Edit map data on saved maps
New feature alert! This has been a long time coming, the ability to edit map data on your saved map.
I struggled for a long time with the best way to implement this, and eventually decided it would be best if it would work almost exactly like the geocoder screen. All of your data is accessed by editing the underlying tabular dataset in a spreadsheet.
If that sounds complicated, its not! All you do is copy/paste the data into your favorite spreadsheet app and edit it. When you are done, copy/paste the data back into the web page, and run through the validation and map options step. It works just like the home page mapping workflow, except latitude and longitude can be imported so you don’t need to re-geocode everything.
This gives you a ton of flexibility and control over your data, no clicking around proprietary administrative interfaces. Just edit in a spreadsheet, paste in, and go!
You can also drag markers around on the edit map screen to fine tune their location if the geocoding wasn’t accurate, same as the front page workflow.
The new edit interface is available to maps created starting March 13th (you will automatically get emailed the URL.) Please give it a try and let me know your comments.
Comments
First off, I'd like to thank you for making this geocoding service available for everybody. It has been tremendously flexible, easy to use and useful for my work.
There is however one additional feature that I am dying to see and that is: batch geocoding by business name. Just like in Google Earth, there would be one column for "What?" (e.g. Apple Store) and one for "Where?" (e.g. city, state, etc.). You can already do that with Google Map too by typing "Apple Store near=[Location]" but of course the batch processing feature of your API is lacking.It would also be nice to retrieve not only coordinates but also the full address from such a search.
I know that multiple results would be returned for each search, but in that case keeping only the first result would be a viable way to go.
I don't know of any other API available that can do that job and I think yours is the closest to accomplishing what I am looking for. So, my question is: would you happen to have such development plans in mind for the future?
Thanks!
Vincent
Vincent -
Its a very interesting idea, but I am not sure how to pull it off.
Would you search for the nearest business to each address in a list of addresses?
Well, let's work with a concrete example. In my case I am trying to get a list of addresses from a list of hospital names and prefectures(I'm in Japan) like so:
Input: Hospital Name (the What? in GE), Prefecture (the Where? in GE).
Output: Address, Coordinates, …
There is actually usually more fields when you search for a business that will pop up in Google Map/Earth (phone number, URL, etc.) The best case scenario would be to have that information retrieved in a single spreadsheet and then plotted with your API.
What I'm doing now is type ["hospital name" near="prefecture"] in the search bar of Google Map. 98% of the time, the hospital I'm looking for ends up being the first result. Then I can click on the balloon to get the address and other information. Which I can in turn use with your API to plot the data.
This is only one example, but I see this as being useful for many other applications. Finding the nearest business to a list of addresses would actually be going one step further and is also a very interesting idea. I agree with you that it does not sound straightforward, though.
Let me know what you think!
is there a problem with your tool? it seems every night in the middle of the night i get error messages on my map. i thought something was wrong with my map — but it works other times. as well, during this time, i've tried creating new maps with your tool — but i get an error message — something to the effect of map can't be submitted — try again. thoughts?
There are some nightly maintenance processes that have been taking longer than normal, I am working on a permanent fix.
Update: I made a few fixes today that should help this page load much faster in IE and Firefox with large maps.
I having problems editing my map. After I entered my email before saving the map nothing happened?
Check to make sure you have your email entered in properly when you save the map.
I have seen the email get delayed a few minutes, but it always comes through for me.
Yes – I'm I set the map up over a day ago. Is there anyway to edit or do I just need to make a new link?
I that case just make a new map
Update – I made several maps and each time used my yahoo email address. Never once did I receive an email and I even checked my spam box. Then I decided to use my work email, and the information came right in. Then to be sure I edited my map and it worked perfectly. Today however when I go to edit my map, I can't do it. The area between "EDIT MAP MARKERS" and the actual map itself doesn't have the spreadsheet area. The only thing I can see in this area is the Validate Button and two lines of text about updating the spreadsheet.
Edit doesn't seem to be working. I hope you can fix it. Good Luck and thanks for working on this.
What about it isn't working? I haven't seen any issues
the space to insert the spreadsheet is missing?? I saw this happen last week and then it suddenly corrected itself??
I'm having the same problem as OSL5823. There is no spreadsheet visible for editing in the Edit Map Markers section. Just the intro paragraph, followed by the Validate button, followed by the map.
What browser / version are you guys using? Is it that you don't see a text box at all or is it just blank?
Note that if your map was created before the editing feature was rolled out you might not have options for editing your map.
Hello, thanks for a nice service. The docs seem to indicate that it is possible to import the latitude & longitude information as well- how to do this? I tried taking the generated data, replacing the bg_lat & bg_long fields with the exact information I have, and feeding the result back to the service. At that point, I get an error from your service that says those fields are disallowed.
If there are less than or equal to 26 items they are alphabetized.
Is there a way, if there are more than 26 to have them
in numerical order?
Great tool!!!!
I have found that after editing the maps to add more details that the edit link does not bring up what was entered before.
It could be that I dragged the coordinates around as the address didn’t come out perfect or maybe it was that I did multiple edits and it didn’t pick up anymore after edit number 2.
If you can look at that since I would like to edit some more, but I will have to add all again and then drag my cooridinates around again to make things correct
Cheers
Cliff
Can I add labels to my map markers
This site is without a doubt one of the cleanest, and well though out of them all! My compliments.
