Entering name to find place

[brad_j_crep]

Hi, I'm trying to create an app where the user is trying to find demographics for a particular place, a CBSA let's say.  I'd like them to be able to type in the CBSA name or city within a CBSA (whether spelling is correct or not) and the app will be able to get them their demographics for that CBSA based on the CBSA boundaries.  I was thinking about using fuzzy match to find the almost correct name and if no match could be found use an error message to say "check spelling or use the drop down list to select CBSA."  The drop down list would be my backup to choose.  Thing is I don't know how to use the fuzzy match to find the right CBSA if the name is kinda close or if that is even the best tool to use in this instance?

Any ideas would be appreciated.  Thank you community.

Brad

[joe_strellis · Accepted solution]

I think you would be best to have two chained apps.

It's going to be a tricky one. But I think you could have your first app where the user types what they want. 

Within this app you can have the fuzzy match against all the possibilities. Then this can return the results to a separate file, the second app can then read this file for a dropdown for the user to then choose from.

If you have the fuzzy match settings quite loose this should be a bit better. To recommend the fuzzy match settings it would be better to know the types of rows you have.

I hope that makes sense?