Exporting data from your Hyfi portal

This page walks you through Advanced Data Export — pulling stage, rainfall, climate, model-ready files, and photos out of the Hyfi portal across many sites and long date ranges. Exports are built in the background and delivered by email.

Advanced Data Export overview

Table of Contents

Access Requirements

To use Advanced Data Export, you need ADMIN access on your team. If you or someone on your team needs access, please contact your Hyfi representative or email support@hyfi.io.

Exports are always emailed to the address you are signed in with. You cannot send an export to someone else's address — forward the download link instead.

What You Can Export

Start by telling the page what the data is for. Each option sets sensible defaults for everything below it, and you can still change any individual setting afterwards.

CSV / Excel CSV export option

Depth, elevation, and precipitation as spreadsheets you can open in Excel or Google Sheets.

SWMM SWMM export option

Native .dat timeseries on an even 10-minute step, ready to import, plus an optional climate file.

SWAT+ SWAT+ export option

A daily weather pack in native .pcp, .tmp, .hmd, .wnd, and .slr files.

Photos Photos export option

Site camera stills and field photo uploads, without the numbers.

A fifth option, Custom, starts from a spreadsheet and lets you add model files, climate parameters, or photos with individual checkboxes.

Size Limits and Delivery

Sites per export Up to 50
Date range Up to 3 years
Camera stills About one per hour, up to 20,000 per site
Field photos Up to 300 per site
Download link Stays live for 14 days

Large exports take a few minutes to build. You do not need to keep the page open — close the tab and wait for the email.

Need more than the limits above? Email support@hyfi.io and we can run it for you.

Creating an Export

  1. Click the download icon in the top navigation bar.
    Download icon in the navigation bar


  2. Choose what you're downloading for. The panel underneath tells you exactly what you'll get.
    Choosing an export purpose


  3. Select your sites. Search by name or code, or use Select all. The list flags sites that have a camera or field photos.
    Selecting sites


  4. Set your date range with a preset or with custom start and end times.
    Setting the date range


  5. Pick which measurements you want. Depth, elevation, and precipitation are on by default; More measurements opens temperature, humidity, wind, solar radiation, and evapotranspiration.
    Choosing measurements


  6. Optional. Open Advanced options to change the time step, timezone, gap handling, or estimation method. Most people never need to.
    Advanced options panel


  7. Check the summary on the right. It lists every file you're about to receive and every setting that produced them.
    Export summary panel


  8. Click Request export. You'll see a confirmation, and the email arrives when the files are built.
    Export requested confirmation

What's Inside the ZIP

Every export arrives as a single ZIP. Depending on what you asked for, it contains:

  • csv/ — one file per site and measurement, named with the site code, the parameter, and the timezone
  • swmm/ — .dat timeseries and climate files, if you selected SWMM
  • swat/ — .pcp, .tmp, .hmd, .wnd, and .slr files, if you selected SWAT+
  • photos/ — camera stills and field uploads, organized by site
  • qa_report.json — a machine-readable summary of coverage: expected and actual point counts, percent estimated, percent missing, and the largest gap for every site and parameter

Each CSV also opens with a header block recording the site, coordinates, datum, agency, time range, timezone, units, time step, estimation method, and maximum gap. If you hand the file to a colleague or a reviewer, those settings travel with it.

Reading the QC Column

Every row in every CSV carries a qc column saying where that value came from. This is the fastest way to tell real readings from filled ones.

ValueMeaning
measuredA sensor or archive reading as recorded.
interpolatedSynthesized while resampling onto the even time step.
zero_filledA rainfall slot with no record, treated as dry because you chose the zero-fill policy.
reanalysisA modeled climate value from ERA5 rather than a site sensor.
ice_affectedInside a marked ice-obstruction window, kept because this export did not exclude them.
Rows inside a gap longer than your maximum-gap setting, and rows removed by ice exclusion, are left out of the file entirely rather than written as blanks. The qa_report.json tells you how many.

Time Step, Gaps, and Estimation

Sensors do not all report at the same moment, so an export resamples every site onto one even time step. That is what lets the files line up in a model without a cleanup pass first.

  • Output interval — every 5, 10, 15, or 30 minutes, or hourly.
  • Estimation method — how a value between two readings is worked out: linear, nearest, or previous.
  • Maximum gap — the longest stretch worth filling. Beyond it, the export leaves the period out rather than inventing a shape for it.
  • Rainfall gaps — leave blank, or fill with zero. This is the difference between "we don't know" and "it didn't rain," and it changes a model's totals, so choose it deliberately.

SWAT+ files are daily, so the interval, maximum gap, and estimation settings do not apply to them.

Timezones and Daylight Saving

You can export in UTC, EST (UTC−5), or EDT (UTC−4).

EST and EDT are fixed offsets. Timestamps will not shift for daylight saving partway through the series. This is deliberate — a series that jumps an hour in March is a series a model cannot use — but it means a spring or autumn export will be offset by an hour from local wall-clock time on one side of the change. The timezone appears in every filename and in the header of every file so there is no ambiguity later.

Ice-Obstructed Readings

When a sensor is reading off the underside of an ice sheet, the water level it reports is not the water level. Hyfi marks those periods, and you decide what an export does with them:

  • Remove them (the default) — those rows are left out of the file.
  • Keep and flag them — the values stay, marked ice_affected in the qc column, so you can judge them yourself.

The qa_report.json records how many ice windows applied to each site and how many points each one affected.

Photo Exports

Photo exports come in two kinds, and you can include either or both:

  • Camera stills — automatic site camera images, sampled at roughly one per hour.
  • Field photos — images uploaded by people visiting the site.

The site list shows which sites have a camera and which have field uploads, so you can narrow the selection before you commit. Photo exports get large quickly — the page warns you before you request one that will take a while.

Troubleshooting

What you're seeingWhat to do
No download icon in the navigation bar You do not have ADMIN access on this team. Contact your team administrator or support@hyfi.io.
"Access Restricted" when you open the page Same cause as above — the export is limited to team administrators.
The email hasn't arrived Large exports take several minutes. Check your spam folder. If it's been more than 20 minutes, write to support@hyfi.io with the time you requested it.
The download link no longer works Links expire after 14 days. Request the export again.
A site you selected has no data in the file The summary panel warns when a selected site has no data in your date range — usually because it was installed after the range ended or removed before it started.
More rows are marked interpolated than you expected That reflects resampling onto the even time step, not missing data. Check pct_missing and largest_gap_minutes in qa_report.json for the real coverage picture.

Need Help?

If you're having trouble exporting data, or you need an export larger than the limits on this page, contact your Hyfi representative or email support@hyfi.io.