Calculation of Distance Between Two Addresses/Validation of Address

[mkeiffer]

Hello everyone!

I have two questions regarding using Alteryx Designer.  Can Designer be used to calculate the actual distance between two physical addresses and if so, is this a complex process?  I would want to do this with an address file that has about 500,000 addresses.

Also, can Alteryx be used to validate if a physical address is a real location and not a made up or phony address?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Mike

[brolin]

Hi @mkeiffer,

The short answer to both your questions is yes! Designer can validate postal addresses as well as calculate distances between address or lats & longs.

The following is for the US, so let me know if you are looking at addresses for another country.

The CASS Tool (https://help.alteryx.com/20221/designer/cass-tool) validates the address components against the USPS data. There are also other powerful address tools available and details can be found here: https://help.alteryx.com/20221/designer/address.

As for the distances between addresses, you'll need to leverage the US Geocoder tool to append geocodes to your addresses and then the spatial Distance tool (https://help.alteryx.com/20221/designer/distance-tool) to calculate distances.

Alteryx can also provide TomTom drive time data if this is of interest too.

Hope the above helps and let me know if you have any questions!

[DenisZ]

You can use the spacial analytics tools to calculate the distance between two points (for example if you have longtitude and latitude). Tools would be to first create the spacial points using "Create points" in the Spacial Analytics Toolbar, then you could use the "Distance" tool for example to find the distance in miles or kilometers. 

[Raj]

Yes you can count the actual distance between to points and it a easy process you just need some spatial tool and put them in right place 

(make sure your data contains latitude and longitude or points on map)

not so sure about validating the address because region selected will play an important role.

[mkeiffer]

Hey there, 

Thanks so much for answering my post and for the very helpful solutions.  It is appreciated very much!

Have a great day!

Mike

[mkeiffer]

Thank you everyone for taking the time to answer my post.  All of the solutions posted here are very helpful.

Thanks again!

Mike