Spatia Analysis

[goutdelete]

Hi All,

I'm still relatively new to Alteryx (so not to mention Alteryx Spatial).  I've watched a few video but in the demo videos people tend to have rather complete info (such as address or even Spatial info) and I wonder if I need certain details to make it work?

Here for example I have a list of BC government Evacuation Alerts & Orders for the recent BC Flooding (all public info, but can have some rather specific info with a certain address, all the way to just a name of a river).  Then I have my location that I want to match or see how close they're to the flood area or if it's exactly in the zone (my list has all the detailed info from full address to full post code but unfortunately I cannot post here).

Would my data be enough? or what do I need to make it work?  For example would Alteryx recognize something like "Lee Creek, Columbia-Shuswap Regional District, BC"?

Thanks so much!

[PhilipL]

Hi @goutdelete 

I looked at the data you posted, and as you observed, you just don't have enough spatial reference data to work with. Alteryx is excellent at cleaning, matching and analyzing data across sources (including spatial), but you haven't provided enough source data files to make the process work. 

Look for any spatial data sets from public and private sources in formats from ESRI, MapInfo, Google KML. Alteryx works well with those formats. Alteryx also offers a Canadian Spatial data package for purchase as well that may help. It provides extensive spatial refence data, including the ability to geocode Canadian addresses.

Hope this helps,

Phil

[goutdelete]

@PhilipL 

Thanks for the pointer! I forgot to post the link of the BC Flood data source: EmergencyMapBC (arcgis.com)

I assume it's the government that's lacking.  At our end we know very clear of each location's full address down to post code, which I suppose is sufficient (?)

I'm curious how do I transform the public government data (and cleaning since apparently there is some typo!) into a more meaningful way in order to do the analysis?  Can Alteryx's "Canadian Spatial data package" really help?  Or do I just need to somehow use those public or private service to fine the spatial info one by one from those government's evacuation orders?

Thanks again!

[PhilipL]

@goutdelete 

That looks like a great site for visualizing the flood/hazard event content, but it appears that only limited information can be downloaded, and in .csv (non spatial) format at that. I see that some of the location data could be useful, but many of the locations are descriptions or places, not addresses. And I don't know if long/lats are provided.

The Canadian Location Insights data set contains nationwide geospatial reference data, as well as address cleansing geocoding capabilities and is a valuable resource for geospatial analysis. 

[goutdelete]

Thanks @PhilipL!

I studied more and realized apparently I jumped a step or two with those youtube videos; I didn't realize I need to create that Alteryx Centroid point first.  I seem to see some posts that there are certain options to convert an address directly either using google or TomTom; are you (or anyone) familiar with these?

Indeed the government infomation is limited and some are rather "just a river or a lake".  What I had in my head is likely separate these orders into two groups, one with a rather defined spot and the other is not.  Then I'll map my target locations with two different logic/ thresholds.  The one without a pinpoint say it's a river, I'll just try to find the long/lats close to the middle point and draw a rather big radius to see the likely impacted locations (houses).

[Hollingsworth]

I wrote a macro that is in the public gallery that allows you to stream the polygon data from the EmergencyMapBC.com website.

Macro link: https://gallery.alteryx.com/#!app/Get-ArcGIS-layer/6109a2c08a93370394b94d36

There is a little detective work involved. I had to analyze the network traffic in Chrome (F12) find the URL. I then put the URL into a text input tool that fed the macro and it returned 85 polygons representing areas that were under some kind of alert.

I have attached the working workflow to this post, but you will need to go download the entire macro and get it set up for the workflow to work.

[goutdelete]

@Hollingsworth  Much appreciated!

I got sidetracked again unfortunately but will look into it for sure!  I actually found another python discussion to convert any address to the geo coordinates through google map.  We haven't exactly tried that yet.

On the other hand, I noticed lately with desktop/ web browser google map use more "plus codes" (something like this GC24+JP Montreal, Quebec).  One needs to grab long. / lat. using a phone app version.  I wonder if Alteryx reads plus codes too?

[Hollingsworth]

Yes and no.

Yes: The code you mentioned is a proprietary, but open geolocation system created by Google. Technical documentation: https://maps.google.com/pluscodes/technology/

No: In looking at the Alteryx public gallery (gallery.alteryx.com), I don't see that anyone has built a macro to translate those Plus codes into Lat/Lon coordinates or a SpatialObj.

Hope this helps.