Find Nearest for all records... Not just within certain radius...

[MonBrazier]

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to find the nearest University Campus for each student. And a lot of our students are further away than 100 kilometers, so the limiter on the Find Nearest tool is not great...

I want to find the nearest campus for any student, regardless of where they are. Is there a way to bi-pass that max distance limiter on the Find Nearest tool? Or is there another way I can do this?

Any help would be greatly appreciated :)

Thanks!

Mon

[The_Data_Loop · Accepted solution]

You would use the distance tool to find the distance between schools and the student. Rather than using the find nearest, you would need to find that yourself after finding the distance.

From there it would be a simple process of associating the closest school to the student. 

Actually a pretty fun little project and there are many ways to accomplish this.  Let us know if you need further help.

[MonBrazier]

Thanks very much :)

I used the distance tool like you suggested, then sorted the output by distance, and then summarised the output to grab the first record.

[BenMoss · Accepted solution]

Hi @MonBrazier,

I know this is resolved by using the create distance tool, but as an FYI, irrespective of what is in the dropdown you can type in whatever number you like in the box, and that can be any number (I just tested with a million and it holds).

Ben 

[MonBrazier]

Wow, that's interesting :) Thanks!!