User:Thortok2000

Intro/Summary

This guide is to help you with destination issues!

It is currently a work in progress and should not be followed as a standard until it has been approved and added to the main wiki. This is Thortok2000's personal sandbox and should be treated as such. =P

Destination Correcting

It is a common complaint of most Wazers that their destination was not set at the correct location. Knowing how to handle this kind of UR and fixing it for our Wazers will go a long way towards satisfaction in the product and continued usage, and possibly even recommending it to others!

The irony of the situation is that often this problem is not actually caused by Waze. Waze is currently growing a large list of mapped places, but where a place is not mapped, or not mapped correctly, other search providers like Google are still used as a fallback.

This page will attempt to explain in more detail why a user might get routed to the wrong spot and how you can work around it and/or fix it!

Take note that even after it's fixed, the app will not automatically update position data for already-obtained destinations! Even after an address has been adjusted or a place added or updated, the app will retain the stale search result's position data indefinitely and navigation will continue to fail. To correct this, remind the reporter to remove any existing instances of the destination in the recents and favorites lists and then search for the destination again from scratch.

Step 1: Get the Address in Question

You can't fix anything if you don't know what address the user needs fixed. So, the first thing you'll need to do is ask them what the address they want fixed is. This is not included in the report by default for privacy reasons; if the user wishes to give this information to you it is of course their prerogative. But we can't fix it if we don't know what to fix!

Step 2: Check for Business Name (If Applicable)

As will be the case with a good portion of UR's for destination issues, the location can easily be in a commercial area. If so, chances are it's referring to a business. It's often good to ask your Wazer what the business name is when asking for the address, but if they only give you the address you can attempt to google a business name yourself (or if they only give you the business name you'll need to look up the address for it, too.) To ensure the problem doesn't happen again and to be a good editor, you'll need both business name and address when correcting businesses.

Step 3: How to Fix

Nudging House Number in Waze

Setting a House Number in Waze is easy. You can follow the instructions here. Also remember to set the stop point. You should pretty much always do this every single time you go to correct an address, even if you wind up also doing one or more of the other methods.

If the house number already exists, give it a 'nudge', moving it by at least one pixel, and save your work. This will ensure that the house number for that street and city (and any street/city combination in the alt names) of the segment that house number's stop point is on, will be searchable destinations in Waze and override matching data from other providers.

This only helps when searching by address, though. Note that the stop point must be on a segment with the street's name that the address includes. You are currently unable to set a stop point anywhere else, using the House Number system.

For situations where you would rather route to the 'closest drivable surface', use place points. When a residential place point is added, it will override the house number system. For businesses however, it's always good to nudge the house number to be used as a fallback, even if a place point also exists, in case a user searches for the business by address instead of by name. And it's still a good habit to be in for residential areas, even if a point exists!

Put a Drivable Surface Closer

Most destination search results, including all searches done by business name instead of by address, are going to be either from a 3rd party provider such as Google, or routing to a place mapped in Waze. When this is done, coordinates are given to Waze and Waze sets the checkered flag at that exact spot, and then says you have reached your destination when you get to the closest mapped drivable surface to that spot. Usually this is all that's needed for proper routing, but it can sometimes cause errors, which is why we get UR's about it!

While Waze's area places have a stop point you can set that fixes the issue quite easily, point-type places do not. In some cases it would be against the standard to move the point place any closer to the road, or the use of a non-Waze search result is common enough that we may have to map roads closer to the coordinates provided by the search result anyway.

If the closest drivable surface is incorrect, typically the road 'behind' the location, then this issue is easily fixed by mapping a drivable surface closer. This most commonly means the parking lot in front of the address for business locations. For residential, it might mean mapping the driveway. Either way, make sure to follow standards!

This is not an acceptable reason to map a drivable surface that doesn't exist. If you have nowhere to map a drivable surface closer, you will have to use the final method.

Mapping a Place in Waze

This is well covered in the places wiki. Make sure to map them to the standard. The reason this is pertinent to destination issues however is that by adding (or updating) a place in Waze, it provides a better search result than erroneous data in other providers, such as Google. The more accurately you map a place, the better the data in Waze will be for all future Wazers trying to find this destination!

For routing issues, you may want to slightly nudge the point (or stop point of an area) closer to the drivable surface you want the destination to be. Make sure to follow standards as you do so, though.

Educating the User: How to do this in the app

Most users don't have access to the WME to make changes themselves. Even if they do, all place changes by rank 1 editors are automatically PURs to be approved by higher level editors, until they become 'trusted.'

You can't mess with house numbers or mapping drivable surfaces closer in the app. But when it comes to places, those can be done in the app. Either by you, or by any other user that wishes to help improve the map, even if they've never signed in to WME. Whenever anyone makes an edit to a place, whether it's in WME or the app, and they are 'trusted', the edit goes through automatically. If they are not trusted, or they are suggesting an edit to a place that's locked higher than their editor rank (and anyone who's never been in WME is treated as rank 1), then it comes through as a PUR (even if the edit is made in WME instead of the app).

Unfortunately, there's not an easy way to communicate with people who submit PUR's, like there is with UR's. You can only either approve or deny.

To that end, if you encounter a UR with a destination issue, it's recommended to do everything you can to fix it yourself. Only after doing so should you recommend the possibility of submitting PUR's instead of UR's. Below is a breakdown of the three methods of submitting PUR's (or making edits, if trusted) via the app. Here is some suggested verbiage for closing a destination issue UR:

I've gone ahead and updated Waze's information for this destination. In the future, the best way to report this would be to provide information directly via the app! After searching for the destination, but before hitting 'Go', you can scroll down and suggest an edit or report a problem. If you are physically at the correct location, you can also report a 'place update' instead of a 'map problem' to create a new place. And a final option is to hit the camera icon after arriving at a destination. Any of these methods adds or updates the data in Waze so that it can be used instead of using bad search result data from Google or other providers. You even score points when you do this! Thanks for helping to make the Waze map better for everyone!

Want to take even more direct action in improving the map? Become a volunteer map editor like us! Then you can edit anywhere you've driven from the comfort of your web browser! To begin, just go to https://www.waze.com/editor We sure could use your help!

Suggest an Edit / Report a Problem

Best method: After searching for the destination, but before hitting 'Go', you can scroll down and suggest an edit or report a problem.

Pros:

• Don't have to be physically at the location, can do from anywhere.
• Don't have to take a picture.

Cons:

• Has to already be mapped in Waze or those options don't appear. Doesn't work when choosing a search result from another provider.

Submit a Place Update

Report a 'place update' instead of a 'map problem' to create a new place.

Pros:

• Based on your location, suggests road names and possible duplicates while creating place.
• After creating the place, it is now in Waze and can be edited using the first method (the confirmation screen for creating a new place gives an option to edit additional details).

Cons:

• Requires that you take a picture.
• Requires that you are at or near the intended location.

Submit a Photo Reminder

The app, by default, prompts to submit a photo when you reach your destination. This is essentially the same as submitting a place update (and includes the same pros and cons), although it copies the name from your search result. If your search result was already a Waze place, it updates that instead of making a duplicate.

Pros:

• Helps prevent duplicates of Waze places if the Waze search result is used.
• Confirms that you're already near the right spot or you wouldn't get the reminder.
• Copies name from search result if it came from another provider.
• Setting is enabled by default to remind people to help submit place updates.

Cons:

• Requires that you take a picture, even if place already exists in Waze.
• Requires that you set your destination in Waze.
• Can be turned off and cannot be used if it was not turned on before you got there.