Using place name alias table in geocoding

[CarlosSousa_Ferreira]

I am trying to use a place name alias table with my custom locator, but getting nowhere, so maybe someone can help.

I've tried to set the alias table with the creation of the locator and also, after the creation of the locator, in ArcMap, liked described in the ESRI documentation​, and none of these approaches worked.

My custom locator accepts one single input (a complete street address). My alias table as two columns: "name" (with the alias name of the building or place to localize) and "address" (with a complete street address that would be recognized by the custom locator).

The image bellow ilustrates the configuration of the alias table in ArcMap:

Any thoughts about what's going wrong?

Thanks

[JoeBorgione]

Perhaps you could describe or show how you are linking your alias table to the primary table.  I don't quite understand your approach;  when using a a place name (point) locator, I've always matched against the name, and then it provides the address associated with it.  Even if the place does not have a valid address, you can still match against a given location.

[CarlosSousa_Ferreira]

Thanks for the feedback Joe Borgione. I'm sorry for not replying sooner, but I had a little vacations.

I was trying to use an Alias Table as described in the ESRI documentation about Alias Table. As I understand it, there is no explicit link between the Alias Table and the Primary Table. From the Alias Table the locator would get the complete address from the alias name, and the returned complete address would then be treated as input for geocoding.

Your table example seems to be an Alternate Name Table, with an explicit JoinID field, right? I thought the Altername Name Table would provide alternate name for the street name, not for a complete address name. In this way, having '#52 Some Name St' would return the same result as '#52 Altername St'. What I'm trying to accomplish is to give as input a common name 'CC Colombo' and the geocoding tool would process the correspondent full address in the alias table instead of the real input string. Is this correct?

[JoeBorgione]

Perhaps I misunderstood your initial post.  When I hear or read the word 'ALIAS'  I think of a different name that a common place might be called.  Maybe I call it Joes Bar and Grill, but you  want to match against Joes Bar;  Joes Bar is an alias to Joes Bar and Grill....

The link you provide shows basically how I have my Common Names point feature class attribute table shown in the left pane of my attached image above. What your custom locator returns (the name or the address) is up to you as the developer.

[CarlosSousa_Ferreira]

What I am trying to achieve is to get a table like yours Common Names table to work, but I'm not being able and I don't know why.

[JoeBorgione]

It has to be a feature class, not a table.

[CarlosSousa_Ferreira]

I have a feature class that has points for each house number, therefore, provided a correct complete address, the locator is able to correctly georreference the address.

Are you saying that the place name alias table should have geometries associated? What kind of geometries? That's not what I understand from the ESRI documentation about it: The place-name alias table​

My locator is able to georreference the address: "Avenida do Colégio Militar 37"

My place name alias table loks like:

So if I would type "CC Colombo", it should give me the location for the address "Avenida do Colégio Militar 37", right?

[JoeBorgione]

When I read through the help link you provide, I see a description of using a point feature class along with an alias table just the way I described at first ( See below). 

Your original post is int he GeoDev forum; I'm not a developer, so I may not be able to help you. 

You also mention custom locator; I don't see where this is a custom locator.  What type of locator are you initially using?   I just created a General-Single Field type of locator.  The reference data, a point feature class has two fields; Address and Alias.  When I create the locator, the Key Field I use is Address.  Consequently the only way I can use the that locator is to type in an address that exists in the reference data attribute table.

If I want to type in either Mi Casa or Su Casa and expect a result, I need to do one of two things:

1. Create an alternate names table described in my original post and the online help shown below, and then recreate my locator shown above but reference the alternate names table I just created

or

2.  Create another General Single Field locator, but use the Alias field as my KeyField.  Then I would Create a Composite locator that puts together the Original Address/KeyField locator and the second Alias/KeyField locator into one locator.  I make the new composite locaor active in my ArcMap session; I can then use the address or the alias as shown in in the original attribute table and get a result.

I can't see any other way to do what you are asking.

[CarlosSousa_Ferreira]

I say it is a custom locator because I created a Locator Style file customized for portuguese addresses (different format and structure), which I then used to create the locator.

In your suggestions, you use an Alternate Name table or a Composite Locator (with two locators for two Primary Tables), which may be clever alternatives solutions for what I was going for, that was using the Alias Table option:

But, since it is not working, I will try your suggestions.

Thanks again for all the effort.

[JoeBorgione]

Here's what we lost in translation:  I always use the "ALTERNATE NAMES" table.  You are using the "ALIAS NAMES" table.

I just created a Single House  locator with the Alias Table Option.  However, in order to make it work, I had to go into properties, geocoding options and switch "Match without house number" and "Match without zone" to YES.