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A dataset is a source of real-world signal that grounds the personas in your workspace. Simulant ships with a public library so you can start immediately, and you can add your own data to sharpen the population around your market.
Datasets view showing a campaign's voter file, tracking poll, and public sources like the census

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The public library

Every workspace can draw on Simulant’s public library — a curated set of official, high-quality datasets covering population, attitudes, and behavior. Browse it under Datasets → Add dataset → Public library, then add a dataset to your workspace to make it available to cohorts. See How grounding works for what’s included.

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Add your own data

Go to Datasets → Add dataset and choose a source:
1

Upload a file

Drop in a file to import — for example, a brand tracker or a survey export. Simulant reads the schema so you can confirm the fields and preview sample rows.
2

Connect a source

Point Simulant at an API endpoint and provide an authorization token to pull records from an external system.
3

Add from the library

Pick a dataset from the public library to add to your workspace.
1

Describe the dataset

Give it a name (for example, Q2 Brand Tracker), a description of what it contains and how it should be used, a category, and tags.
2

Set access

Choose who in the workspace can use it.
3

Add to workspace

Confirm, and Simulant imports and prepares the data.

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Schema, versions, and preview

Open any dataset to inspect its schema (the fields and their types), browse sample rows, and see its details. Datasets are versioned — when you re-import or update a source, Simulant keeps the version history so results stay reproducible and you can see exactly what a run was built on.

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Using datasets in cohorts

Datasets don’t shape a study on their own — you select which ones a cohort is built from under Source data. Toggling a source on or off changes the signal behind that cohort’s personas.
Your uploaded and connected datasets stay private to your workspace. Public library datasets are shared grounding available to everyone.

How grounding works

Understand how datasets become a population.