Address Importing Best Practices
Hello, looking to crowd source some best practices for importing and standardizing addresses in Quickbase. I know QB uses MapBox but they have some odd formatting practices. For example, they spell ...
Forum Discussion
I have a similar problem at a client where data has to be cleaned up before it can go into the main system. We built a separate application to Normalize the data. The fields that would be exported from the Normalization App were all Formulas working one to one on the data thaw was imported by the User.
So using your fields as an example you would have
Postal Code and Postal Code Formula
You can then build a complex formula to clean up what they have imported to a readable, standard Postal Code.
Then building your full address from those parts can be used in your Duplication check. Are using a Formula Query for this? Maybe a Pipeline?
I used a PHP script to take the data from the first application to the second one because that allowed for very complex handling of the data. Scripts are not intuitive but they are powerful.
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Don Larson
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So using your fields as an example you would have
Postal Code and Postal Code Formula
You can then build a complex formula to clean up what they have imported to a readable, standard Postal Code.
Then building your full address from those parts can be used in your Duplication check. Are using a Formula Query for this? Maybe a Pipeline?
I used a PHP script to take the data from the first application to the second one because that allowed for very complex handling of the data. Scripts are not intuitive but they are powerful.
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Don Larson
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Thanks Don, this sounds like good advice I'll have to look into it. How are your users adding individual addresses? Did you ever adopt the QB built-in address field?
I'm researching the Google Address Validation API and seeing if that can be incorporated into QB. It requires learning about QB Code Pages too unfortunately.
For my address duplication check I'm using 2 parts. The first is a formula field that combines all of the necessary elements of the address. The second is then a custom data rule on the table that alerts the user if they are trying to enter a duplicate address.
QB won't run a duplication check on a formula field and my end users won't have the option to bulk import additional addresses. The workflow will only require them to enter a few addresses here and there.
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David Semitekol
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I'm researching the Google Address Validation API and seeing if that can be incorporated into QB. It requires learning about QB Code Pages too unfortunately.
For my address duplication check I'm using 2 parts. The first is a formula field that combines all of the necessary elements of the address. The second is then a custom data rule on the table that alerts the user if they are trying to enter a duplicate address.
QB won't run a duplication check on a formula field and my end users won't have the option to bulk import additional addresses. The workflow will only require them to enter a few addresses here and there.
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David Semitekol
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- MarkShnier__You
Qrew Legend
David,
What do you mean by this?
QB won't run a duplication check on a formula field
You can have a Formula Query look for duplicates and that will happen even before the record is saved.
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Mark Shnier (Your Quickbase Coach)
mark.shnier@gmail.com
------------------------------- Hi Mark, I'm referring to the "Must be unique" checkbox in the field settings. Here is my formula:
List(ToText([Number Start]),ToText([Number End]),[Address Number],[Predirectional],[Street Name],[Suffix],[Post Directional])
When I tried to save the field, I got this error:
When I did some research, I came across this post in the community:
Enforcing Uniqueness on a Formula Field
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David Semitekol
------------------------------- MarkShnier__You
Perhaps some of their fields are lookup fields? I would need to know the field type of each to suggest which one is the culprit.
If you do a formula query it's also possible to detect duplicates, regardless of what the components are of the unique field. If you need help with that we can muddle through it together. The Formula Query would be if the Size of the result was greater than 1.
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Mark Shnier (Your Quickbase Coach)
mark.shnier@gmail.com
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