Versatility of Bing Maps for Address and Location Data

Our Microsoft Excel add-in CDXZipStream can now use the Bing Maps web service to geocode, reverse geocode, perform routing calculations, and check address information, all for long lists of location data in a worksheet. Especially noteworthy is the ability of Bing Maps to accurately retrieve “best match” addresses or points of latitude and longitude, even when working with problematic source addresses or locations. Here are a few examples:

Incorrect or Missing ZIP or Postal Codes

Incorrect or missing ZIP or postal codes is a very common issue with address data. Bing Maps can provide correct ZIP Code data that matches the provided street, city, and state, as shown below:

Here's a short tutorial showing how it works:

Intersections
Bing Maps can identify the intersection of two roadways, providing both the name of the roads as well as geocoded (latitude and longitude) coordinates. This can be valuable for first responders, since accident locations are often associated with intersections rather than specific street addresses.

No Commas or other Delineation
Addresses compiled from other data sources may be missing commas or other delineation between street, city, state, and ZIP code components. Once the addresses are in Excel, it can be very difficult to accurately parse these components from a single text string, using Excel text functions and formulas. Bing Maps can provide the standard address format with commas, or can provide individual parsed components:

Landmarks
Bing Maps can also locate landmarks that do not have conventional addresses:

Missing Street Numbers
In cases where street numbers are missing, Bing Maps can return the street location as well as the geocoded location of the approximate centerpoint:

Other Text Corrections 

Bing Maps can correct other issues with address text such as misspellings, missing or incorrect directional data, and missing or incorrect street designations:

To check and correct problematic address data that may have issues like the ones described here, use the Bing version of CDXZipStream or higher. Please refer to our pricing page for current pricing information for this and other versions.

To access these functions you will need a Bing Maps API key and enter it into CDXZipStream.

API keys to be able to access Bing Maps are available online at bingmapsportal.com.  Here is a video on obtaining a key and entering this in CDXZipStream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n7hO2X2YK8

Free trial keys and enterprise keys for purchase are available from Microsoft partners such as Onterra Systems.  All key types can be used with both the trial and purchased versions of CDXZipStream. But keep in mind that data requests using enterprise keys are given priority by Bing Maps.

 

 

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