Add attributes from multiple polygon layers to a Point Address locator in ArcGIS Pro

Summary

Users can create Locators in ArcGIS Pro to use later in geocoding and searching for assets and addresses. Some users may have Point Address reference data that does not contain all the required attributes that they may eventually need in their Locate or Geocoding results.

Some examples where incorporating polygon fields into a Point Address locator would be useful:

• Emergency dispatchers are provided with an address to which they need to direct appropriate services. They need to provide the city district to which the address belongs. 
• A city administrator wants to create a locator service that returns the Parcel ID number to a citizen when they look up their address. They have been provided Point Address point data and a Parcel polygon feature class.
• A GIS Analyst is tasked with creating an address locator for their state. The locator result must return the county, city, and voting district, after searching for an address. 

Cause

Using the Spatial Join tool on a single polygon layer and point data can result in fields being incorporated into the Point Address input data. However, this method fails for successive spatial joins on polygons as adding that many Custom Output Fields to the locator may result in incorrect geocoding results. Points that fall outside the polygon extent can be unmatched in the locator since they were not given polygon attribute data in the Spatial Join. Polygons of varying size and extent may not have their attributes joined with other polygons if they do not exactly meet the Spatial Join criteria, resulting in attributes not being joined to the point layer. Using this method for multiple polygon layers can result in a less accurate locator that does not work as expected. There is a supported workflow to add Polygon Fields to a Point Address locator, even for multiple polygon datasets and fields. 

Procedure

To successfully create a locator that incorporates polygon attribute data, you must first have correct and sufficient data. Locators are only able to find locations that are provided in the source data and are only as accurate as the provided data. They do not show a location or geocoding result that is not originally in the source data. 

Once the necessary source data is obtained, in this instance the Point Address point data and the polygon layers, follow these steps.

1. Combine the datasets that have the same geometry types.
   1. If there are multiple polygon feature classes, use the Union or Merge tools to create a single polygon feature class with the necessary attributes. The resulting polygon layer should contain fields from all participating polygons. 
   2. Do the same for the Point Address data, making sure that no address attributes are blank in the resulting point feature class. The required fields will vary based on the locator role being used later. 
2. Use the Create Locator tool to create a Point Address locator.
   • If you are not familiar with creating a locator, a tutorial can be found here.
3. After the tool completes, use the Add Polygon Fields to Locator tool to enrich the Point Address locator with the fields from the polygon layers. 
   1. For the Input Locator, use the previously created Point Address Locator. This must be a local locator and not an existing locator service.
   2. For the Polygon Features, use the single polygon layer that was created in step 1. The tool will not take multiple polygons which is why they must be combined prior to running the tool.
   3. For Polygon Output Field(s), select the fields from the polygon layer that should be incorporated into the locator. 
   4. Run the tool.
4. After the tool completes, verify that the fields have been added. 
   1. Open the Locate pane and search for a known address using the updated locator. Based on where the address is located, fields from the polygons it resides in should appear in the results. 
   2. Use the Geocode Addresses tool to geocode a table of addresses. After the points are output to a map, open the attribute table to see if the fields from the polygons have been populated. 

To summarize:

1. Obtain valid and detailed point address data.
2. Merge or Union the polygon layers if using more than one.
3. Create the Point Address locator.
4. Use the Add Polygon Fields to Locator tool to add the polygon fields to the locator. 
5. Verify the results.