The following notices contain important information for agencies participating in the Workplace Update Program.   Please read carefully and call the number given below if you have questions.

1) All Work-UP CDs have been shipped.  If you previously indicated that you wanted to participate in the program, but have not received the materials on CD, please let us know immediately.  Call Clara Reschovsky or Gloria Swieczkowski at (301) 457-2454.

2) In case you didn't get the previous listserve message, the deadline for completing the project has been extended.  THE REVIEWED EMPLOYER FILES MUST BE RETURNED TO THE CENSUS BUREAU BY MAY 31, 2000.  So, if you have not yet begun work on your review, we encourage you to get started soon.

3) A NEW VERSION OF THE WORK-UP SOFTWARE IS NOW AVAILABLE AND NEEDS TO BE INSTALLED ON YOUR COMPUTER(S).  This version corrects a geocoding anomaly and a formatting problem, and provides a work around to add some functionality users have requested.  The new program, still named wup.avx, is available by direct link to http://members.tripod.com/~TRBstate/ctpp/wupavx.zip.  There is also a link to this site from the TRB Subcommittee website, www.mcs.com/~berwyned/census/workup.  The file has been zipped, so after you download the program, you need to unzip it and copy it into the two locations where the original wup.avx file is located.  These locations are usually the \Esri\AV_gis30\Arcview\Ext32 and \workup\bin directories.  (The first location is the working copy; the latter is a backup.)  These directories are normally on the C drive, but if your installation is different you'll have to find where the original wup.avx files are and copy the new version to those directories.  Descriptions of the software changes and the work around are given below.

4) We have discovered that in the file of ungeocoded employers, records whose source is the shopping center directory have incorrect coordinates.  That is why they show up so far away from the rest of the employer points.  In effect, the decimal point in the coordinates is off by two places.  This is due to a formatting error that occurred when records from the shopping center directory were put into the census ungeocoded employer file.  We will not be fixing these coordinates for use in the Workplace Update program.  However, any records you update will be assigned correct coordinates.

5) For those of you who are just getting started on the project, you should refer to the User Guide to get some background about Work-UP.  We have spoken to several people who didn't seem to understand the overall purpose of the project.  Chapter 1 of the User Guide (pages 5-9) provides a high-level overview of the Workplace Update program and we recommend you read it.  The beginning sections of Chapters 4 and 5 may also be useful in developing a strategy for your review work.

Copies of the User Guide can be found in the \workup\docs directory on your computer if you've already installed the Work-UP software.  WorkUP.doc is an MS-Word 97 document and WorkUP.pdf is an Adobe Acrobat Reader document.  The User Guide is also available on the TRB Subcommittee website, along with other information regarding the Work-UP program.  The URL address is www.mcs.com/~berwyned/census/workup.  We have also provided an explanation below of how we use these employer files in our geocoding processes.

CHANGES IN THE NEW RELEASE OF THE WORK-UP SOFTWARE
The changes that have been made to the Work-UP software are as follows.

A) We have corrected an anomaly in the ArcView geocoding process.  The problem occurs where there are street segments in TIGER that have address ranges associated with one side of the street, but not with the other.  In the first release of the software, ArcView accepts as successfully geocoded addresses that don't technically fall within the address range that is present.  For example, assume a line segment represents Main Street and has address ranges on the right side from 100 to 198, but no address ranges associated with the left side of the street.  Given an address of 151 Main St. to geocode, ArcView does not reject the address, but rather, places the point exactly on the line (not offset to the left or right).  This is not acceptable for our purposes in the Workplace Update program, or for our use in geocoding responses from the decennial census.  We have to have each employer associated with a TIGER line segment, and know which side of the line the business is located on.

Therefore, we have had the developer create a patch to the software that increases the "score" necessary for accepting an address as successfully geocoded.  As a result, in cases like these you will now be prompted to choose (click on) the side of the street the business is actually located on.  

B) We have corrected the format of the TIGER/Line ID that is associated with records that are geocoded by ArcView.  The ID number was being left-justified in the field and filled to the right with a decimal point and trailing zeros.  This was not consistent with the original files, so the ID is now being right-justified in the field and filled to the left with leading zeros.

C) We have changed the way the List Selected Records button works.  In the original release of the software, this list only showed the employers selected using the Select Employer Data button.  In general, any records you selected using the Query Builder button or Select Feature (lasso) tool were not reflected in this list.  We have altered this function so that now records selected using either the Query Builder button or Select Feature tool will appear in the list generated by clicking on the List Selected Records button.

WORK AROUND: MOVING EMPLOYERS FROM ONE COUNTY TO ANOTHER
The functionality that has been added to the software is a more efficient way to move groups of employers from one county to another, say from County A to County B.  The object of the work-around is to allow you to select a group of employer points in County A, export those records to an ASCII file that is in the correct format, and manually copy (cut and paste) the records into the ASCII file for County B.  Note, however, that the procedure is only this simple if you have not begun your review of County B.  If you’ve already done some work in County B, the process is a little more complicated.  Call Gloria or Clara at (301) 457-2454 for instructions on what to do if you’ve begun work on the county you want to move records to.

A button has been added to the far right side of the button bar titled Export Selected Records.  NOTE:  IN ORDER TO SEE THE NEW BUTTON YOU MAY HAVE TO MAXIMIZE THE ARCVIEW WINDOW ON YOUR DISPLAY.  The following steps outline one way to move selected records from County A to County B:

1.	Select the employer points you want to move from County A to County B, using either the Select Feature (lasso) tool or the Query Builder button.

2.	Click on the Export Selected Records button, and select the appropriate data set in the dialog box (usually you will have selected employer points in the Ungeocoded Data file in step 1).  Then click yes to export the records.

3.	You will be presented with a dialog box to specify a file name and directory location for the export file of selected employers.  We recommend that you give the file a meaningful name and put it in a directory where you will be able to find it.  If you do not, the default directory and file name will be \workup\export\expsel.txt.  Be careful that you do not overwrite a set of previously selected records by using the same filename, particularly if you’re using the default name.  The selected records will be written in the exact ASCII format as the import and export files used by Work-UP.

4.	The selected records that are exported will automatically be marked for deletion in the County A file.  We were divided in our opinion as to whether this was a good idea or not.  The original thought was to require that each record be individually marked for deletion from County A using the review dialog window.  However, given the short time available, we decided to mark them for deletion automatically.

So you need to be careful here.  We suggest you inspect the ASCII file of exported records (we usually do this in Wordpad, but any text editor that can create DOS text files is ok).  If you find records in the file that you don’t really want to move to County B, do the following.  First, delete the unwanted records from the ASCII export file.  These are long records, so you have to watch what you’re doing.  In particular, it may be easier if you have word wrap turned off.  After you’ve fixed the ASCII export file, you need to go back to County A in Work-UP and remove the D from the records you decided not to move.

5.	Once you’ve reviewed the ASCII file of exported records and are satisfied it’s what you want, you’re ready to copy the records into County B’s ASCII ungeocoded file (assuming as noted above that you haven’t started your review of County B yet).  You first need to make sure that the County B ASCII file is NOT read-only.  The file name will be ungssccc.txt, and it will be located in the directory \workup\data\ssccc, where ssccc is the FIPS state and county code for County B.  Right-click on the file name in Windows Explorer, select Properties from the drop down menu, and make sure there is not a check mark in the read-only attribute box.

Using a word processor or text editor that can read and write DOS text files, open the export file that was created in step 3.  Highlight or select all the lines in the file and choose Copy.  Then open the ungeocoded file for County B, go to the bottom of the file, and choose Paste.  This will add these records to the County B file that will be imported into Work-UP when you begin reviewing County B.  Then save the file as DOS text (using the ungssccc.txt name) and you are done.

HOW THE CENSUS BUREAU USES EMPLOYER FILES IN GEOCODING
The purpose of the Workplace Update program is to create a complete, accurate file of employers for the entire nation.  The Census Bureau matches employer name responses to this file when coding the Place of Work items off the long form of the Decennial Census.  The long form questionnaire asks the respondents for the name of their employer as well as the complete address of where they worked.

The Census Bureau needs to convert this respondent-provided information into geographical codes that can be used in tabulating data products.  The first step is to match the structure number and street name address of the respondent's workplace to a line segment in TIGER.  For any number of reasons, for example missing streets or address ranges in TIGER or incomplete addresses from the respondents, these matches to TIGER are not always successful.

If the address matching fails, the next step is to match the employer name given by the respondent (along with any address information provided) against the employer reference files reviewed by MPOs in the Work-UP program.  The employer records in these files have been geocoded to a line segment in TIGER, either before or during Work-UP, so that when we match the employer name from a respondent to a record in this file we have effectively geocoded the response.  In this matching operation we use only the employer name and address information contained in the employer reference file.  We do not use the employer SIC code or the number of employees data that are on the reference file.  Having a geocoded file of employers to match against improves the overall workplace coding rate we are able to achieve, beyond what would be possible if we had to rely solely on address matching.  We matched about 40% of the Dress Rehearsal cases (in the Sacramento, CA and Columbia, SC areas) that were eligible to be coded by employer name (those that had information in the employer name field) to records in the employer reference file.

Both the address matching and employer name coding are first attempted using automated or computer-based coding routines.  The Census Bureau will then employ 600 clerks to look at all the responses that did not successfully machine code, and apply human logic to try and figure out where these respondents actually worked.  The cases that are sent to the clerks are often misspelled or the information is incomplete or incorrect.

Once the responses are successfully geocoded (matched to a line segment in TIGER) either through address matching or employer name matching, using automated or clerical processes, they are assigned codes representing the entire geographic hierarchy  (i.e., state, county, place, tract, block, TAZ).  These place of work geographic codes are then used in conjunction with the person's other socioeconomic characteristics as the basis of the 2000 Census Transportation Planning Package.