Alternative POI Help

[AnonymousUser23]

Hello, Trying to find more information on Alternative Name tables when it comes to POI JoinID's. 

We have a bunch of POI's that are names of restaurants or retail locations. We are then using a Category field and type field as a category and subcategory. We want to use alternative names tables to have even more category options to search. IE: Denny's is a Full service restaurant (Category), Diner (Sub-Category) and alternative names could be called Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Eggs, etc. 

Would we use an Alternative POI Name or POI Category. What would the linkages be. I tried having the sub-category be the join ID and have the alt name table be filled with sub-category and a row for each different thing someone could call a diner but I am not getting results back 

@ShanaBritt , @BradNiemand or Locator team

[ShanaBritt]

@AnonymousUser23 

When you build a POI role locator for place names, the Place Join ID field is used to link the primary POI features to the alternate place name table using the Alternate POI Name role and the alternate POI category table using the Alternate POI Category role.

If the name of the restaurant is Denny's in the primary feature class, but it has an alternate name like "Denny's Diner", the name "Denny's Diner" would go in the alternate name table along with the associated Place Join ID value and you would need to use the  Alternate POI Name role. The same Place Join ID is used to link the primary categories in the primary feature class to the alternate name table that has the alternate category names like breakfast, lunch, eggs using the Alternate POI Category role. The data should be formatted similar to how the CityID is in the image below.

Once the primary and alternate name roles are linked together you will be able to search for the place name or alternate place name and primary or alternate category, which will return all of the place names associated with the searched category. There are illustrations of the search options at the bottom of the POI role description.