5 Cool Things You Can Do with Excel

Most of us are familiar with getting driving directions, mileage info, and driving time estimates from websites like Google Maps or MapQuest. But what if you have to estimate shipping costs for all your customers, or design the daily routes for your delivery fleet? Processing lots of data like this is ideal in a spreadsheet format like Excel, and the route calculation functions of CDXZipStream makes these and other routing tasks easy. For a quick introduction to calculating driving time and distance in Excel please refer to the Ezine article Driving Distance and Time Calculations Using Microsoft Excel and MapPoint, or watch the Youtube video Driving Distance Calculator in Excel.

CDXZipStream now also performs route optimization as covered by the Earthtimes.org article Businesses Go Green and Save Money Using CDXZipStream Driving Route Optimization Software. Route optimization is where the optimal order of stops along a route is determined based on the shortest driving time. Just list the stops in an Excel worksheet, and CDXZipStream returns the list in optimal order, and can calculate driving time, distance, cost, create driving directions and even a route map. Optimizing sales calls, delivery routes, even the order of real estate showings can save fuel, time, and money. See the Youtube video Route Optimization in Excel for a quick tour, or check out how to solve a real-life route optimization problem in the article Route Optimization Using Microsoft Excel.

Knowing your customers is a key element to any successful business venture. Talk to them, survey them, do your homework to find out who they are and what they really need and want. A great first step is to profile your customers using demographic data, as discussed in our informational article, Use Zip Code Demographics to Target Your Next Customer. CDXZipStream includes demographics by zip code, state, city, county, area code, and Core-Based Statistical Area (CBSA)*. Over 100 items of demographic data are available, including median age, household income, and house value based on the most recent census information. Much of this data originates from the American Community Survey that's described in the Squidoo lens Census Records in Microsoft Excel. And since it's all stored in a local database right on your computer, you have virtually instantaneous importing of data straight to your Excel worksheet. Check out a complete list of the demographic data fields you can get with our premium data feed. If you need very basic information, we also provide free demographic data from our website, that can be automatically imported to an Excel or pdf file.

* Core-Based Statistical Area (CBSA) is a U.S. Census Bureau term for an urban area of at least 10,000 people. It's a truly functional definition of where people live vs. geographic boundaries (like city, county, state) that are typically used.

Avoid wasting time and money when your direct mailings or product deliveries go to non-existent addresses with missing or incorrect zip codes. CDXZipStream can check if the zip code exists, identify any discrepancy between zip code and city and state information, even compensate for extended zip + 4 codes. Please see our technical article Validating Zip Codes with CDXZipStream for more information.

Excel Tip: When zip codes are entered or imported into Excel, sometimes the leading zero gets dropped - a zip code such as 06383 turns into 6383. You can avoid this by formatting your worksheet cells as text, or just use the special cell formatting type "zip code" or "zip code + 4" (available in Excel 2003 and up).

Need to find zip codes within a particular radius? This kind of information is extremely useful for getting out direct mailings, designing advertising campaigns, even selecting store locations. But you don't have to resort to drawing circles on a map - import the data directly into Excel with a simple custom function from CDXZipstream. Our Ezine article Zip Code Radius Calculations using Microsoft Excel discusses this custom function in detail.

CDXZipStream has received numerous awards including the prestigious "5 Cow" award at Tucows.com. You can get a fully-functional, 30-day trial of CDXZipStream absolutely free. We provide complete technical support for both trial and purchased versions. If you decide to buy, pricing starts at $39.95, and the premium package (which includes eight demographic data feeds) is $299.95. Quantity discounts and site licensing are also available. Keep in mind CDXZipStream is not a subscription service - you buy it one time and purchase data updates only if you need them - and if you aren't happy for any reason within 30 days after purchase, you'll get a full refund.