Mapping Hacks

I received an email me asking if there was a way to get a latitude and longitude from a number which his ERP calls a ‘Geocode.’

Forgive my confusion, since I thought the whole point of ‘geocoding’ was to get coordinates, or a code of some sort, which would let you specify the location of something on the Earth.

It turns out that this person’s vendor, Vertex ‘where taxation meets innovation,’ has created the ‘Vertex GeoCoder™’ which appears to be both a super and sub set of a georeferenced zip code database, with all of the cross jurisdictional ugliness of zip codes removed.

For example, zip code 80227 includes parts of both Denver and Lakewood Colorado and so is in two different tax jurisdictions.  At least, it used to include parts of both Denver and Lakewood.  It is possible that it has been split or reassigned.  That is one of the main advantages of their ‘geocode’ system.

That is fine.  Even useful if you are trying to manage different tax jurisdictions.  Except that once you assign a number and call it a ‘geocode’ your customers are going to want to act like they have something which will let them map and analyze their data.

And so I was asked if there was a way to get Latitude and Longitude out of this so called ‘geocode.’

I made one of the most frustrating telephone calls of my life.  The answer is that this is their proprietery scheme, and I use the word ’scheme’ in the most perjorative sense, and that they won’t even answer my question without ‘logging’ the call and determing that the customer’s support agreements were up to date.

I told the representative that I did not feel entitled, for privacy reasons, to reveal the name of my contact person to a third party.
I asked questions like ‘do you have a product this person can buy which will let them turn a ‘geocode’ into a latitude and longitude?’  But no, even the capabilities of the mythical ‘geocode’ were to be hidden from me.

I am, frankly, disgusted.

Posted in geodata, data, annoying_gits, disaster |

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