Geocoding Your Address Data in Batches

Geocoding is the process of finding geographical coordinates (latitude/longitude) for an address to plot the address on the map. When you upload a CSV or Excel file which has address data, Spectrum Spatial Analyst geocodes the address data in batches before rendering it on the map. If there are thousands of records in your source file, batch Geocoding works as described below.

Note: The Geocoding option is available only if the map project is using either the on-line Precisely API geocode service or a locally installed Spectrum Global Geocoding module. For more information on Precisely API see, https://developer.precisely.com/apis/geocode.
  • By default, the Precisely API service has a geocode limit of 1000 records per request, therefore only the first 1000 records would be geocoded if your file is large. Geocoding more than 1000 records by making multiple requests can take a long time (more than a few minutes). If you have larger datasets, we recommend to perform geocoding as a separate step, and then upload the CSV or Excel using Spectrum Spatial Analyst.
  • The Global Geocoding Module is deployed locally to Spectrum. Hence it is faster to access and is usually on the same server that Spectrum Spatial Analyst is deployed on. Analyst will make multiple requests to this service if needed. There is a batch size limit which determines how many records can be geocoded in one request. The default is only 100 records. Admins can modify this limit to increase this from 100 to a higher value. The steps are given below. We recommend increasing this limit to 1000 for better performance with large dataset.

The number of records Spectrum Spatial Analyst will attempt to geocode prior to uploading is summarized in the table below.

Geocoder Batch size Maximum records geocoded by Analyst
Precisely API This is fixed at 1000 and cannot be changed Spectrum Spatial Analyst will make only 1 request to geocode a maximum of 1000 records
Global Geocoding module Is set under 500 (note that the default is only 100) Spectrum Spatial Analyst will make up to 25 requests to geocode records. With a batch size of 100, only the first 2,500 records would be geocoded.
Global Geocoding module Is set at 1000 Spectrum Spatial Analyst will geocode a maximum of 10,000 records, and make as many requests as needed to reach this limit
Note: If the CSV or Excel file is being added as a vector layer (rather than being directly uploaded) by a user who is not an admin or sub-admin, the batch size limit is assumed to be 100. This is because Spectrum Spatial Analyst is not able to request the batch size unless the user is in an admin, spatial-admin or spatial-sub-admin role.

Increasing Batch Geocoding Limit

The batch size for a global geocoding database can be modified by following the steps below.

  1. Log into Spectrum Management Console as an admin (a sub-admin will not always have the rights to change batch size)

  2. Choose Resources and then Spectrum Databases.

  3. Pick one of the databases used by the Global Geocoding module.

  4. You will be taken to the Edit Database page for the database.
  5. Scroll down and select Override advanced settings.

  6. Expand the Java Properties section.

  7. Inside you will see a property called MAXIMUM_BATCH_SIZE.

  8. Change its value to 1000 (Do not change its name or add/remove any other properties).

  9. Then click Save at the top right of the page to save the setting.

  10. Repeat for other Global Geocoding module databases if you have more than one databases.