In the past we’ve mentioned customization services for our Microsoft Excel add-in CDXZipStream, and we’d like to take the opportunity here to discuss some examples of how customization may help better support your business needs around address, zip code, and data analysis in general. 

Do a One-Time Analysis:  

Need to use CDXZipStream functionality just once?  If you are not interested in purchasing the software for continuing use, we can provide the hard data that fills your specific need.  This is often an economically attractive alternative, particularly in lieu of the more expensive demographic versions of CDXZipStream.     

Get a Custom Excel Template:  

We can build pre-formatted templates that perform specific tasks around existing CDXZipStream functions, often combining multiple functions from CDXZipStream and Excel to get the final required answer.  Tasks can usually be fully automated so that after data entry, a simple click of a button is all that’s required of the user.  We currently offer free, downloadable templates that perform basic analyses, such as geocoding (getting latitude/longitude data), route optimization, radius analysis, and more.  But if you have a more complex task, consider a customized template.  This is also a great option if you need to standardize CDXZipStream applications for less experienced Excel users.

Please refer to the following tutorials to see our standard templates in action.  We can modify any of these templates to fit your particular needs:

- Route Optimization with One Click

- Driving Distance and Time Calculations in an Excel Template

- Driving Distance and Time for a Matrix of Addresses

- Zip Code Radius Analsysis in an Excel Template

- Get Latitude and Longitude for Addresses in Excel

- Reverse Geocode Template for Microsoft Excel

Apply CDXZipStream Beyond Excel:  

We’ve reviewed in a past blog post the basic programming code that allows CDXZipStream to be applied to other Office applications beyond Excel.  This code is not proprietary and we invite our clients to use it as they please.   Not into programming?  Let us do it for you, and get CDXZipStream functionality, ranging from route optimization to radius analysis, exactly where you need it.

Use CDXZipStream with a Custom DataBase:

We’ve designed CDXZipStream around the use of address, zip code, and demographic data, but the concept of selectively taking data from a local database and putting it in Excel with custom functions can be applied to a wide variety of data needs.  Whether you have a private database you would like to use more efficiently through a spreadsheet platform, or want to mine a commercially available set of data that we don’t currently include in our own feeds, we can build a version of CDXZipStream that will work for you, using our patented interface.  Some types of custom databases include:

- Commercial address or postal code databases for countries other than the U.S. or Canada

- Census data for specialized demographics not now included in CDXZipStream

- Proprietary customer data

- Demographics by other geographies, such as voting districts, school districts, urban growth areas, etc.

For more information about CDXZipStream customization, or to request a free quote, contact us at 1-877-CDX-TEC1 (239-8312) or customsolutions@CDXTech.com.

Excel tends to be one of those pieces of software that everyone has (what other spreadsheet application is there?), but just a few of us really know how to use it. As software developers we see a wide range among our CDXZipStream clients in their ability to use Excel, and that's just fine; after all, not many of us have it spelled out in our job descriptions to be experts in Excel.

Excel is a terrfic resource - powerful, complex, and unfortunately it has a very clunky help facility. It must drive the folks at Microsoft a little crazy that so many people bypass the help file and go straight to Google to get answers, especially when there are so many good (non-MS) Excel sites and blogs on the web. One of our favorites is Chandoo.org (formerly known as the Pointy-Haired Dilbert), which, among lots of other resources, has a nice Tutorialon the Excel 2007 ribbon. But yes, this does beg the question: why does Microsoft build an application with such a complicated menu (i.e. "ribbon") that it needs its own tutorial?

In view of all this, we'd like to introduce our new client service where we do all the Excel legwork for you. Actually, it's not so new – we've been doing it all along as our clients request it, but we are now offering it as a standard service after realizing that some potential clients may forego using CDXZipStream because of issues with Excel. Just give us your specifications, and we will build a turn-key Excel file that performs the analysis you need using CDXZipStream. At your request we can include automation of spreadsheet tasks such as data input, sorting, and charting. And if you need data that isn't in our standard data feeds, we can also create a custom database that works with our patented interface for Excel.

We have also developed some free Excel templates that do basic CDXZipStream functions such as geocoding with a single click of a button (and absolutely no knowledge of Excel is required). These are available through our Facebook page - just give us a thumbs up, and the files can be downloaded from the "For Our Fans" tab.

If you think you'd like us to build your own custom Excel template, please give us a call at 1-877-CDX-TEC1 (239-8321) or email us at customsolutions@cdxtech.com. And let us be the Excel experts - so you don't have to be.