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Welcome to the CDXZipStream May 2013 Newsletter

This month we cover a number of improvements:

- The Census 2000 database has been upgraded to allow comparison with key Census 2010 data, based on zip code

- The Bulk Radius Analysis template and census tract database can now be purchased directly from the website

- The FIPs code template now gets both block and census tract FIPS codes, based on address info

And here's are our latest blog articles:

Bulk Radius Template, Census Tract Database Can Now be Purchased Directly

We've made it a lot easier to get a couple of our newest add-ons for CDXZipStream.  Either of these can be purchased now by logging into your account and selecting "Buy Data Update" from the Product Management menu.*

Bulk Radius Analysis Template:  When you need to do radius analysis for a matrix of X by Y locations - we call it bulk radius analysis - consider using our bulk radius template.  This tool can perform many repetitive distance calculations, and can answer questions like:  With X stores and Y distributions centers, which distribution centers are closest to each store?  Or with X hospitals and Y patients, which patients are closest to each hospital? 

Just enter the addresses of all X and Y locations, and the template calculates straight-line distance between all combinations of address pairs.  Locations can then be sorted based on distance, and best of all, you can also specify a radius distance and create a complete report, listing all Y locations located within the radius of each X target location.  The template is compatible with any MapPoint, Basic, and premium demographic versions of CDXZipStream.  For a short video tutorial, please see Store Locator Analysis in Microsoft Excel.

Census Tract Database: The CDXTract data feed is now an option for all demographic versions of CDXZipStream.  This feed contains a wide variety of demographics from both the 2010 Census and American Community Survey, down to the census tract level. To support this feed, we also have a free downloadable Excel template that can identify census tract codes from address information.  This feed is an invaluable tool for performing market research; for more information please refer to our blog article Get 2010 Census Tract Demographics in Microsoft Excel. For a short tutorial on how to use CDXTract, please see the YouTube video Census Tract Demographics for an Address List.

*To see the appropriate purchasing option you must own the compatible CDXZipStream version.  Need to upgrade to a higher version?  Log in to your account and select "Upgrade Licenses" from the Product Management menu.

Get Block and Census Tract Codes from Address Data

As a result of customer requests we now provide block as well as census tract codes in our FIPS template, available by free download from our links page.  These codes are unique identifiers used by the U.S. Census bureau to tabulate data from the decennial census and American Community Survey.   The template allows users to input address lists and obtain the 11-digit census tract FIPS code and the 15-digit block FIPS code for each location.  FIPS is the acronym for Federal Information Processing Standard.

Census tracts on average have about half the population of zip code areas, and provide an excellent basis for extracting demographic data from the U.S. census.  There are just over 74,000 census tracts in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.  Blocks are significantly smaller areas compared to census tracts; there are about 8.2 million blocks, although about a quarter of these do not contain any population.  With the census tract code it is easy to use the CDXZipStream data feed CDXTract (available for separate purchase for any of the CDXZipStream demographic versions) to obtain income, population, age, household, and other key demographics. For a quick tutorial on how to use the FIPS template, please see Get Census Tract FIPS Codes in Microsoft Excel.