Master Address Table (MAT) Integration is an additional service available to communities. With a MAT integration, ViewPoint can connect your city's address data to the ViewPoint Cloud site, providing you with more detailed information (such as owner, parcel number, zoning, etc) about the address while reviewing records and applications.
We offer two options: A one-time address data load, or a recurring nightly address data load.
With either option, employees will have access to the address data provided in the master address file, but can still enter new locations in ViewPoint Cloud on the fly if need be.
If your community chooses not to incorporate a master address table integration, the system instead pulls addresses from Google Maps. As you use the system, you can enter in additional background information for each property (e.g. owner, year built, zoning) manually. The system will remember any updates you make, so new information will only need to be entered once.
One Time Integration
The community provides a master address table, which ViewPoint data engineers bring into the community’s environment so that applicants can only apply for new records on official addresses, and more detailed information (e.g. ownership, zoning, lot size) can be made available in ViewPoint Cloud. The system will remember any updates you make, so as information changes (e.g. ownership changes), new information will only need to be entered once.
Automatic Recurring Updates
For a monthly service fee, we set up an automatic process to keep address data up-to-date. A ViewPoint staff member will set up a process to check nightly for updates, and the town will be responsible for providing a master address table (via our ftp site) and keeping it current.
Please note the nightly update will override any manual changes made in ViewPoint Cloud during the day. Also, certain actions, like changing core address information (house number, street) in ViewPoint Cloud will result in unlinking a location from the nightly updates. Ideally, those changes would be made in the source system (typically GIS or assessor's) and would then naturally propagate to ViewPoint Cloud during the nightly update.
How is the integration set up?
If you have this service, it will be set up during your implementation. The town will be responsible for providing a source file meeting the requirements outlined below, and a ViewPoint data engineer will take care of configuring the one-time or recurring load of the addresses.
Once the addresses have been loaded, you will have the opportunity to review the load and ensure that your source data was accurately loaded into the system.
Source File Requirements:
We highly recommend that the source of your data is an Assessor’s system or town GIS system that is the authoritative source of addresses for the town. Such a system will ideally provide a unique id for each location as described below.
File format: The address file should be provided as either a single CSV file or a single Microsoft Excel file. In the case of an Excel file, the file should have one sheet with the address table.
Data format: The data should be provided in a single table. The table must have exactly one row at the very top with the column labels. There should not be any extraneous or empty rows either above or below the table. Every row in the table represents a single address
Unique identifier: Every address must have a unique identifier (id). This id ensures the consistency of address information across multiple loads and updates.
Anytown, MA provides the address “1 MAIN ST, ANYTOWN, MA” with the unique id 12345. Sometime later, the town decides to rename MAIN ST to “VIEWPOINT WAY”. Because this represents an address update (and not a wholly new address) they update the row in their MAT with the id of 12345 to now have a street name of “VIEWPOINT WAY”. This change will then propagate to ViewPoint Cloud during the nightly update. If, instead, the town were to add a completely new address, they would need to provide a brand new unique identifier for the new address.
Other required data: Every address in our system must have a Street Number, Street Name, City, State, Postal Code, Latitude, and Longitude. We strongly suggest that you provide Street Number and Street Name explicitly, as we will convert missing street numbers to ‘0’ and missing street names to ‘NO STREET’. Street Number and Street Name must be provided in separate fields. If you do not provide City or State, we set it to the City and State of your town. Generally this is fine, but please note if your assessors department or any of your permitting/licensing departments manage regions outside the town or for multiple towns, this can result in incorrect addresses. If that is the case, please provide the city and state in your MAT. Since latitude/longitude and postal code are required by the application, if you do not explicitly provide these values (or if the latitude/longitude values provided are invalid), we will generate that information by integrating with Google Maps. ViewPoint is not responsible for the accuracy Google's data.
Other location data: We support fields for the following optional information:
Unit, city, state, country, GIS_ID, Year Built, MBL, Zoning, Lot Area, Book/Page, Water, Sewage, Occupancy Type, Building Type, and Property Name
Owner data: We support fields for the following owner information
Owner Name, Owner Street Number, Owner Street Name, Owner City, Owner State, Owner Postal Code, Owner Country, Owner Phone Number, Owner Email
Additional data: If there is additional information you wish to provide on a location, we provide a single Notes field which will also be displayed on the location page. If you provide a notes field in your MAT, we will load any text there to the location page.
Additional Requirements for Recurring Updates
It is very important that the format of the data file be consistent between uploads. Breaking changes can cause your data to not be properly loaded on a nightly basis. Here are some of the most important things to keep in mind.
File format: The master address file must be exported with the same name every time in order to be detected by our automated system. If you provided an excel file, that sheet containing the data should also have the same name with each export.
Data format: Similarly, the column names of the data must be kept consistent across each export, and should appear in the same order each time.
How to provide the source file?
If you have chosen a one-time upload, you can email the file directly to your ViewPoint implementation manager. If you have chosen to have a regularly updating job, you will need to provide the file via FTP (file transfer protocol).
We will provide you with credentials to upload a file to our FTP server. There are many possible workflows for uploading the file via FTP. Here is one possible way of doing so using the free program WinSCP:
Download and Install WinSCP
Open the program, you will be presented with a login screen
Select ‘New Site’ and fill in the session information
For ‘File Protocol’ select ‘FTP’
For ‘Host Name’ enter ‘viewgov.com’
For ‘Port Number’ enter ‘21’
For ‘User name’ enter the FULL username you were given. This will usually be something like ‘[email protected]’
For password, fill in the password you received from ViewPoint
Click ‘Login’
10.The next window will be split into a left and right side. The right side of the window represents the folder on the server where you can upload files. The simplest way to upload a file is to drag and drop a file from your computer.
11.When your file has uploaded, close WinSCP to disconnect
Common Pitfalls with the MAT process
Make sure to include a unique identifier for every address. Fields like MBL are often NOT unique among all addresses. If in doubt, check with the provider of your Assessor’s system.
Remember that file names and formats must stay the same for recurring jobs