Uploading POIs to Rand McNally

You are able to upload POI files to the Rand McNally GPS very easily. You download the file, open the Rand McNally dock, install the files and it will finish the next time you plug it into your car. I use the 730 for both work (motorcoach driver) as well as in my car. I love the fact that it has a mode for bus and not just truck. The 7 inch screen is nice to have as well.

Rand-McNalley uses a different CSV format from Garmin so only download files specified as GPX format. On POI-Factory's download page there is an option to select RM CSV format which is automatically converted from the Garmin GPX format.

I've wasted several days and lots of hours trying to go thru this process. The vast majority of the time, after powering up to install the new POI's (from POI Factory), I get many more "not installing" than installing...always coming up with "wrong format errors". This is despite carefully selecting the CSV formatted for Rand McNally units. When trying to open the POPI category, I get "no locations within nearby area" or words to that effect....nothing ever comes up.

What process are you following to get the RM format CSV files? Typically the Garmin format CSV files are very hit or miss for the Rand units as they use a very different format of 9 fields in their CSV file while Garmin is 4. The first 3 fields of both formats are the same but things go very different when a comma is detected as this usually marks the end of one field and the beginning of another.

Perhaps even an example of one or two of the files you want to load can give us a clue in solving your problem.

I contacted support they had me move the file from download to a folder import. Now the file is there but it doesn't;
#1 speak out the poi when I get close.
#2 show up under management custom poi in the settings.
Since the Walmart.dB file is elsewhere I tried moving the catscale.csv file to Navimaps. It still doesn't show up under management custom or imported poi, I do not know if it announces them aso you get near as I haven't driven yet.
Anybody know where I should put the file and if it has to be a .dB or will a .csv work.

Thanks for replying Boxcar: well, let's say POI's for Walgreens pharmacy's. I find the location on POI Factory, select CSV file (not GPX) for Walgreens, it loads onto my 7735. Next, I disconnect the USB, then re-connect (because it says I need to have connected to power) to finish loading POI's into my 7735. When I select the Walgreen's POI list in my 7735, it comes back with "no locations nearby" or words like that....no listing of any Walgreen's.

Boxcar: I thought that the Rand McNally units only accept CSV files, not GPX?? Yet, your explanation implies select GPX files for my Rand McNally 7735..Huh??

Select the POI-Factory GPX version of the file and on the download page is a link that will convert the GPX to a RM format CSV. The RM units do not use the Garmin GPX files as they come, but only CSV files formatted specifically for RM units.

As I stated earlier, RM has a 9 position (field) CSV format, Garmin a 4 field format. Only the first 3 positions of the Garmin and RM formats match. JM, the SYSOP and owner of POI-Factory addressed the issue a couple years ago now and created a script that reads a GPX file and puts the GPX file entries into the correct position for the Rand units. It will read the GPX and fill in as many places of the RM format as are defined in the GPX. Items which are not defined in the GPX are shown as NULL or having a comma only in the RM output file.

The first thing I would ask you to do is to read
Rand McNally CSV Format

As I said in the FAQ, I have tried to write a FAQ without the ability to check it out in practice. What I hope you and I can do together is come up with some additional FAQs that will make the process of loading POIs to a RM unit as easy as possible.

You probably already have seen or downloaded this PDF http://www.randmcnally.com/images/randDocuments/support/poi-...

and also looked at http://www.poi-factory.com/learn/randmcnally

Working from the RM 510 manual on the internet, I find these instructions

The Garmin POI Loader Help file says

As Boxcar has pointed out, RM expects certain fields in specific order within the .csv file (and if one of the 9 fields is missing a comma is used in its place). On the other hand, a Garmin .csv file might contain specific fields (such as phone) somewhere/anywhere within the the fourth "comment" field.

Now, a Garmin .gpx file uses a number of different "extensions" to tell what piece of data is contained within. So - as Boxcar says - it is possible to read Garmin .gpx file, extract fields (if they exist) from the file, and arrange them in the order required by RM (inserting a comma for any missing field).

NOTE: as far as I know, if a .csv files is not specifically designated as being for Rand McNally, you should never download any of these expecting them to work in RM's Dock with the exception that the Garmin .csv file contains only the three fields Longitude, Latitude, Name. They should work.

I hope that JM will jump in and enlighten me because I think that only certain .gpx files have been converted into Rand McNally .csv files. Looking at the files I maintain, whenever I have submitted a .csv file, this file will appear on the POI page and also have a link that will download a "Tom Tom OV2" file. If I submitted a .gpx file, then a link to a .csv file for Rand McNally also appears.

You have specifically mentioned the Walgreens file.

Looking at the Walgreens .csv file using Extra POI Editor (EPE), it appears to me that this file contains
Longitude
Latitude
Name of the store
Address (which includes city)
State
Zip Code
Phone

NOTE: the city field is not isolated for easy extraction

Otherwise, it appears to me that EPE could be asked to create a "M-column .csv" that would import into a RM.

Have you ever used EPE is what I need to know now. If so we can get you into a position where we can help you translate poi-factory .csv files into RM .csv.

I'm not an expert on spreadsheet programs, but my experience is these file conversions are best done with a spreadsheet rather than EPE because of the free-form fourth or description field in the Garmin format.

I find it easier to use some Excel commands to break apart the description field to place items in the proper sequence however your experience with EPE may be different as I have found EPE doesn't always recognize a string as belonging in a certain field when automatically searching and extracting.

The most common Excel commands I use are LEFT, RIGHT which take a string from either the left or right of the source for the specified number of characters and MID which is used to breakdown a character string and extract pieces of it. FIND is also extremely useful as it will locate the position of a character within a string and return with the position number it occupies starting from the left.

The commands can be strung together into a compound command such as MID(, FIND( 'char' ,< cell >,starting position),#char) which translates to:
Take #char (number of characters) from the string located in < cell > beginning at the position 'char' is in.

@Box Car, I would imagine that there would be hundreds of possible variations within the .csv files on the factory. But as I hope I demonstrated with the Walgreens file (which we know that Beachblu was interested in), EPE can do a pretty decent job in parsing with certain automatic extractions.

In "preferences" for EPE, I set the options
"Enable automatic phone number extraction" as well as
"Enable automatic State and Postcode extraction".

As a result of these settings and the way that DRMCMTR set up the Walgreens file, the only thing that EPE did not do (in this case) was to separate the "street address" and the "city" within the EPE field "Address"

In terms of actually using a M-Column .csv file outputted from EPE in a RM, the Walgreens file looks like it would work. AND, if so, then a Rand McNally user could document a procedure that could be used whenever they wanted to update their POIs and saw that a new POI file for Walgreens had been uploaded.