Geocoding takes place in portatour® …
- when creating or editing customer addresses,
- when creating or editing appointment addresses,
- when manually entering a starting location for the route,
- when setting your home location in the options.
The process of geocoding is identical in all cases.
Enter the desired address into the Street, City, ZIP, State and Country fields of the form. Even if portatour® already accepts an address by merely entering the ZIP or city, it is recommended to enter the address as accurately as possible in order to enable accurate geocoding and thus optimized sales-route planning. The country field is only mandatory when setting your home location. Elsewhere, this field can be left blank if the address is located in your home country.
Geocoding is launched by clicking Geocode. The message Position found indicates successful geocoding and the blue flag on the map indicates the found location.
Accept the address including the position on the map with Save.
Under certain circumstances you may receive red warning or error messages when geocoding. This can have the following reasons for which there are suggested solutions:
Warning 'Address was incomplete'
Check whether street, ZIP, city, state and country are provided, complete the missing details and re-click the Geocode button.
Warning 'House number was not found'
The house number entered was not found on the map. A house number nearby will be selected automatically. In most cases, this level of detail is sufficient for the geolocation of the sales route. Alternatively, you can enter a different house number or position the address of the customer manually on the map (see Set geolocation manually).
Warning 'House number was ignored'
The house number entered was not found on the map, because there is no house number accuracy for the entered street. The midpoint of the road is used as position. Alternatively, you can position the address of the customer manually on the map (see Set geolocation manually).
Warning 'Only city found but not the street'
The street entered was not found on the map, because it was either misspelled or there is no street information for the locality entered on the map. The midpoint of the locality is used as position. In larger localities or cities it is recommended to manually correct the address of the customer on the map (see Set geolocation manually).
Warning 'Address had to be modified'
The address entered was slightly modified by portatour® to locate it on the map. In most cases, this situation results from different spellings of the street or city names. This has no effect on the accuracy of the geocoding. However, check the suggested address in any case.
Error 'Address could not be geocoded'
The address entered is completely unknown and will therefore not be taken into account for the schedule calculation. Please check the address again or carry out a manual positioning on the map (see Set geolocation manually).