Overview of Geographies

Geographies make it possible for you to set up validation for address elements such as states and cities to prevent address data entry errors. You should set up geographies data for the countries where you do business.

For example, if you're setting up sales territories by states in the US, it's a good idea to have salespeople select the states from a list rather than entering them manually. Preventing address entry errors ensures that the accounts are assigned to the correct territory and that opportunities are included in forecasts.

If you subscribe to the Oracle Address, Email, and Phone Verification service, you don't really need the validation. Using the service, salespeople can look up and enter valid addresses for most countries. See the Using Oracle Address, Email, and Phone Verification guide for more information.

Oracle licenses geography data from Loqate that you can import, at no additional cost. Or, you can license geography data from another supplier and import it from a file. For more information about importing third-party geography data, see the guide Understanding Import and Export Management for CX Sales and Fusion Service.

For more information on geographies and Loqate, see Overview of Geographies, Geographic Entities, and Locations

What the Setup Assistant Completes for Geographies

Using the Setup Assistant, you can import the geography data for up to three countries at a time. The assistant:

• Imports the geography data for up to three countries each time you run it.
• Enables the mapping of addresses for a specific country when you select the Geocoding option for that country.
• If you selected the Geocoding option for any country, the application schedules the Populate Location Latitude and Longitude Information process to automatically generate geographic coordinates from addresses. Oracle CX Sales Mobile and other applications use this to put addresses on a map.

What You Might Need to Do Manually

These are the items that you must complete manually to use them:

• Set up validation for address elements that you're using for sales territory assignment.

  If you're assigning accounts to salespeople by state, for example, having a list of values for States ensures that salespeople don't make mistakes during manual address entry.

• Import geographies for additional countries.
• Enable geocoding for additional countries.
• If you didn't enable geocoding in the Setup Assistant, you must run the Populate Location Latitude and Longitude Process on a regular schedule.