Table of Contents
How primary address is determined
A profile can include up to seven addresses. The first address added to a person's profile is designated as the primary address. If you import a person with multiple addresses, the primary address will be decided by the following hierarchy.
Seven types of physical address in a profile:
1. home
2. registered
3. billing
4. work
5. mailing
6. user-submitted
7. Twitter
There is only one situation when primary address will change automatically. When a broadcaster's Twitter followers are automatically added to your nation, the followers' Twitter address is imported and marked as primary address. As soon as another location is added to a Twitter follower's profile, it will be designated as the primary address. In every other situation, the primary address will remain static.
How to edit primary address
A control panel user can update which address is designated primary address on a person's profile or via batch update.
Changing primary address on a profile
The primary address can be updated from the Edit > Settings area in a profile.
Scroll down until you see the primary address section. You can use the dropdown menu to select a new primary address or click Edit underneath it to edit the actual address (You can also click on the Location tab to do this).
The dropdown menu lists all addresses associated with the profile. Select the correct primary address. Click the Save person button to save your changes.
Changing primary address via batch update
To select the same type of address as primary address for multiple people, first add those people to a list. Within the list, go to Batch update > People.
1. Select the address type from the Primary address dropdown menu.
2. Click the Update all XX people button. Note that profiles without this type of address won't be updated.
Importing addresses
Five addresses can be imported.
1. Home address - cannot be connected to an organization profile.
2. Registered address - can only be included in voter file and vote history imports.
3. Billing address - can only be included in donation imports.
4. Work address - the main address for an organization profile. Can only be included in one-time, donation, and membership imports.
5. Mailing address - can only be included in one-time or donation imports.
If a home address does not exist in a record, one of these fields must be imported to create a new home address: address1, city, or country code.
Similarly, for registered, billing, work, or mailing address, one of these fields must be imported to create a new address: address1, street name, city, zip5, or country code.
Mailing and registered addresses can be imported with these elements in different fields: street name, street number, street prefix, street suffix, street type, and unit number. If you choose to map to those fields, you cannot map to the address1, address2, and address3 fields.
How existing addresses are affected by address imports
When overwrite existing data is checked, an entire address will be overwritten by an import if any one field from that address is mapped. An import cannot fill in specific fields within an address without changing all fields in that address. This is designed to ensure an import does not create non-existent addresses (e.g. New York City in the city field with Alberta in the state field).
If only registered state is imported, it will not update the registered address. The registered state imported will be used, along with the state file ID, as a unique identifier. If only registered county and registered state are imported, the registered address will not be updated. These fields, along with the county file ID, will be used as a unique identifier.
Importing international addresses
We recommend including a postal code and country code when importing an address outside of the nation's default country.
A nation's default country is the country listed in its address at Settings > Contact.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) developed a two-letter code that indicates the names of countries and dependent territories. Your database recognizes the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes which are listed on Wikipedia.
Related HOWTOs
How to use map view and turf cutting
How to use householding
Geocoding addresses
Overwrite existing data with imports
How to create a list
Fields available for import