Creating or modifying Geography data

The geographic data defines the physical location of your sites by identifying the country, state or province, and city. You can use the Geography data to create a Foundation business model that can be used by the Digital Service applications. You can extend the Geography data to create the following Geography types:

• Country
• City
• Postal Code
• States/Province/District
• Time Zone

BMC Helix Platform provides out-of-the-box (OOTB) Geography data in the Foundation data. You can use the OOTB Geography data in your application or create Geography data as per your application requirements.

Out-of-the-box Geography data

BMC Helix Platform provides OOTB Geography data for Countries and States/Province. You can use the OOTB Geography data in your applications, so that you do not need to manually create the data. You can also modify or delete the OOTB Geography data as per your requirements. 

BMC Helix Platform provides prepopulated City data in Excel spreadsheets that you can use to load the City Foundation data. Both world city data and sample city data are provided, to minimize the impact of loading data. You can use the required spreadsheet and remove the city data that are not required for your organization. For more information about the City Excel spreadsheets, see Downloading the template Excel spreadsheets.

For information on how to handle the Geography data created by using an earlier version of BMC Helix Platform SDK, see Handling Geography data created on an earlier version

To create Geography data

1. Log in to BMC Helix Innovation Studio and navigate to the Administration tab.
2. Select Foundation Data > Manage Geography.

3. Select the appropriate geography type: Countries, State/Province/District, Cities, Postal Codes, or Time Zones.

4. Perform the following tasks based on your preferences:
   
   

   Note

   It is important that you create a Country before you create a State, City, or Postal Code.

   1. To create a State/Province/District:
      

      1. Navigate to Foundation Data > Manage Geography > Countries.

      2. From Manage Countries, select the country for which you want to create a State/Province/District, and then click New State/Province/District.

   2. To create a City:
      1. Navigate to Foundation Data > Manage Geography > Countries.
         
      2. On the Manage Countries UI select the country for which you want to create a City, and click New Cities.
         Note: This creates a city without a state, province, or a district. To create a city with a state, navigate to Foundation Data > Manage Geography > State/Province/District and then select the state for which you want to create a city.
   3. To create a Postal Code:
      1. Navigate to Foundation Data > Manage Geography > City.
         
      2. From Manage Countries, select the city for which you want to create a postal code, and click New Postal Codes.

   4. Click New to create a record instance and enter information in the appropriate fields.
      
      

5. Click Save.

 Handling Geography data created on an earlier version

After you upgrade BMC Helix Platform SDK to version 17.5.0, to avoid conflicts with the previous Geography data (created using an earlier version of BMC Helix Platform SDK) and the new OOTB Geography data, the previous Geography data is renamed.

For example, if you have created a country Canada and a child province Ontario, by using an earlier version of BMC Helix Platform SDK. After you upgrade BMC Helix Platform SDK to version 17.5.0, Canada is renamed as Canada_OLD and Ontario is renamed as Ontario_OLD.

If you have such Geography data in your applications (as associations, named lists, and so on), perform the workaround depending on the following criteria:

Related topics

Creating or modifying Foundation data

Creating or modifying Foundation data associations