Use "Find route" to locate the closes facility?

Question

Can this be done? If I can avoid creating a network dataset (or, creating another one) that would be great. My boss wants me to use the online services to locate the the 5 closes destinations from each "source", and be able to display the distance along with several attributes.

I was able to do this using "closest facility" after I created a network dataset, but I have a bunch of "sources" located outside of my network dataset. Thanks in advance!

JacobMcGlade · Answer

The Find Route will give you a route between two or more locations. To do find closest, you would have to use it many times between each pair of stops and then find the 5 closest.
Why not use the NA built in solver for Closest Facility? You could use the free network that comes with ArcGIS. It is on the data and maps dvd and is called Streetmap.
Jay Sandhu

Jay,

The free network dataset is not up to date and does not include much of my geocoded locations.  (Locations were geocoded using the 10.0 U.S. Streets Geocode Service Online) Does ESRI have an online network dataset that is continually updated with the most recent data?  I know the World & North America routing services exist, but cannot be used within the Network Analyst toolbox, specifically the Closest Facility tool.  Please let me know if you know of any maintained datasets or if ESRI plans on distributing more recent datasets.

JaySandhu · Answer

The Find Route will give you a route between two or more locations. To do find closest, you would have to use it many times between each pair of stops and then find the 5 closest.
Why not use the NA built in solver for Closest Facility? You could use the free network that comes with ArcGIS. It is on the data and maps dvd and is called Streetmap.
Jay Sandhu