I was wondering if there was any plan to allow for more than 6 groups in the groupings? I know this has been mentioned elsewhere, but I do believe allowing for more groups expands the use of this application quite a bit.
For instance, we have ten 12 salesmen with multiple accounts across the country. If we were able to group by all 12, this would be fabulous. The only option is to create 12 seperate maps, which is not a very viable alternative at the moment.
Thank you for your wonderful service.
Fantastic site – congrats!
Would agree with Andrew Huggins (6 groups can be limiting).
Another feature I would really like to see is Variable sized markers, say to visualize sales volume of particular stores. What do other people think??
I don’t see where you can do the distance calculator from a single address to mulitiple addresses?
Can someone please direct me on how to do this?
thank you,
Bill
This is a great tool! I’m trying to use it as a zip code locator for our club members. We have numerous members with the same zip code. The program seems to filter out all but 1 member per zip code. Am I missing something? I’m only using a first name and zip code for the members. Thanks for your help.
Tried map using our Christmas card list. Is there a way to edit the map once saved?
This site is great and I have used it numerous times to create maps. I am; however, noticing that this time the icons seem to be blurred and abnormally large when importing the KML file into Google Earth/Maps. Also, on the website (batchgeocode.com) it puts all of the information that I designate where I want it. When I import into Earth/Maps it lists some different field entirely as the title. Any help?
Thank you for the wonderful tool! I do have one question. Does it have the ability to display an image on the map points? I see that there is an Image Url field when you click the Validate button on the Edit screen, so I added an image column to my spreadsheet, but there are no values displaying in the Image Url dropdown. What am I missing?
Thank you so much for creating this tool. It is fantastic for our purposes.
I’m having trouble using the Image URL field. I have a field in my db called “image url” and one called “url”. After clicking validate, I can see both in the drop down for URL, but the drop down for image url is blank.
Also, I wonder if there would be interest in setting up a forum for this tool? I know my question isn’t really a comment on this blog post, but I couldn’t find anywhere more appropriate.
I created a website and love the capability. I need to “kill” the site now, but never received an email. This is critical. How can I do it?
I have a map I created through your site. It’s right nifty. But I’m confused.
1. I don’t find any edit page.
2. It was created from a membership roster with home addresses. If I want to add work addresses, can I add them via a new spreadsheet with only work addresses, or would I need to edit the original spreadsheet to include work addresses? Since they’d be in a new column, would they automatically show up with a different color pushpin? That’s what I’d prefer.
I am trying to create a map with 597 addresses. The Geocoder processes all the rows but when the Map Results window opens it is blank. I tried Firefox and IE but I can’t get the map to display. Has anyone else had this issue?
@Lisa
I’m having the same problem. In IE, it shows the error as
‘markers[...].marker’ is null or not an object
batchGeocode2_min.js (line 51, char 35)
273 items in my list I’m trying to map.
This should be fixed now
Verified. Thanks for the quick update!
I figured out my problem. I wasn’t getting any errors like Jason, just a blank map. Turns out I had an address in my spreadsheet that was not able to be located on Google maps. Took me awhile to find it but when I got rid of it everything works just fine!
Would it be feasible to replace the straight-line distances with road distances (shortest, fastest, cheapest, …)?
When the map is processed is there away to click on multiple balloons and keep the data visible instead of just one at a time?
Ex. you click on a balloon and the data shows up in a very organized display. When you click another balloon that display goes away and the one you just clicked on comes up. Is there away to keep all display data visible? Maybe a function to double-click to make the data go away. It’s helpful to see multiple data popups for presentations etc.
just a thought.
I would love to see a response to what beachhound says about showing multiple balloons. Also, is there a way to print the map only with the letters included in the ballon instead of dots. I have my legend on a separate page which is fine.
I tried mapping our 1000 customers by their address and I wanted to get individual dots, but instead I got them grouped in large batches. Is there a way to get an individual dot representing each person, or do I have to live with the “groupings?”
I love your site. Been using it for weeks now; creating comparable property maps. The last 3 maps I have tried to print (either pdf or hardcopy) have not printed the balloons, instead a grey shadow. Can you help with that? Also… Questions/Comments #37&38… i was wondering that too.
I created a map and entered an email address but never received an email so now I can’t edit it. Is there a way to get access or do I just need to create a new map? Does your email field validate the email address or does it not work with Firefox? I saw several other users with problems not getting the email.
Except for that I can see how this tool will save me lots of hours and give me more functionality than I could do on my own. Thanks
Kile – There was a bug in the email process but it should be fixed now, please try again.
Has anyone figured out a way to create more than 6 groups? I have about 20 that I need to include but they all get grouped into “Other”.
Is there a way to show labels on each point?
http://www.batchgeo.com/map/aa34aa645a4786332ff16d428eca6d86
This map gangs close addresses together, but they wont breakout at any magnification. I tried this after the following attempt was missing 9 addresses.
http://www.batchgeo.com/map/aa34aa645a4786332ff16d428eca6d86
No hurry, i bet your busy!
i think we’re witnessing the birth of a new phenom. this site can become the twitter of online mapping.
Oops. I see that the second link was the same, I did just edit the map. Doh!
Hi, I just stumpled across your site and it’s a really great tool. If i could have about 30 groups it would be even better for me
I’m struggling to print the map – does anyone have any tips?
I also agree this is a fantastic site…
Hi,
I need to have the counties outlined with some type of border. Does anyone know how to get the counties to have a visible border?
Hi,
Is there a way to “lock” the markers in place?