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Here is my problem I live in Ontario Canada. I have an excel spread sheet with about 13000 address for a city. I have the column headers as FIRST NAME, LAST NAME, ADDRESS, CITY, PROVINCE, POSTAL CODE, PHONE NUMBER. I go and import these into the program and it maps some os the data right on the street and some of the other data in the middle of nowhere i assume that it is putting it in the center of the postal code. Why does it put some on there streets and others not. Is there better programs out there for mapping this many address's or am i importing them wrong. I get my databases from info canada and they do not have lat or long as i know this would help. I ideally am looking to then take this and put it into a garmin or some time of GPS system to make my business more efficent. I make phone calls to all the people on the data base over a course of 2 weeks and the one that are willing to donate used clothing i want to add them to a route and then optimize the route so i become more efficent. Moeny is know option but like i said i am new to mapping and routing and need help. ANy help would be greatly appreciated. You can call me or e-mail me if you need more info. Thanks guys from what i read on the net i am at the right place

I use MapPoint Europe for geocoding primarily in the UK but sometimes for other countries and generally find it pretty good. When using MP it’s very useful to set up some bespoke code to do the geocoding (rather than relying on Import Data Wizard) which allows you to attach latitude/longitudes and also get detailed and understandable diagnostics about matching.

I’m assuming you’re using Import Data Wizard so I think your first step should be to get a firm measure of how well/badly your dataset is being matched. Plot the customers as pushpins then right-click on the dataset name in the legend and choose Properties, then Matching. This will show for each record the matching criteria. I imagine that in Canada anything other than “By Street Address” will be insufficient for your needs so you need to assess what percentage are adequately matched and hopefully this will be a large number – if not then you need to check the quality/format of your input data. If it is a big number then it may be feasible to do some work on the remaining unmatched and inadequately matched by hand.

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David
UK mapping and map analysis services at www.broomanalysis.plus.com

Thanks for the reply. As for proper format how should my data look right now it has for ex B Davis 43 Mcgregor St. Chatham-Kent N0P 1A0 ON Canada 519 360 1748 all in different columns of course. IS that good format or does it have to be more specific.

Hmm, I never thought of it as a problem, but I can see your point.

Eric

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That is hilarious, It is a problem there are no jobs here so i am trying to get these routes for this company down right so i can make some money but have no contacts or anything to get me in the right direction. Any help would be greatly appreciated

WonderDog, er, Tucker ...

Mattys Consulting - Custom Programming
Go to contact page, call me.

Mike Mattys

Sorry, just looking at your original post. I'm glad you see the humor. My family (two brothers, Dad - 70yrs-old - and other family tbd) is looking for a fishing resort in Ontario Spring 2010.

As a kid, I remember the the tourist silly souveniours, and LOTS of heavy walleye and other fish.

Eric

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