Internal Geocoders/Locators not working in ESRI Maps for Office

[RussCoffey]

The short version:  Excel (using Maps for Office) can see our internal geocoding services, which are exposed as Geocoding Utility Services through ArcGIS Online, but it never actually calls them with the data to be geocoded.

Now more detail:

We have a few geocoding services running on our internal ArcGIS for Server servers (behind our firewall).  These services are exposed to ArcGIS Online and shared with all members of our organization.  These locators work fine in our ArcGIS Online maps and apps.  However, the locators are not called in Excel with the "Add Excel Data" tool.  The locators are visible and can be selected and the user can even specify which columns belong to which parameters for the service and the service acts like it is running, but it always returns 0 results.

Watching the calls in Fiddler shows that Excel interrogates the correct internal REST endpoint to get the parameters of the selected locator, but no call is ever made to the internal geocoding service with the actual data to be geocoded.

I have seen a number of somewhat related posts but no resolutions.  Anyone have a similar experience, or is anyone successfully utilizing local geocoding services from within Maps for Office?

Possible issue/resolution:

The option "Allow Batch Geocoding" for our services is grayed out in the ArcGIS Online "Utility Services" configuration area.  This is the path I am pursuing at the moment.

[JakeSkinner]

Hi Russ,

See the following link.

Geocode services from version 9.3.1 and earlier are not supported in ArcGIS Online. Geocode services from ArcGIS Server 10 and internal geocode services can be used to find places, but not to batch geocode. External geocode services from ArcGIS 10.1 for Server or later are required to perform batch geocoding. Internal geocode services only work for place finding when the map viewer or other ArcGIS Online clients have access to those internal geocode services. For example, if your organization shares apps with the public, only users who have access to your internal geocode services will be able to find places with those apps. ArcGIS Online secured service items are not currently supported in ArcGIS Desktop. In order to batch geocode, your geocode service needs to be hosted outside your firewall, even if the client (such as Esri Maps for Office) is on the same internal network as the geocode service.

[RussCoffey]

Thanks for the information, Jake.  That is helpful, although disappointing.  The last line in the paragraph you copied is the one that is particularly applicable for my situation.  I can move our address geocoder to an external server (which I am going to try out this weekend to validate the information in the link you provided).  However, we have created locators for the components of our water delivery system, which we cannot put outside our firewall for security reasons.  I'll pass this as a request to our ESRI reps and see if there are any plans to allow batch geocoding from services inside the firewall.  Until then, we may need to stock up on credits!

Thanks again.

[ISP_graynic]

Hi Russ,

Did you ever resolve this issue?  Our custom geocoding service on our server is not showing up in ESRI Maps for Office either and I'm thinking it may be a similar issue.