDistrictBuilder can be imported only as a.doj (comma delimited) file Plans can be exported as. doj, GML(ESRI compatible) and KML (Google) files General import / export information is explained on the last page Once you have the sign in information, enter the username and password on this screen. You should save this as a favorite link so you don t have to find it again. Page 1 of 14

2 The main screen has 4 plan tabs Manage, Build, Analyze and Preferences If you want to start with a blank map, select Create plan. For the current county districts, the first step it to Import plan. Select the file (browse to where you have saved it), give it a name and description. Since I only need 6 for byy BCC plan, I selected a congress plan since it has the least number of districts. Currently you can tt enter a custom number. Click Import. This can take a few minutes and won t show on your Open plan list until it s done. You can check the status under Show import plan status Then select Open plan (will have a list of all yourr plans to choose from) Page 2 of 14

3 Then go to the Build Plan tab to begin Choose Show dashboard to start. The other choices will be used once the map is up The state map opens with the navigation buttonss across the top. Zoom into your area by clicking on the + + button on the top navigation pane and then click in the map or hold the left mouse and drag. You can minimize the small maps by clicking on the arrow button Page 3 of 14

4 Once you are in your county, you can go to the Show layers manager and change some of the layers in this one I turned off cities and water to make it less cluttered. Before you start building districts, go to the Plann Preferences tab and explore some of the settings you can control like color and population statistics For example, I made the first 6 districts my Districts of interest by clicking on the + sign next to their number on the list: Page 4 of 14

5 Change the default district colors by clicking on the numberr in the right box and choosing a color on the left box. Choose one number higher than your needed districts to use for outside your county (7 in my example) ). Make that a color that you don t want to use Go through the Set dashboard and Set plan statistics to figure out what population groups to show other than the pre-set groups. There is a lot to choose from. Go back to Build Plan and Show dashboard to get back to your map Page 5 of 14

6 My district buttons now have the new colors. Now select your outside (not your county) district number (7 in my example) and County from the drop down list. Using the point assign button, click on the otherr counties to put them in the extra district Click on the lock button to fix those counties into the extra district Page 6 of 14

7 Select that district number from the list and applyy Go back to layers manager and click on VTD (or some other geography to build with) in the Assignment Layers and the drop down list Select Show dashboard and that will bring back up the district color buttons. Using the point assign button again, begin building the districts Page 7 of 14

8 The Dashboard Statistics on the lower left of the Build Plan screen are the active district population numbers. Click on the Open plan statistics box and a new window will open the Show Statistics screen with population numbers for alll districts. Population categories for the dashboard and plann statistics can be removed, added or reordered in the Plan Preferences tab. The Help Manual describess the different categories and what they measure You can move or resize the Show Statistics window on the screen to be able to see how the districts change as you add or remove areas Under Show Utilities are options to renumber districts and print a map in several sizes as a pdf with whatever name you want. Page 8 of 14

9 The map detail can be changed by turning on or off different layers. Under the Manage Plans and Analyze Plan tabs are several features that allow you to save, copy, edit (rename), import, export, and print plans and statisticss Page 9 of 14

10 Copy Plan - Bringing in copies of other plans If you want to start with a copy of the statewide districts, they are available in the Manage Plans tab. Click on Copy plan That brings up several copy plan choices. The plans in the public plans repository are the current statewide districts that were created after Census Select the plan you want and follow the steps to make your own copy with your own name. They have to be done one at a time, so go back to Copy plan each time This is also where you can make copies of different versions of plans you have already worked on if you want to keep one to go back to I made a copy of the current congresss (public.con_1) and now that is added to my list of plans. Page 10 of 14

11 Turning on another plan as a layer in your current map To see another plan as a layer, you have to bringg it in and make it a color. Open the plan you want to work on, go to Build Plan. That brings up your map. Select Show layers manager and click on the multi colored box next to District Lines Page 11 of 14

12 That brings up a list of all the other plans you have besides the one you already have open. You can only choose one to display From here I selected the current school board lines and made them blue. Click Apply That takes you back to the layers manager and the plan is now listed under District Lines. Check the box in from of the plan to display it andd refresh the map Page 12 of 14

13 That displays the school board lines as a layer on the map. Right now, you can only have one other district layer turned on at a time, but it is easy to turn the other districts on by clicking on the multi colored box again. Here I went back and turned on the congresss as red. The layer is turned off by un-clicking the box in front of the name. Page 13 of 14

14 Import plan allows you to import a plan as a.doj file that you have saved (or from MyDistrictBuilder). This works even if your original plan was only for a few districts in one county the rest of the state gets assigned as District 0 or as your extra district number Browse to wheree you have the file saved on yourr computer,, name it whatever you want and choose the US Congress option if you have less than 27 districts. Export plan allows you to export your plan as a.doj file, GML or KML file. would be compatible with ESRI, ArcView and other GIS software The GML file Here is an example of a.doj file. It is a comma delimited file with the GEOID and the district number assignment from the redistricting software. The GEOID includes the unique Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) code for each county combined with the Census 2010 tract and block Example data row from.doj file: , Orange County FIPS code Census 2010 Tract 2004 Censuss 2010 Block, (comma usedd to create new data column) 1 - District number as assigned using the redistricting software Page 14 of 14