Tech Forum

Hi there,

Various wards in our Stake have been updating their address details by adding postcodes and proper suburbs etc in line with what Google Maps would be in looking up an address. Currently a lot of the households have yet been added to the map due to LDS Maps not recognising the proper address. The updates to the addresses have now been submitted and processed in MLS and it has been several days now since that has happened.

I now go into LDS Maps and I can even see that when I click on a household that the address information has updated. It was my assumption that LDS Maps would then automatically recognise the new address and plot it on the map for me, however it hasn't done this and it looks like I am going to have to manually add them to the map.

Is there any way that LDS Maps is able to re-plot an address on the map based upon an updated address?

Many thanks!

You can read a discussion about the issue here.

That thread was a nice starting discussion, but it lead nowhere toward a solution or a response from CHQ.

My observation has been that the only time the map geocodes an address is when the member moves into the ward.

It would be nice if:

1) Addresses would be recoded when it changes (a member moves within a ward), and
2) Somehow once an address is located it could remember the location so that future use of the address would be accurately located.

We standardize all addresses to meet postal format and abbreviation standards, so there is consistency in addressing, so suggestion 2 should work and would save many hours of work since our ward has an almost 30% turnover every year.

After having spent many hours moving locations to be where they need to be, then discovering that it neither moves them when a member moves within a ward nor remember where a particular address is located, I have given up on using what *could* be a valuable tool. One of the perpetual problems it could solve is that we have many "hidden" apartments within our boundaries that if you don't know where the door is located they can be almost impossible to find, so I was placing the location dot at the door.

rpyne wrote:That thread was a nice starting discussion, but it lead nowhere toward a solution or a response from CHQ.

While some employees do participate, not all areas are represented. That's why we suggest using the feedback link on the main site. You may not get a response, but it will be read.

I sent feedback about a week ago after I noticed that markers didn't change after several weeks, but no reply yet.

I understand aebrown's point in the thread that was referenced by RussellHltn above, where he would prefer to not have markers change every time to match the addresses in the directory, as it would undo the verified locations. But what about the unverified locations? Certainly, the site can distinguish between unverified and verified locations and only update when changes are made to the unverified ones.

In a unit such as ours where the active members are a small percentage of the total membership and the boundaries includes such a huge area, verifying every address is a significant undertaking. Because of this, we haven't started yet (as far as I know, I'm the only one who verified my own address). Getting even fairly accurate estimations from the map for unverified locations would be a big help.

We had one record move in where the previous unit must have put MN instead of MI as the state in the address. I corrected the address in MLS, but it still puts the marker on a street with the same name in Minnesota instead of Michigan (definitely outside the boundaries).
http://tech.lds.org/forum/member.php?127-RussellHltn

greggo wrote:I understand aebrown's point in the thread that was referenced by RussellHltn above, where he would prefer to not have markers change every time to match the addresses in the directory, as it would undo the verified locations. But what about the unverified locations? Certainly, the site can distinguish between unverified and verified locations and only update when changes are made to the unverified ones.

I could certainly support that implementation -- my only concern was for verified addresses.

However, if an Address Change was pushed up from MLS, do we want the address to change or not? In the case of a move to a different location, I would say yes, but in the case of a "tweak" to the spelling, etc. I would say no.

It would be nice if each member's information box had a button to "unverify" the address to allow the system to re-set it automatically. Alternately, a checkbox in MLS to re-set the location verification when the address change is transmitted would be just as good.

I will try to post this information on the map page feedback later - not able to do it right now.

davesudweeks wrote:However, if an Address Change was pushed up from MLS, do we want the address to change or not?

I would think so. Verified or not, we have a number of members who have moved within our ward. Their map locations are no longer valid. A member can move the marker again even if the map has been validated. Perhaps we should ask them to move them when they make the actual physical move across town?

Or better yet, I agree. If the address changes, the marker should also relocate, even if the member has to verify it again (which would also be a good thing).