Addresses
Intro
Our Comfort pack contains small nice-to-have enhancements for the input and data integrity of addresses, using either Bing Maps or Google Maps.
The following short video shows the capabilities of our Address autocomplete features.
Details
This article will walk you through the use and configuration of the address autocomplete feature. The address autocomplete feature looks like any map provider searchbox and allows the end-users to save time while entering addresses. If the suggested address is not configured before selecting the suggestion, this feature will create missing States, Counties, Cities and ZipCodes in the system.
This feature is available for any address creation or modification, regardless of where the address originates (Vendors, Customers, External Vendor Collaboration, Sales orders, Purchase orders, etc.)
This service requires an API key from your map provider. For more information on obtaining an API key, please see our API Key. The pricing of each API key is outside the scope of this document and should be checked directly with the vendor.
At the time of writing, both Microsoft Bing Maps Autocomplete and Google Maps Places Searchbox are available and provide slightly different options and results. These services support international addresses for most countries.
Having Maps setup prior to setting up Addresses might help improve overall setup/testing experience.
Configuration
This feature can be configured from the Parameters screen in User Interface > Addresses and will look like the following:
The following options are available to configure these helpers:
- Auto complete provider: Type of address helper, either Disabled or Microsoft Bing Maps or Google Maps. When disabled, the feature is turned off and no longer visible.
- API Key: API authentication key as provided by your API partner
- Auto create missing: Prompts to create or automatically create missing address components to further improve automated experience This applies to states, counties, cities and postcodes |
- Label: Label to display above the auto complete control
- Placeholder: Text to display inside the auto complete control when empty
- Default value for name or description: Default name for the address, allows to enter any default value, leave empty for using Address Name as provided by external API Services
Use the Label and Placeholder properties to alter visual representation of the new control.
Changing any of the properties above will trigger a screen refresh.
Once configured, you can play with the test map in the bottom to make sure your service providers hit the mark.
If no map is configured, the results will be displayed in JSON format.
Daily use
When this feature is configured to run with either provider, the following behaviour will be observed while creating/maintaining an address, from anywhere in the system (Customers, Vendors, Company, Vendor Collaboration, etc)
A new address autocomplete control will appear empty and focused on the address maintenance form. This new control is designed to assist the user in the address entry workflow.
The user can start typing any address as they would in their personal map application and results will appear as the user refines the search using keyboard and mouse.
Once the user accepts the suggestion, the system will set the address and either prompt or automatically create missing address components to save time to the end user.
After completion of the Place suggestion, an address will look like the following:
At the time of writing, this solution supports the following address attributes, where available:
- StreetNumber,
- Street,
- City,
- ZipCode,
- County,
- State,
- Country