Report Data Quality Issues

We appreciate all feedback regarding FSQ's data quality. Please use the guidelines in this document to understand how to provide feedback on any of the following issues:

  • Closed businesses
  • Relocated businesses (a business entity that has moved from one physical location to another)
  • Duplicated businesses (multiple factual records that refer to the same place)

Closed Businesses

If you discover any FSQ record that has been permanently closed, please submit all of the necessary attributes, according to our contribution guidelines, as well as the action field with a value of closed. Closed records should be submitted within the same file that you submit all of your other data.

Example

actionnameaddresslocalityregionpostcodecountry
closedJoe's Pizza123 Main St.Los AngelesCA90064US

Relocated Businesses

When a business moves locations, FSQ considers the old location as closed and the new address as the business's new location. For such relocations, please submit the old location with closed in the action field and submit the new location as you would submit any record, using our contribution guidelines.

Example
Joe's Pizza on 456 First St. has moved to 123 Main St.

actionnameaddresslocalityregionpostcodecountry
closedJoe's Pizza456 Main St.Los AngelesCA90064US
Joe’s Pizza456 Olympic Ave.Los AngelesCA90067US

Duplicated Businesses

For any records that are duplicates of the same POI at the same location, please submit unwanted Foursuqare IDs as the flagged_id and the persisting Foursquare ID as the preferred_id along with duplicate in the action field. As always, the POI's country, represented by the country code, also needs to be included. Examples of submitting duplicates can be found below.

Additionally, please submit reports of duplicated businesses in a separate flags file to sftp.tdc.factual.com. The file should adhere to the following filename requirements and contain all of the required fields listed below. Other records will be ignored if found in the flags file.

Filename Requirements

Required Fields

Field NameShould Contain
flagged_idFoursquare ID of the duplicate record that should be merged into the preferred record
preferred_idFoursquare ID of the preferred record, into which the duplicate record should be merged
actionduplicate
countryISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code

Other Considerations

  • To flag multiple duplicate rows for the same business, submit a separate row for each using the same preferred_id. You do not need to submit a separate row for the preferred row. See example 2 below.

Examples
Ex 1: Flagging two duplicate rows

In this example, two separate duplicate businesses are reported to FSQ. The first is a pair of US businesses, the second a pair of Canadian businesses. In the first, it is desired that fsq_id 4d436a0ebf61a1cd6ed0fdab will persist after the two are merged. Similarly, in the second, it is preferred that fsq_id 4e1b79bc7d8b8db6125c920a persists.

flagged_idpreferred_idactioncountry
3b5b5f07d68a4210d75b53334d436a0ebf61a1cd6ed0fdabduplicateUS
4cf012c0f368b1f7fc4989f74e1b79bc7d8b8db6125c920aduplicateCA

Ex 2: Flagging multiple duplicates of the same business

In this example, there are three FSQ rows for the same business. It is desired that fsq_id 4e1b79bc7d8b8db6125c920a persists and the two duplicates are removed.

flagged_idpreferred_idactioncountry
4e4052a818a83d5b286a30fe4e1b79bc7d8b8db6125c920aduplicateUS
4eb8a8777ee5024d8061f5e74e1b79bc7d8b8db6125c920aduplicateUS

Foursquare Data Quality Flag Templates

The template below shows an example of the data quality issues template. Please match your column names to the names presented in the attached template and examples (case is important).

For file 20210301_contributor-name_FLAGS.tsv:

action  preferred_id    flagged_id  country
duplicate   26a158ac-df89-4f86-8043-93c011f9b7a7    226bfd2f-2558-44fd-874c-bc6035f2e9a0    us
duplicate   c7aa4b6d-8d4e-47a8-83f9-7b8a5ab132c2    552edbc0-3591-438b-a0f3-fa8459abbf75    ca

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