How GeoDirectory is Updated

How exactly is GeoDirectory updated? As this is one of our most frequently asked questions, we thought we’d do a short blog to demystify what we do here in GeoDirectory to bring you such a large volume of high quality data.

But first, here is a little background information on who we are and what we do! Set up over 20 years ago to create a directory of all the residential and commercial addresses in Ireland, GeoDirectory's database currently contains over 1.9 million buildings and 2.2 million addresses in the Republic of Ireland. The database has a holistic view of each building containing the address, type of building, height, ground floor, boundary information and geocodes. The combination of An Post’s intimate knowledge of every building in every village, town and city in the Republic of Ireland with the unmatched technology and geographical expertise of Ordnance Survey Ireland, ensures GeoDirectory has the most powerful and sophisticated address database in Ireland.

Building on this directory, we have developed a business data toolkit that is used by businesses of all sizes, in all sectors and industries, from delivering pizzas to ensuring emergency services reach their intended location and a whole host of services in between. With customers ranging from Government departments to private organisations, our data has proven to create opportunities and unlock crucial insights to help businesses enhance efficiencies and increase revenue.

So now, how exactly do we collect and maintain our data?

It is a multi-faceted approach; taking in information from a number of stakeholders, feedback from customers and expertise from our full-time staff. The 3 key stakeholders that feed into this process are:

A dedicated An Post team debrief and record new and updated addresses from delivery staff. This process is on a rolling basis and occurs biannually. Using a proactive approach and other information sources (such as internal/customer feedback, developers, local authorities, commencement orders etc.) ensure the data is stored accurately and maintained in a fit for purpose state.

This data intelligence is then fed into a centralised oracle database. The An Post team conduct a weekly quality review of both the data entry and any anomalies they may find. Feedback and input from customers is also welcome and if confirmed on the ground, the team will then incorporate the suggested changes into the database (Eg. a customer looking to change their business name).

The staff have built a strong working relationship with other organisations including local authorities and developers. Using information from these sources, they will then visit these addresses on the ground to confirm the information before entering it into the database.

OSi are partners in this endeavour and also update and maintain the data. They add a rich source of information including the complete boundary set (county, electoral division (ED), townland and small area), geocodes in the format of east, north; ITM_east, ITM_north; latitude and longitude. They also provide the height of the building, the height of the ground at pavement level and the floor area in square metres.
A geocode in one of the three formats mentioned above positions the building on the Earth’s surface. In other words, overlaying a geocoded building on a map will show you precisely where it is situated. This is used by Sat Nav to navigate the exact building location. It is accurate to + or – 1 metre.

OSi then send this information back to An Post on a nightly basis so it is combined with the data already captured to create the GeoDirectory database.

The final piece of the puzzle, the part that brings the data to you, comes from the GeoDirectory team. GeoDirectory receives all the data from OSi and An Post on a quarterly basis. They quality assure and specify the data according to each customer’s requirements. For example, a customer may request the full dataset by county or ED only. They may also request the option of tailoring the data using GIS boundaries specific areas.

No address database can ever remain static so every year the GeoDirectory team makes up to 600,000 changes (close a third of the database) as new buildings are constructed, addresses are amended or reclassified, as companies relocate and as new companies are established while others cease trading.
Using a team of data scientists and technology experts, GeoDirectory provides the data in a number of different formats and product types. Each product has its own individual dataset and can be tailored specifically to each business. Take a look at our business data toolkit below: