How to Use the HData Text Analysis App
Overview
HData provides a wealth of consolidated FERC filing data. To enrich your strategic perspective, it also helps to understand the context behind the numbers. Combing through piles of documents is not feasible. With the HData Text Analysis app, you can instantly mine thousands of FERC forms for key phrases and use filters to narrow your search to find exactly what you need. With this tool, you can also easily incorporate information contained in obscure sources like document footnotes, into your analysis.
Getting Started
From the HData welcome screen, navigate to the Insights application by clicking “Insights” on the left-hand side of the page.
Click the “Text Analysis” link to open the Text Analysis app.
Note: After clicking “Text Analysis,” a new browser tab will open at the following link: https://hdata.idaciti.com/research/#/cardsidaciti.com. You can still easily tab back over to the main HData platform to access other apps.
Viewing Existing Cards
On the main screen of the Text Analysis app, you will see a toggle button in the upper left-hand corner with the options: “Shared with me” and “Owned by me.”
By default, this button is set to “Owned by me.”
If you are using the app for the first time and have not created any text analysis projects, you will notice that no cards appear on the page.
To see if any cards have been shared with your HData profile, move the toggle to the “Shared with me” option. If projects have been shared with your profile, they will load on the screen.
You can click on each card to access the charts and underlying data sets.
Creating a New Card
To create a new card, click the “Add New Card” button, located to the right of the toggle.
Navigate to the left-hand panel to enter your search criteria.
Once entered, your search results will appear to the right.
Enter Keywords
Start your search using the open text field located on the top left-hand side of the screen.
As you type, you can use the “Suggest” button to view additional suggested terms and phrases to include in your search. By default, all terms provided through this operation will be appended to your search. To remove any of the suggested terms, simply click the box to remove the check mark as shown below.
Figure 1: Keyword Suggestions Tool
Set Proximity
Continue by setting the desired proximity of the keywords you entered.
The proximity setting determines how many words apart your selected keywords can be when returned in your search.
For example, setting your proximity to 2 means your results will include all instances where the selected keywords appear within two words of each other in a document.
To the right of this field, you can include “Disclosure Content,” “Disclosure Titles,” or both of these fields.
Select Forms
You can then select “All Forms” or choose specific FERC forms from the list provided.
To remove a form, uncheck the box next to the form descriptor.
You also have the option to enter specific keywords in the text field below the list of forms as an additional search parameter.
Set the Date Range
There are several options for defining the date range. You can use the slider bar to set the beginning and ending year, search for filings within a set number of days, or choose a specific date from the calendar widget.
Choose the Company Type
You can include all companies in your search, choose from a system-defined list, or add specific company names.
After selecting from these options, click “Search” to start the query.
Figure 2: Search Results View
Search Results Overview
Three key areas to focus on when reviewing the results
- Search Results - Right-hand panel
- Number of results produced from search
- An interactive listing of each result
- View Disclosure - Mid-screen
- As you select a result, the disclosure view will navigate to that area of the form for further viewing.
- As you select a result, the disclosure view will navigate to that area of the form for further viewing.
- View Highlights - Left-hand panel
- Each result will produce corresponding highlights to view on the left-hand side of the screen. Clicking on a highlight navigates to the exact spot in the form where the result was found.
- Each result will produce corresponding highlights to view on the left-hand side of the screen. Clicking on a highlight navigates to the exact spot in the form where the result was found.