Locations Without Street Addresses

In many parts of the world a home has no street address. Publishers there keep track of a return visit by its location — the GPS coordinates the phone shows, a Plus Code from Google Maps, or a pinned spot in a maps app. Field Service Companion understands all of those. This article explains what you can enter, how the app uses it, and how to get directions back to the door.

Coordinates you enter are read and understood on your phone, and they are never sent to Field Service Companion. Two things do still reach the outside world, exactly as they do for a normal address: drawing the map needs an internet connection, and looking up the town after a short Plus Code goes through your phone's own mapping service.

What You Can Put in the Address Field

The Address field on a contact accepts a location in any of these forms. The app recognises them automatically — there is no separate setting to turn on.

| What you have | Example | Where it comes from | |---|---|---| | Decimal coordinates | -18.9137, 47.5361 | Most GPS and maps apps, and the "copy coordinates" option after dropping a pin | | Coordinates in parentheses | (34.164198, -84.450426) | Apple Maps → drop a pin → copy | | Coordinates with hemisphere letters | 18.9137 S, 47.5361 E or S 18.9137 E 47.5361 | Some GPS apps and handheld receivers | | Degrees, minutes and seconds | 18°54'49"S 47°32'10"E | Older GPS units, paper maps, some navigation apps | | Decimal comma | -18,9137 47,5361 | Phones set to French, Portuguese, Spanish and other locales | | A Plus Code | 5HH93GPP+GC or 3GPP+GC Antananarivo | Google Maps — shown on every place card | | A location link | https://maps.google.com/?q=-18.9137,47.5361 or geo:-18.9137,47.5361 | "Share" from Google Maps or Apple Maps |

The order is always latitude first, then longitude, unless hemisphere letters say otherwise. Coordinates that would land in the ocean at 0°, 0° or outside the valid range are not accepted, so a typo cannot silently place a pin on the wrong continent.

Ordinary street addresses are unaffected. The app only treats an entry as a location when it is unmistakably one.

Where to Get the Coordinates

• Apple Maps — Touch and hold the spot to drop a pin, swipe up on the card, then touch and hold the coordinates to copy them.
• Google Maps — Touch and hold the spot to drop a pin. The coordinates appear in the search box at the top; tap them to copy. The place card also shows a Plus Code, which you can copy instead.
• Standing at the door — Use the Use my location chip on the New Contact form (see below).

Using "Use My Location" Where There Is No Street

The Use my location chip on the New Contact form fills the address from where you are standing. Where a street address exists, the chip fills it in as usual.

Where there is no street, the app does not guess. Instead it offers a choice:

• Use my coordinates — Inserts your exact GPS position, for example -18.913700, 47.536100. This is the right choice at a home with no address: the pin lands on the door.
• Use "Town, Region" — If the phone could at least work out the town, you can use that text instead. Be aware the pin will sit at the town centre, not the door.

If the phone could not find any address at all, only the coordinates option is offered. You can always type something else instead.

Turn on Remember my choice in that sheet and the app stops asking: from then on it fills a street address when there is one and your coordinates when there is not.

Choosing What the Chip Does

Under Settings → Map & directions → Location from GPS you can pick how the chip behaves whenever there is no street address:

| Choice | What happens | |---|---| | Ask me when there is no street (the default) | The sheet above appears each time. | | Street address, else coordinates | Fills the street address when the phone finds one; otherwise inserts your coordinates straight away, with a short note. The natural choice where most homes have no address. | | Always coordinates | Skips the address lookup entirely and always inserts your exact position — for places where even a returned street address is unreliable. |

Whichever you choose, a street address found by the phone is used as-is in the first two modes, because a standard address is what most people expect to see and share.

The chip waits for a precise GPS reading before it does anything, so the coordinates it inserts are accurate to a few metres. Outdoors with a clear view of the sky this takes a few seconds; indoors it can take longer or not succeed.

How the App Uses a Location

Once a contact has coordinates, a Plus Code or a location link:

• The Map shows a pin at that exact point, and the pin's colour and fill reflect how recently you visited, just like any other contact.
• The Nearest view on the Dashboard measures distance from your current position to that point.
• Directions hands the exact point to your directions app, so the app navigates to the door rather than searching for a name.

You can edit the location at any time from the contact's Edit screen. Changing it moves the pin.

About Plus Codes

A Plus Code is a short code that stands for a small square on the map, about the size of a house. Google Maps shows one for every place, and many countries use them officially where streets have no names.

• A full code such as 5HH93GPP+GC works on its own.
• A short code such as 3GPP+GC needs the town after it: 3GPP+GC Antananarivo. The app looks up the town, then works out which square the code means.

Plus Codes are decoded on your phone. No lookup service is involved for a full code.

Getting Directions Back

Soon after you start using the app, it asks once which directions app you prefer — Google Maps, Apple Maps or Waze, whichever are installed on your phone. In many countries Google Maps has far better road coverage than Apple Maps, so it is worth choosing deliberately. If only one is installed there is nothing to choose, so the app does not ask.

You can change your answer at any time under Settings → Map & directions → Directions app, including going back to being asked each time you tap Directions. See Using the Map View for the details.

If a Pin Does Not Appear

• Check the order: latitude first, then longitude. Antananarivo is -18.9, 47.5, not 47.5, -18.9.
• Check the sign or hemisphere letter. Southern latitudes and western longitudes are negative, or carry S / W.
• A short Plus Code needs the town name after it.
• A copied link must contain the numbers; some shortened links (for example maps.app.goo.gl/…) do not, so copy the coordinates instead.
• The map needs an internet connection to draw the map tiles, even though your own pins are worked out on the phone.

Privacy

Coordinates you enter are stored on your phone only, encrypted like the rest of your records. When the app has to look up a town name for a short Plus Code, that lookup goes through your phone's own mapping service, exactly as a typed address does. See Privacy and Your Data.