How to Get Better Results with CDXZipStream and MapPoint

A lot of our clients use the Microsoft Excel add-in CDXZipStream MapPoint and Basic versions, both of which use Microsoft MapPoint running in the background, to calculate driving distance or time, optimize driving routes, and find latitude and longitude coordinates.  MapPoint is an excellent cost-effective mapping software, but may not always locate specific addresses since its database is designed for desktop use and is necessarily limited in size.  It is also limited in how much it can correct for typographical errors, misspellings, and zip code mismatches.  

For long address lists where manual address lookup and correction (through Google maps or other websites) is not practical, we recommend a two-step process using CDXStreamer to perform address correction, then CDXZipStream to do the desired route optimization or other mapping calculation, using the corrected addresses. 

CDXStreamer is our newly updated Excel add-in that directly accesses U.S. Postal Service databases residing on our servers.  These databases are too large for purely desktop applications like CDXZipStream and MapPoint.  The effective address correction capability of CDXStreamer greatly increases the chances of successful address analysis later in CDXZipStream. 

As an example, here is a list of addresses which have various issues:

MapPoint can handle most of these, such as a missing zip code in the first address, but in several cases only a “Best Match” could be found in MapPoint.  We generally don’t recommend that a “Best Match” address be used in routing or other calculations, since this can often represent a location much different from the intended one.  However, if the addresses are corrected above using CDXStreamer, all the matches in MapPoint are exact:

As a result of using address correction with CDXStreamer prior to routing or other calculations with CDXZipStream, you can have a much higher level of confidence in the data you are processing.

For more information about how to apply address correction using CDXStreamer, please see our previous article “Address Verification and Address Correction In Excel with CDXStreamer“.   For a short tutorial please refer to the YouTube video “Address Correction and ZIP+4 Analysis in Microsoft Excel” or the video below:

Please note that street address correction in CDXStreamer follows the US Postal Service "one component failure rule" to find a correct address match.  If not more than one address component mismatch exists, where a "component" is defined as a predirectional, street name, street suffix, or a postdirectional, then a correct address can be returned.  If more than one component is in error however, address correction may not be possible.  In these cases, CDXStreamer will not return a corrected address.  Also note that it is not possible to identify an exact location using a P.O. box.

Add comment

Loading