Address Locator Spelling

[JoshBillings]

Hello all,

I have a published Gazetteer Locator that my org is using for citizens to pay fees. When citizens search for their address in the application sometimes they will put "North" instead of "N" or "Street" instead of "St." Our address point layer used by the locator uses abbreviated suffixes and street types. The address locator is bringing back these addresses as invalid.

Is there a way to increase the tolerance as to what the locator will allow? Will the spelling sensitivity property assist with this or is there another property that I can manipulate in order to fix this?

Any help is appreciated - Thanks!

[ShanaBritt]

@JoshBillings 

What tool was used to build the locator?

What version of Pro was used to build the locator?

What version of Enterprise did you publish the locator to?

Will users enter the address with or without the city or zip code?

Have you attempted to create the locator with the Create Locator tool to see if you get better results?

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/data/geocoding/tutorial-create-a-locator.htm

-Shana

[JoshBillings]

Thanks for the reply @ShanaBritt.

The Create Locator tool was used to build this locator originally. 

We are using ArcMap and Enterprise  v10.6 for this locator.

Users do not need city or zip code but the option is available.

[ShanaBritt]

@JoshBillings Based on the product versions you mentioned, it sounds like you used the Create Address Locator tool to build the locator in ArcMap 10.6 or ArcGIS Pro 2.6 or earlier. The Create Locator tool is only available in ArcGIS Pro and does not have a spelling sensitivity property to adjust. Are you able to provide a screenshot of the locator properties to confirm the version of the locator? You could use an alternate name table to account for the prefix direction and street type abbreviations when building the locator.

If you have ArcGIS Pro available to you, you can build a locator with the Create Locator tool using the point address data you have with the the PointAddress locator role, then publish the locator to Enterprise 10.6 and use the service in ArcMap, but you wouldn't have all of the new locator functionality in this version of Enterprise. 

[JoshBillings]

@ShanaBritt My apologies, you're right it was created with the Create Address Locator tool.

I built a locator using the Create Locator tool using the Point Address role. This locator works great in Pro! When published to Server, it doesn't seem to be able to find address candidates. Could this be due to the lack of functionality present in 10.6?

[ShanaBritt]

@JoshBillings Was the FirePaySiteLocator created with city,state, or zip code mapped when you built the locator with the Create Locator tool in ArcGIS Pro? If so, if you enter one of those do you get results? Of if you populate the location parameter with a coordinate pair that is in the same unit of the coordinate system of the data  used to build the locator?

Is the input always going to be without city or zip code? A screenshot of the Reference Data Table section of the locator properties page and geocoding options would be helpful in figuring out what's going on with the locator or confirming what I think is wrong.

[JoshBillings]

@ShanaBritt The locator maps city and zip code, but not state. However the data in the city field is abbreviations and not a full spelling of the city (ex: WS vs Winston-Salem). I do not get any results if I enter any of those. Entering coordinates in the location parameter also does not return results.

The site this is used on does not use city or zipcode to verify address but rather an address without the city/state/zip.

Reference Data Table:

Geocoding Options:

Thanks!

[ShanaBritt]

@JoshBillings The locator you created is with zones (city, zip) and the 'Match with no zones' setting is set to "No", which means you need to provide a zone or location when entering an address when the service is not used with a map. When using the service with it's current settings via the REST endpoint requires that you include a zone or use the location parameter to get results returned. The locator works as expected in ArcGIS Pro because the center of the map is being used as the location or zone when entering the address w/o city or zip, but you should also get suggestions as you type the address in the Locate pane in ArcGIS Pro. We have made improvements to the way the locator behaves when built with zone and 'Match with no zones' is set to "Yes" in ArcGIS Pro 3.1and Enterprise 11.1. Patches exist for Enterprise 11.0 and the latest ArcGIS Pro 3.0.x patch. Enterprise 10.9.1 is the last version that supports publishing classic locators created by the Create Address Locator tool.

Does the site that uses this geocode service allow for suggestions when typing the address?

[JoshBillings]

@ShanaBritt Thank you for that explanation! The site does not allow for suggestions.

If I changed "Match with no zones" to "Yes" would this theoretically work?