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Canada Geocoder tool icon Canada Geocoder Tool

The Canada Geocoder tool uses the Geocoding suite of products in Designer, including the CASS tool and Street Geocoder tool, to geocode a customer file. This tool works only for Canadian addresses.

Note

This tool is a macro that requires a separate data install and license. To access this tool, contact your account executive.

Configure the Tool

To configure the tool, 4 tabs require user input.

Input

Specify the Address fields from the dropdown lists. All fields are required. Format the ZIP Code field as a string. If it is not a string, send the input through a Select tool and change the ZIP Code field to String.

Geocoder Options

  1. Select a Geocoder from the dropdown menu. This list is populated with Geocoder datasets already installed on the machine. You can specify the default dataset from User Settings. Go to Options > User Settings > Edit User Settings and then select the Tools tab. Next, use the Dataset Defaults section to make your selections.

  2. Select the Street Geocoder output fields to include in the output.

  3. If you check Preserve input Address field names, the original field names specified on the Input tab are output from the tool. Left unchecked, the specified fields are renamed to Address, City, State, and ZIP.

  4. Choose whether you want to match the TomTom Multinet Address Points file as a first pass.

    • Match and Geocode: When selected, the input records are matched against the TomTomMultinet Address Points Calgary Database file. This file includes about 2 million address points located by their parcel or placed directly on the structure. Any record that does not match to this file is geocoded as normal. This option requires a licensed installation of the TomTom Multinet Address Points Calgary Database file, and CASS must be enabled.

    • Do not match file, just geocode: When selected, the input records are geocoded as normal.

CASS Options

  1. Choose whether to include CASS coding by checking the box. Go to CASS tool for more information.

  2. Select the CASS fields to include in the output.

Output

This tool produces 2 outputs: Left Anchor and Right Anchor.

Left Anchor

Geocoded records stream out of the left side of the tool, labeled with a G. This data includes your original data records and Address fields along with the additional fields you've selected to output as a result of the geocoding process.

The only fields returned from your input are the Address fields specified on the Input tab. If you need additional input fields, you need to join those back to the output of the geocoder tool. Records output in the same order as you input them, so you can join by record position.

Right Anchor

A data summary streams out of the right side of the tool, labeled S. The data stream includes 2 fields, GeoLevel and Count to signify the success of the geocoding process. There are 6 possible GeoLevels in order of best to worst:

  1. Actual: The address is matched to the TomTom Multinet Address Points file and represents the actual physical location of the property.

  2. Street: The address is assigned to its interpolated street location.

  3. Intersection: The address is assigned to the intersection of multiple streets.

  4. Extrapolate: When an input address is out of range, the Geocoder assigns the address to the closest known valid street segment.

  5. FSA: A forward sorting area (FSA) is a way to designate a geographical unit based on the 1st 3 characters in a Canadian postal code. All codes that start with the same 3 characters are considered an FSA.

  6. Not Coded: The address doesn't have a match.

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