Address Collection - How to Make Sense of Your Data
Address collection can be a difficult task. It is essential to collect clean information, regardless of whether you're collecting data for weddings, holiday cards, or even for parties.
Full Article can save time and money by using correct addresses. Incorrect addresses result in rejected mail, extra fees and missed opportunities. Address verification tools can cut expenses by ensuring addresses are properly entered.
ArcGIS Solutions for State and Local Government
Address collection is essential for local governments. It is also a crucial element in geospatial management. However many governments are faced with difficulties with managing authoritative address repositories. They need simple workflows to record the physical location early in the process of developing an address, standard map products that inform decision-makers and the general public about the quality and accuracy of their addresses, and tools to share authoritative addresses with other agencies.
To meet these needs Local government officials are employing Esri solutions. These pre-built maps and apps are designed to work with specific workflows. Full Article makes it simple for local government employees of all sizes and levels geospatial expertise, to adopt them.
According to Scott Oppmann, State and Local Government Solutions Team Lead, Esri, solutions are organized into categories that represent "the most commonly-used requirements in the state and local governments." Click here to view the complete list of capabilities.
Address Field Inventory, for instance, comes with the following tasks that assist you in creating an address layer that is based on a list of verified proposed sites that are taken from an online form. These feature layers can be used to create USNG Coordinates as well as an address for mailing. The solution allows you to divide a street at a specified point, calculate municipal boundaries, and 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 addresses that are not correct or incomplete from both external and internal stakeholders. It allows office staff to assign a task to field workers, who can use the address crowdsourcing tool on their mobile devices to verify the submitted addresses and to record new ones observed while out in the field. The information is then automatically added to the appropriate database tables for further processing and publication.
The solution also enables office staff to assign tasks with the option to validate an existing set of address data with a specified accuracy threshold, which allows them to identify mistakes, such as duplicates or mismatched addresses in the database. This information can then be transferred to the master address database to enhance data quality and make the database more precise.
Reverse Geocode Geoprocessing Tool
Whether you're looking for the location of a specific company or determine which region is the most profitable reverse geocoding can help get the most out of your data. Many mobile apps, like Uber or Lyft, rely on reverse geocoding to convert raw GPS coordinates into something drivers can understand. Retail chains utilize reverse geocoding to better understand their customers' shopping habits. Urban planners can also connect address data with population density to determine where to construct public facilities.
Reverse Geocode is a tool that converts point locations within a feature class to addresses. It does this by searching for the nearest intersection or address in relation to distance. It can be used to reverse-geocode a single or multiple points. The output is well-structured and ready to be integrated into other tools or systems.
It allows both custom and standard formats of address data, including the standard X, Y attribute values of the Point Address feature, as well as IDs for POIs (Point of Interest). You can also specify which kind of geometries the location is. It could be an address location for routing (a street side location that can be used to direct traffic) or the parcel centroid or rooftop of an address.
You can also make use of the tool to create composite locators by linking together two or more locators. The resultant locator will be back to the ArcGIS World Geocoding service if it cannot find an address that matches your own personal information.
Reverse geocoding is expensive, especially when you're working on large quantities 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 costs. Another option is to buy an application that converts coordinates into addresses in bulk for you.
As a final note, it's important to verify the accuracy of any address information you get from customers via reverse geocoding. This can be done by using a CASS-certified address verification API like PostGrid. This will ensure that the addresses that you use for your direct mail campaigns are delivered to your customers and.
Data Assistant Add-in
The Data Assistant add-in contains a collection of tools that help you migrate data from one database to another with an entirely different data structure. You can use these tools to accomplish a variety of tasks, like concatenating several source fields into one target field or dividing strings into multiple target fields.
Installing the Data Assistant is required before you can use it. Click Start, choose Control Panel, then Add or Remove programs. Uninstall Microsoft Data Assistant 1.0 by following the steps on screen.
Once the Data Assistant add-in is installed you can set it up to create an source-target configuration file and then load or substitute data from that file. The Data Mapping tool includes a variety of options for converting data between formats and handling specific characters.
Read How to use Data Assistant Add-in to learn more about how it can assist you in meeting your address collection needs. This guide explains how to utilize the Data Assistant add in and how to use processes to collect data from parcels, update parcel data, and populate the community layer.
Data Validation Tool
A reliable tool to verify addresses is a powerful tool that helps businesses to maintain accuracy in their data and operational efficiency. It ensures that the correct address is used for mailing and invoices are sent to the correct customer, and marketing campaigns are delivered to the intended audience. When selecting a validation tool make sure you choose one that has seamless integration into your business processes and broad coverage of the entire world. Consider the pricing structure and select tools that provide a good return on investment.
Whether taking addresses from handwritten forms at a retail store, or during digital inputs during checkout online or through integrated data coming in from CRM systems, precise initial data entry is vital to reducing shipping errors and returns and ultimately increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty. This requires more than just using a traditional postal code or ZIP code lookup; it involves a process of thorough address verification and collection.
The process begins with an advanced data parsing tool that breaks down an address into its various components, such as the street name, city name, and postal code. The tool then compares these pieces with commercial databases to confirm their accuracy. Then, it standardizes the address in order to conform to global postal norms for example, converting extended forms to standardized abbreviations and capitalization.
The address is then geocoded to confirm its place of residence. This is especially important for companies that are globally-based. It helps them estimate shipping costs accurately and arrange transparency for customers, while minimizing the risk of delays that are costly due to inaccurate or incomplete data. In addition, a robust geocoding API can help businesses adhere to international shipping regulations and avoid issues related to customs.
Once the address is 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. Accurate address information can simplify the logistical aspect of operations by reducing logistics and procurement processes, which saves time and money.