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We have database of all telephones in county; with address, zip and phone. we need to be able to draw a circle or block on a map and 'tag' all phone numbers within that map area to be called in case of emergency.

Can map point help us with this?

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Leib A Lurie

Yes -- geocode all the addresses, then draw a the radius and right-click to perform an export to Excel.

If you need this to be perfect (i.e. all the geocodes perfectly matched) it can be a bit more involved, but if it's a reasonable number MapPoint's interface will simply let you manually place them.

Eric

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Thanks for reply.

we can be less than accurate; but need to be more automated than excel; I assume we can programatically export a list to a process. yes?

Also, how do we 'geocode' 100,000 addresses?
we have name, street address, zip+4, phone.

You can approach the geocoding in a couple ways:

1. just take what is matched to the street-level and skip the rest, this would be the easiest (BTW, to geocode you use the Data Mapping or Import Data Wizards, it's fairly straightforward).

2. Or, after step export back out the ones that did match and link those back up with the original dataset using a database like access. For the next pass, try matching to city or zip -- that will help you get more of them on the map.

Alternatively you could use a robust geocoder (Sagent / MapMarker) or a geocoding service (GDT / TeleAtlas) and then just bring the lat/lon's into MapPoint.

>> I assume we can programatically export a list to a process. yes?

Yes, see the Query* methods.

Eric

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Before you get to far into this project, you have to decide how accurate your results must be. I assume since it is a 9-11 appliction, you probably want the results to be as accurate as possible.

First step is to establish what maps you are going to use. Try and get maps from the county, they are typically the most positionally accurate and have the best attributes. If this fails, you have no choice but to us 3rd party maps, (TIGER, GDT, NavTech or TeleAtlas).

What ever you decide make sure the maps you are going to use for display and your proximety seaches are the same maps you geocoded with. Never mix up the data sources, this can create all kinds of problems with misplaced geocodes. (i.e Using Sagents or GDT's geocoder and placing them on NavTech cartography in MapPoint is not a good idea.)

There are several options out there that will allow you to geocode at the county level and provide the relate to the contact info in your database. The one that comes to mind is MapInfo Pro. I also know of a company that does a similar service for several counties. Their web site is www.ddti.net.

Good Luck