We’ve wanted this all along, and now it’s here – Google Maps integration with Pipedrive. From now on, you’ll be able to

• save an entire address in a single field in Pipedrive,
• display it on a built-in map,
• look up nearby organizations, and
• filter your data based on automatically generated meta info (City, State, etc.).

What good does this integration do? First, you can enter addresses so much quicker in Pipedrive, with an auto-complete to help you in the process, too. Second, you can see the location of an address on a built-in map without leaving the application. Third, with a look-up of nearby organizations, Pipedrive will be able to help you with planning a day route to meetings, should you have many of them in one area.

Let me show you how it all works.

Creating a single field address

I start from saying that it will be possible to continue using your current custom fields for storing addresses – and just as easily, you can start using a single field address. I believe it’s worth noting that you can add single field address to people, or deals, too – it all depends on your preferences.

First, go to Settings > Customize fields. Let’s say you want a single field address for organizations. Click on the ‘Organizations‘ tab, and then click on ‘Add a field‘ button. (There’s an entire post on adding custom fields for more detailed explanation, so I’ll be brief here).

Next, select ‘Address‘ field, click, and name the field – let’s say you type “Address”, but you may want a different name depending on your purposes, and language preferences, of course. And you’re done!

Saving and displaying an address

Now go and open any organization detail page, and you can save its address. As you start entering a street name, options will appear (very much the same way we’ve gotten used to looking places up in Google Maps in a browser) – all you have to do is select the right one, and save it. Pipedrive allows you to save everything starting from suite and house numbers.

If you click on the saved address, a window will open which displays its location on the map. At the bottom left corner of the window there’s a ‘Show nearby organizations‘ button. Clicking this will show other organizations which are located in the area (default radius for ‘nearby’ in Pipedrive is everything within 2mi / 3.2km). This view can be useful for planning daily routes in case you’re going to visit multiple companies in the area.

Converting existing data to a new address field

As you may have noticed on the screenshot, the address now appeared on multiple fields created before to store it, AND on the newly created single address. Do you have to manually enter addresses of ALL organizations like this? Big no. We’ve created a converter that will take all the data you have on your separate address fields (street, city, state, postal code, etc.), and put it into a single field you’ve just added. This way, you can convert thousands of addressess in one go. I’ll walk you through it, there are only 2 steps.

First, go to Settings > Customize fields, and click on an ‘Organizations‘ tab. Notice the yellow area just below the fields – there’s a green ‘Convert your existing data to new address field‘ button. Click on this.

A window will open (Step 1) which displays two columns – on the left you’ll see the fields you’ve created, among these are also the ones you’ve used to to store addresses. On the right, you’ll find the components that make up the new single field address. All you have to do is drag the address fields you’ve used so far (on the left column), and drop them on respective fields on the right. Map them one by one.

After you’ve completed this step, click on the ‘Next‘ button. A window will open (Step 2) where you’ll be asked to choose a destination field. Let’s assume you want your old data appear on the newly created ‘Address‘ field, so select this, and click on the green ‘Ok, convert‘ button.

This will start the process of converting all your existing data on separate address fields to a single field address. Depending on the number of addresses you want to convert, it can be an instant, but it can also take considerably more time. We will notify you by e-mail once the conversion has been completed.

After you get a confirmation e-mail that your addresses have been converted, please do some random checks on your data. Once you see that addresses now appear on single fields, you are free to either keep the old separate fields (which does not make much sense ☺), or delete them (which is why the new field was created for, really). For deleting, please go back to Settings > Customize fields, click on the ‘Organizations’ tab, and tap the red X at the right end of the rows you want to delete. NB! If you’ve created filters based on addresses, make sure to read through the full post.

Creating new filters to replace old ones

I know some of you have created filters to create lists of organizations based on addresses (for example, all organizations with addresses in the state of California). In case you delete the old separate address fields, there’s a need to re-create filters you used so far as they don’t work anymore. Again, there’s a detailed post on how to create filters, and one on how to use cross-item filters.

To create address based filters for your companies, go to Organizations in the menu bar, and click on drop-down ‘All organizations, unfiltered‘ at the upper right corner of the screen – there’s a ‘Create a new filter set‘ option, select this.

Let’s say you want to filter out all companies with addresses in California. For this, after naming the filter, click on the plus button to open up a drop-down of all fields default and custom made for organizations. Click on ‘Address‘ (as this is the name of the new field you created).

Then you’ll be given a drop-down to choose from a list of components included in the single field address. Choose ‘State/county‘, and write “California” in the text-box. Then hit ‘Save‘.

And you’re done! You’ll see the list of organizations with addresses in California when you open this filter under Organizations. This way, you can re-create all filters you used with your separate address fields.

Wow, I just realized it’s a really long post ☺! All in all, I hope that Google Maps integration will be one of many steps towards making Pipedrive more enjoyable and useful.

Stay tuned!