Content Manager User's Guide

Geocoding Data Table

Geocoding is the process of translating physical addresses into latitudes and longitudes in order to enable your data to be displayed and analyzed in a geographic context (on top of a map).

Content Manager enables geocoding of data with street level precision by importing a table containing addresses or by geocoding addresses manually. You load the data to be geocoded and then visualize it on top of the map.

Content manager provides the ability to reverse geocode addresses too. Reverse Geocoding is the process of translation geographic coordinates (latitudes and longitudes) into physical addresses.

Before loading the data, it is important that it contains required columns and that its structure is correct to avoid misinterpretations.

• Prepare data in Microsoft Excel
• Import data to geocode
• Import data to reverse geocode

Prepare data in Microsoft Excel

Before loading a Microsoft Excel file into the content manager, it is important to make sure required columns are available. In order to geocode data properly, the following columns are required: Name, City, Zip Code, Country.

To get better geocoding precision, you may want to have additional data columns: Address, State.

It is important the data spreadsheet is free from irrelevant information and has a good structure to prevent misinterpretation. Possible action that can be done before importing data is removing contextual information.

The tabular format of the data in an Excel spreadsheet will be represented as a data table in the content manager. The first row with data in the spreadsheet will be interpreted as names of the data columns in the table, and the following row will be interpreted as data rows.

Remove contextual information

The following illustration shows a spreadsheet containing some contextual information above the actual data table. This will cause misinterpretation of the data.

Import data to geocode

You can geocode addresses from data files that are saved locally on you computer. Geocodes can be retrieved from addresses contained in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, or you can geocode addresses entered manually as well. Imported .xls or .xlsx files are geocoded automatically. The imported data is geocoded automatically and can then be visualized in a geographic context in order to assess the geographic quality of your data.

Tip: To interpret an Excel worksheet correctly, you may need to make some data preparation before loading it.

Procedure

1. On the upper left of the content manager interface, click "New Table". The New Table dialog is displayed.
2. Drag your file or click Browse, and navigate to the Excel file of interest. Select the file and then click Open.
3. The name of the selected file appears in the Table Name field.
4. Make sure to check / un-check the column to import and verify each column to be assigned to the good data type.
5. Click Geocode.

Import data to reverse geocode

You can reverse geocode latitude and longitudes coordinates from data files that are saved locally on your computer. Physical addresses can be retrieved from geographic coordinates contained in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

Tip: To interpret an Excel worksheet correctly, you may need to make some data preparation before loading it.

Procedure

1. On the upper left of the content manager interface, click "New Table". The New Table dialog is displayed.
2. Drag your file or click Browse, and navigate to the Excel file of interest. Select the file and then click Open.
3. The name of the selected file appears in the Table Name field.
4. Make sure to latitude and longitude columns are assigned to the good data type.
5. Select Reverse Geocode
6. Click Geocode.