As you may or may not know, one of the best features of Fulcrum is the drag and drop form builder. Recently, we added support for a new type of field that many users have asked for: address fields.
As with most other field types you can specify a label, description, if it is a required field, and when it is visible. One new option that is only available to address fields is Auto Populate. Enabling this option instructs the mobile client to perform what is known as “reverse geocoding” on the location associated with the record.
Reverse geocoding is the process of translating latitude and longitude coordinates into addresses. By using a reverse geocoding service provided by Google or Apple, the mobile client can automatically populate the various parts of an address such as street name, city, state, and postal code. However, sometimes the service can not determine all the parts (common example is street number), so some fields may be left blank. Not to worry though as you can still edit each individual part of the address manually.
When it comes time to export your collected data, address fields will get split into several columns, one for each part of the address. The names of the columns follow the specification written by the OASIS Customer Information Quality Committee (CIQ) and are listed below with their respective U.S. address equivalents.
- sub_thoroughfare: Street Number
- thoroughfare: Street Name
- suite: Apt / Suite / Unit
- locality: City
- sub_admin_area: County
- admin_area: State / Province
- postal_code: Postal / Zip Code
- country: Country Name
We hope you will find the new auto-populating address field to be extremely useful and time saving in your data collection efforts. As always, we welcome feedback and suggestions on new and existing features, so please contact us and let us know!