Need Assistance - First Time User

[AllisonMcKillop]

Hello all,

I apologize for the basic nature of this question.

I am unable to call tech support and my boss gave me this program today to use for the first time, with a deadline of tomorrow for a zoning issue project.

I have several Excel spreadsheets with names and addresses in them. One is for retail stores, one for residential, etc.

I need to figure out how to create a map of my city, and plot each point (300+) on the map, with a radius around each one. This needs to be fairly accurate to within a few feet (not sure if this is something my boss just wants or if it's even possible)

How do I do that with this program. I have searched online, but am at a loss.

Any information would be much appreciated.

[AllisonMcKillop]

Seriously? That would be amazing if you could. but no worries if not. I can't imagine this is very fin for anyone.

I have an excel sheet with lat & long that I'm working from. (The sheet only has ~6 on it right now, I didn't want to put them all into a sheet if I couldn't figure out how to make it work) Should I have the "label" information  in that sheet as well? Ideally I'd like to wind up with a map showing locations, with a 1000ft radius, and their business names.

I also have the addresses.

[ChrisSmith7]

That's probably your best bet! This is a lot of info to take in over one evening, especially without previously using ArcGIS!

Something else you may want to add to your map, or at least keep handy - I think you should have received a "match score" in your output file... This number quantitatively identifies how confident the geocoding processor was in assigning the lat/long from your street addresses... the higher the number, the greater the confidence the address was given a point right on top of the building (known as rooftop geocoding).

The Texas A&M geocoder should use parcel data whenever it's available. If you see a "matching geography type" of "parcel", and the match score is close to 100, you can be pretty confident this is very close to a rooftop address.

[AllisonMcKillop]

I'd like to thank all of you for your help, I really appreciate it!

Steven Graf logged onto my machine and showed me my errors - I was in fact using the wrong coordinate system, among a few other things.

[AllisonMcKillop]

Okay, so, I deleted everything I had previously done, and started anew this morning. I managed to get all my points onto the map, with their radius as well! I can have the label (name of business) pop up too, although since I have ~350 points, it's almost illegible.

Next question - I want to share this map. How can I do that and allow them scroll-ability? (tired and can't english today haha)

Is that possible? I was able to export as jpg which was not much more than a screen shot.

Thanks again!

[ChrisSmith7]

Would it be ok to export a really large PDF?

[AllisonMcKillop]

Possibly, I think my boss may wat something interactive where she could scroll around and whatnot. But a large .pdf could be useful too.

[ChrisSmith7]

From a time perspective, this may be your best best. You can export attributes this way, too - ArcGIS Help 10.1, so users can use the object data tool to click and identify features. If you had more time, you could look into sharing this as a web map using ArcGIS Online:

Share maps—ArcGIS Online Help | ArcGIS

[SepheFox]

Will exporting as a PDF work? You can certainly scroll in that. Maybe you're looking to make a map package though. The other people will need ArcMap to view it, but it's an easy and compact way to transfer a map. See the instructions here: ArcGIS Help 10.1

Well done by the way! You got this done quick for someone who has never done this stuff. I hope your boss appreciates your ingenuity.

[ChrisSmith7]

If you ever want to learn more about ArcGIS and creating interactive web maps, I would really recommend looking at the JavaScript API:

ArcGIS API for JavaScript

There's a lot to learn, especially if you're new to both coding and GIS, but if you keep at it, it'll be well worth it in the end! There are a ton of samples with sandbox environments that really let you learn by doing.

[StevenGraf1]

They could download ArcGIS Explorer (free).  This is a desktop viewer application.  They would be able to pull the layers that you created in, set basemaps and do some other things.

ArcGIS Explorer | GIS Viewer | Free GIS Software & Maps

Steven