Geocoding is the process of converting location information - such as street addresses or place names - into geospatial data that can be displayed as features on a map. This page provides more information about geocoding options associated with Esri licensed resources, including use of ArcGIS Online for small batch geocoding and a geocoding service provided to Ohio State affiliates for large batch geocoding.

Ohio State affiliates can use the university's ArcGIS Online organization for geocoding in the course of university-related activities permitted under the terms of our Esri institutional agreement. As geocoding in ArcGIS Online is one of the more expensive operations in terms of credit consumption, it is recommended only for small batch geocoding of 10,000 records or less (and see the credit policy page for more information about use of credits in ArcGIS Online).

 

ArcGIS Online should only be used for geocoding data that are able to be shared externally. If you are working with S2 - Internal or S3 - Private data, we recommend using the geocoding service detailed below. Additionally, ArcGIS Online cannot be used for geocoding data that is classified as S4 - Restricted data. If you have questions regarding options for geocoding S2, S3, or S4 data, please contact esri-support@osu.edu.

 

This short tutorial on converting a list of historic places into a map provides an introduction to the geocoding workflow in ArcGIS Online (in this case using place names, but the workflow is largely the same when using street addresses). If you need to create your Ohio State ArcGIS Online organizational account, please see the instructions provided on the ArcGIS Online page.

To provide a convenient alternative for large batch geocoding by Ohio State students, staff, and faculty, the Center for Urban and Regional Analysis (CURA) operates a geocoding service with coverage of the United States based on Esri Business Analyst datasets.

 

Usage Constraints

 

• The geocoding service is available for Ohio State students, staff, and faculty to use for university-related activities permitted under the terms of our Esri institutional agreement. The service cannot be used for commercial purposes or by third parties not affiliated with Ohio State.

• Data derived from the service cannot be delivered to third parties not affiliated with Ohio State without making a request to esri-support@osu.edu for consideration.

• The service cannot be used for geocoding data that is classified as S4 - Restricted data. If you have questions regarding options for geocoding S4 - Restricted data, please contact esri-support@osu.edu.

• There is a limit of 200,000 geocodes per batch. Larger datasets may be geocoded using multiple batches.

• There is no assumption of accuracy or quality of the service or its results. The service is provided as-is.

• The service may be discontinued at any time due to abuse or changes to the terms of our Esri institutional agreement.

• We do not offer instructions on the use of the service beyond what is found on this page below. Esri provides additional documentation on geocoding with ArcGIS Pro.

 

Instructions for Using the Geocoding Service with ArcGIS Pro

 

If you need to install and license ArcGIS Pro before using the geocoding service, please see the instructions provided on the ArcGIS Pro page.

 

1. Launch ArcGIS Pro, and choose to start a new project or open an existing project.
2. In the Catalog pane, right-click anywhere on the background. In the context menu that appears, select New -> New Server -> New ArcGIS Server Connection.

3. In the Add ArcGIS Server Connection dialog, enter the following server URL: https://cura-gis-web.asc.ohio-state.edu/arcgis. Click OK. It is not necessary to enter a username or password.

4. In the Servers folder of the Catalog, view the contents of the server and browse to the geocoding folder.

5. Right-click on the USA locator and click Add To Project.

6. In the Locators folder of the Catalog, verify that there is now a locator labeled geocoding/USA.

7. In the Geoprocessing pane, find the Geocode Addresses tool. Brief instructions for using the tool are provided in the next few steps.

8. In the Geocode Addresses dialog, select the Input Table you wish to geocode. This is often a .csv file or an Excel sheet but could also be a table that you have already loaded into ArcGIS Pro. Select the geocoding/USA locator from the Input Address Locator dropdown.

9. For each parameter in the Input Address Fields settings, select the field (column) in your table that provides the required information. ArcGIS Pro will attempt to select these for you based on your column headings, but you may need to fill in the gaps.

10. Specify the Output Feature Class where you want to the geocoded data to be saved. By default, the data will be saved in the default geodatabase for your project. You may select a different geodatabase or save the results as a shapefile if you prefer.
11. Click Run to begin geocoding. Some progress information will be displayed in the Geoprocessing Pane. Click View Details for more information.
12. When geocoding is finished, you might find that some records were not matched or returned unexpected results. In these cases, you can use the interactive rematch tool in ArcGIS Pro to manually review and correct addresses in your input table, reposition the location of a matched address, or select a different candidate location in the geocoding results. For more information about this process, see Esri's documentation on rematching locations converted from a table.