In some countries / region producers who live in pretty remote area haven’t their address listed on Google Address list, so when they fill in their address it is either unrecognized and block registration, either displayed badly.
Affected users / customers
Irene from Sicily working with big coop starting to use French instance said “90% of producers here have their address unrecognized by google”.
Problem impact
Some producers can’t be seen on the map or have to put a wrong address to be able to register.
Benefit in focusing on this
Improving producer registration and visibility accuracy.
Links to more details
NA
Potential solutions
1- Add on entreprise profile “address” zone (and registration modal) the possibility to put geocordinates (N, S, E, W) instead of an address.
2- Connect Open Street Map (in replacement of Google Maps) address base, and add the possibility if address is not found to put a pointer on the map to specify where this address is and add it to address base (see Switching from Google to Open Street Map for address base)
3- Display error message if address is not recognized
In the potential solution one could be to add the possibility if address is not found to put a pointer on the map to specify where this address is and add it, so yes using OSM and adding that possibility could be a solution, I add it as an option, but we’ll see in value x ease map what is best value for money.
I would like to flag up the importance of tackling this issue for the UK. We have users who cannot get their map icon to display at all. Sometimes by cutting and pasting the address details from Google maps we can make it display. Sometimes by experimenting with putting different address details in different OFN fields with a lot of trial and error we can make it display. This is not a feasible work-around for a new user.
I know that @lauriewayne is having similar issues in OFN USA
As OFN is growing fast we need a better solution. I like all of @MyriamBoure’s ideas above.
Part of the reason this is an important issue is the feature’s prominence on the OFN page (like we are saying “hey look at this map!”). This is one of the first things a new hub or other enterprise will look at when setting themselves up - it’s a chance to build confidence and connection when it works and they see themselves on the map, and when it doesn’t work it may likely have the opposite effect.
I guess I would also say that the addresses we are having a problem with DO exist on Google Maps, in that they are findable via maps.google.com, but our embedded map doesn’t show them.
just a note re. potential solutions above - does google allow the same thing as Open Street Map i.e. the possibility to set an address that they don’t currently have, or not? If yes, then we could potentially build that functionality independent of which map was at the bottom? although that might be overcomplicating things and the fact that this problem is now arising in google perhaps leans towards a jump. Weird that google is not covering usa addresses adequately!
the change to osm can take time.
the google api must support gps coordinates and it should be easy easy to add a field for enterprise gps coordinates and, if defined, use the gps coords instead of the address to map the enterprise.
Ok so from what I read, option 1 could be the easiest “value for money” option, in a value x ease matrix. @NickWeir@lauriewayne1 the users will still have to check their address either in google or any GPS to then enter the GPS coordinates in the system for their “dot” to appear correctly, but it would be an easy and quick solution if their dot doesn’t display well. How would you T-shirt size that @luisramos0 ?
Yes, adding geo-coordinates manually is the easiest option and a good fallback. Even with the best mapping system available, there may be addresses that are not on a map yet.
Adding a map to put a flag somewhere would be a nice-to-have feature to facilitate entering the coordinates, but it’s the same thing in the end. The user gives us coordinates.
Then we can try to improve our use of geolocation databases (currently only Google Maps). There are libraries to use any available service and even multiple services.
Finally, feeding our user data back into the Open Street Map database would be awesome. It would improve the commons and is a nice storage of this data for us.
