Address Collection - How to Make Sense of Your Data
Address collection can seem like an overwhelming task. If you're collecting addresses for weddings, parties or holiday cards, it's essential to have accurate data.
Valid addresses help businesses save time and money. Incorrect addresses can lead to delayed mail, additional charges and missed opportunities. Address verification tools can help cut costs by ensuring that addresses are entered correctly.
ArcGIS Solutions for State and Local Government
Address collection is essential for local governments and is a key component of geospatial data management. However many governments have difficulties in managing authoritative address repository. They require a simple workflow to capture the physical location before the creation of an address, standard maps that inform decision-makers and the public about the quality and accuracy of their addresses, as well as tools to share authoritative addresses with other agencies.
To meet these requirements local government employees are making use of Esri solutions. These pre-built maps and apps are designed to work with specific workflows. This makes it easy for local government staff of all sizes and levels geospatial knowledge to use them.
Scott Oppmann is the State and Local Government Solutions Team Leader at Esri. According to his team, solutions are organized into categories that reflect "the common requirements of state and local government agencies." Click here to view the complete list of capabilities.
For example, a solution called Maintaining an Authoritative Address Repository contains a series of tasks to help you create a site address layer from a list of verified proposed sites that are collected using an online form or gathered in the field with Address Field Inventory. This feature layers can then be used to create USNG coordinates and a related mailing address. The solution lets you split a street at any specific point, calculate a municipal boundaries, and then update address attributes in the master road table.
Another illustration of an Esri solution is Managing Address Field Operations, designed to help address authority personnel collect missing or inaccurate address information from external and internal stakeholders. Office staff can assign tasks to their field staff to utilize the address crowdsourcing application on their mobile devices. They can then check the addresses submitted and record any new addresses they find while in the field. The information is automatically entered into the appropriate database tables to be processed and published.
The solution allows office staff to assign tasks with the option of confirming existing set address database using an exact accuracy level. This helps them spot errors, like duplicates or mismatched addresses, in the database. This information can be incorporated into the master database to improve the data quality and ensure it is more accurate.
Reverse Geocode Geoprocessing Tool
Whether you're looking for the location of a particular business or just want to determine which region is the most lucrative, reverse geocoding can help understand your data. Many mobile apps, such as Uber or Lyft, rely on reverse geocoding to turn raw GPS coordinates into something that drivers can understand. Retail chains use reverse geocoding to learn about their customers' shopping habits. Urban planners can link address data to the density of people to determine where to build public facilities.
The Reverse Geocode tool turns point locations within a feature class into addresses by searching for the closest address or intersection based on the distance to search. It can be used to reverse-geocode a single or multiple points. Its output is well-structured and ready to be integrated into other systems or tools.
It supports standard formats as well as custom formats for address click here data. This includes the standard attributes X and Y from a Point Address feature as well as the identifiers for POIs (Points of Interest). You can also specify the type of location of the geometry you are comparing to -- it could be a routing location, which is an area on the street that can be used to route, or the rooftop or parcel centroid of an address.
Additionally, you can use the tool to create a composite locator by linking two or more existing locators together. If it cannot find the address using your local data, then the resulting locator will use ArcGIS World Geocoding.
Reverse geocoding is an expensive process. This is especially relevant if you work with a lot of coordinates. You'll need to stay under Esri's free usage threshold--which is around 200 thousand requests each month--or you'll incur charges. You can also buy a service to convert coordinates into address in a masse.
It's important as a final step to check the accuracy and completeness of any address information that you receive from your customers through reverse geocoding. This can be done by using an address verification API that's CASS certified, like PostGrid. This will ensure that the addresses that you use in your direct mail campaigns are delirable and are able to be delivered to your customers.
Data Assistant Add-in
The Data Assistant add-in contains a collection of tools that help you migrate data from one database to another one that might have an entirely different data structure. These tools can be used to accomplish a variety of tasks, such as concatenating several sources into a single target field, or splitting a string into several target fields.
To use the Data Assistant add-in, you must first install it. To do this simply click the Start button and then choose Control Panel, and then select Add or Remove programs. Then, search for Microsoft Data Assistant 1.0 and follow the instructions on screen to uninstall it.
After the Data Assistant add-in is installed You can set it to create a source-target configuration file and load or replace data from that file. The Data Mapping tool also includes several methods that you can employ to convert data between various formats and to handle specific characters.
To find out more about the Data Assistant add-in, including how it can help with your address collection requirements, read How to make use of the Data Assistant add-in. This solution explains how to make use of the Data Assistant add in and how to use tasks to collect data from parcels and update the parcel data and populate community layer.
Data Validation Tool
A reliable address verification tool is a powerful tool that helps businesses maintain data accuracy and operational efficiency. It ensures that mail is delivered to the right place and that invoices are delivered to the correct customer and marketing campaigns are delivered to their intended target audience, thereby increasing the accuracy of delivery systems and increasing overall satisfaction of users. When selecting a validation tool, look for one with comprehensive country coverage and seamless integrations into business processes. You should also look at pricing structures and select tools that have a high ROI.
When it comes to collecting addresses on handwritten forms in a retail store, or during digital inputs during checkout online or through integrated data coming in from CRM systems, accurate initial data entry is essential in reducing shipping errors and return, ultimately boosting customer satisfaction and loyalty. This is more than the simple postal code or ZIP lookup. It requires a thorough method of address collection and validation.
The process starts with an advanced tool for data parsing that breaks down an address into its individual components, such as the street name, the city, and postal code. The tool then matches these pieces to commercial databases to validate their accuracy. It then standardizes the address to be in line to global postal norms including the conversion of extended forms to standard abbreviations and capitalization.
The address is then geocoded in order to verify its location. This is crucial for companies that are globally-based. It helps them determine shipping costs accurately and provide transparency for customers, minimizing the chance of costly delays caused by incomplete or inaccurate information. A robust geocoding API will also help businesses comply with international shipping regulations and avoid issues with customs.
Once the address has been verified, it is updated in CRM and enterprise resource planning software to ensure that every customer contact, shipment or service delivery is based upon accurate information. The precise information about addresses can also help streamline logistics processes by reducing the logistics, procurement and delivery of services.