Geocoding
It doesn't take a genius to realize that geocoding is of utmost importance for the map and all its functionalities. Geocoding is simply the process of converting text into a coordinate so the map knows where to add a pin.
There are two entities which are used on the map:
The setting pages of these entities expose a geocoding button . There's also a nightly job that will attempt to geocode all the addresses.
There are three address field sets in Dime.Scheduler for both the jobs and resources:
- Latitude and longitude
- Street, Street No, Zip code, City, Country
- Full address
For the resources, we're talking about the "Home Address" set, for jobs this is the "Site Address" range.
These field sets are sorted in descending order of accuracy. Dime.Scheduler doesn't need to parse any text because the data is already formatted as a coordinate. If the latitude and longitude exist, those values will be used. When the coordinate is missing, Dime.Scheduler will attempt to determine the precise location (i.e. the coordinate) for the data that is entered in the separate address fields. Finally, when the data is incomplete, it will attempt to do something with the text in the address field.
If you want to use the map, we encourage you to provide as many details as you can get for an address and enter them in the destined columns. This will massively improve the accuracy of the geocoding process. The full address fields do not always return reliable results; this is because there is no standardized format for defining an address. In some countries, the street number is prepended to the street name ("1 Rue d'Avignon") while in many other places it is appended ("Rue d'Avignon 1"). If there is no other choice than to use the full address field, you may want to play around with the format. For example, the geocoding algorithm may be more accurate if you start with the zip code and city and finish with the street name and number. This does not guarantee better results, however, so you may need to restructure the data in the back-office system.