Steve Johnson and the IT Group has prepared a new Application Note entitled “Address Entry Tricks for the Public Education Database” that includes a special section for units in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well. As you are entering your 2015 courses into the database, you may find this application note of particular value.

The application note explains in detail how the PE Dashboard validates the addresses you enter, and gives you tips and tricks for getting validation almost every time, with the markers on the automatically generated PE Course Flyer and Google Maps link, to the degree possible, accurately reflecting the true location of your course’s meeting place.

The latest copy of this application note can always be found online at the following permalink:

http://wow.uscgaux.info/user_docs/PE_Database_Address_Entry_Tricks.pdf

As always, if you have difficulty entering any address, after consulting with and following this new Application Note, please use the provided “Feedback/Bug Report” button at the bottom of the PE Dashboard.

WOW gets its information about the meeting place, day, and time of you flotilla, division or district from the "Unit Record" in AuxDirectory (AuxOfficer). Your flotilla commander, when logged onto AuxDirectory can change this, and other information, which will then show up in WOW the next time you open a fresh Web browser and go to your site.

WOW expects you unit to meet monthly, and on the "About this Unit" page, automatically tacks on "of each month" after the meeting day that you enter.  For example, if your meeting day in AuxDirectory is "3rd Monday", then WOW displays "3rd Monday of each month".

What do you do if your unit meets irregularly, and  you want to suppress that "of each month" text? Easy: simply enter a pound sign ("#") at the end of the meeting day field, and WOW will suppress the extra text.

For example, Division 095-45 meets every other month, from January. When the SO-CS entered "3rd Thurs in Jan, Mar, May, Jul, Sep, and Nov" she got "3rd Thurs in Jan, Mar, May, Jul, Sep, and Nov of each month" -- a nonsensical result.

However, when she entered "3rd Thurs in Jan, Mar, May, Jul, Sep, and Nov#" (note the #-sign after "Nov") WOW displayed "3rd Thurs in Jan, Mar, May, Jul, Sep, and Nov".

This can be useful for Districts, for example, that have four (4) meetings a year on specific dates: "Jan 23, Apr 15, July 23, Nov 1. Other times by announcement.#" entered into AuxDirectory will reproduce only that text (minus the #-sign).

If your meeting times are also irregular, leave the meeting time field blank. You can add the time in the meeting day field, if desperate, as in "Jan 23 (0900), Apr 15 (1300), July 23 (0900), Nov 1 (1030). Other times by announcement.#".

Occasionally, PE officers trying to enter a course into WOW's National Public Education Course Database get an error message that they have a bad address, which they KNOW (wink, wink) is correct.

The first line of defense is to check the address with the U.S. Postal Service, at their "Look Up a ZIP Code" page. Then, use the resulting address for entering into the PE Course Dashboard, letter for letter, copying the same abbreviations (ST for Street, FT for Fort, etc.). This will usually do the trick.

However, some addresses resist even this.  WOW uses Yahoo!'s geocoding Web service to validate addresses and get the meeting location's latitude and longitude for the marker on the map found on the course flyer. The reason WOW will not accept a questionable address is to avoid producing a map that shows the location of the course in, say, the Canary Islands.  But Yahoo! is actually more discriminating than the Post Office, and on occasion will find an address that it believes exists in more two or more places, the Zip Code notwithstanding

In such a case the PE Dashboard will reject the address and say that it is ambiguous.  What you can do then is to give it a little help: simply tack on the county name after the city, in the city field.

For example, if the address "322 Huff Street, Aransas Pass, TX, 78336" comes back ambiguous (it does), simply tack on the county name (San Patricio) right after the city name, in the "City" field:

Before: "Aransas Pass"
After: "Aransas Pass, San Patricio County"

You can also use the IT Directorates Geotest Utility to experiment with addresses (or find the geodesic coordinates -- i.e., latitude and longitude -- of your flotilla's meeting location for entry into AuxDirectory, etc.) and see how Yahoo's geocoder acts with a specific address. Sometimes, with a little experimentation, you can find the right "tweak" on the address (such as changing "Fort" to "FT" or Harbor to "Hbr") that does the trick.

The WOW Geotest Utility is at: wow.uscgaux.info/geotest.php.

Finally, note that if your course is being held on a military base, the official USPS address of that location is that of that base, such as "McClellan AFB, CA" rather than the surrounding city.