Data Shares - US - Postings, Profiles - Data type changes and new area definitions (Counties and MSA)

We are updating the area definitions for MSAs and Connecticut counties, as well as updating County and MSA id fields to data type TEXT.

To assist customers who might be sensitive to incoming changes, we have added the below fields to US Postings and US Profiles. The migration period will have two stages:

1. Updating the generalized COUNTY, COUNTY_NAME, MSA, and MSA_NAME fields to use the updated areas; updating COUNTY and MSA fields to data type TEXT
2. Removing the OUTGOING and INCOMING fields

We are targeting March 10, 2025 for stage 1.

For details regarding the update to areas, please see the below resources:

• Connecticut Counties Old to New Crosswalk
• MSAs Old to New Crosswalk

Please reach out to your Lightcast representative with any questions or for detailed guidance.

• COUNTY_OUTGOING | Number
  • IDs of counties according to the outgoing area version. This field should not be used unless your queries are sensitive to incoming changes to CT counties or to a datatype swap from Number to Text.
• COUNTY_NAME_OUTGOING | Text
  • Names of counties according to the outgoing area version. This field should not be used unless your queries are sensitive to incoming changes to CT counties.
• COUNTY_INCOMING | Text
  • IDs of counties according to the incoming area version. This field should not be used unless your queries are sensitive to incoming changes to CT counties or to a datatype swap from Number to Text.
• COUNTY_NAME_INCOMING | Text
  • Names of counties according to the outgoing area version. This field should not be used unless your queries are sensitive to incoming changes to CT counties.
• MSA_OUTGOING | Number
  • IDs of MSAs according to the outgoing area version. This field should not be used unless your queries are sensitive to changes in MSA versions or to a datatype swap from Number to Text.
• MSA_NAME_OUTGOING | Text
  • Names of MSAs according to the outgoing area version. This field should not be used unless your queries are sensitive to incoming changes to MSA version.
• MSA_INCOMING | Text
  • IDs of MSAs according to the incoming area version. This field should not be used unless your queries are sensitive to incoming changes to MSA version or to a datatype swap from Number to Text.
• MSA_NAME_INCOMING | Text
  • Names of counties according to the outgoing area version. This field should not be used unless your queries are sensitive to incoming changes to MSA version.