Location Data Knowledge Base

Have some Latitude/Longitude points and not much else? Working with Spatial Objects and need more information than a simple map point? Time to call in the Reverse Geocoding macro. Reverse Geocoding can give some robust information to help make important business decisions when working with spatial data. Case in point: Your “friend” has hacked the Pokémon Go APK and hands you a list of Pokémon with the associated Latitude/Longitude. You can’t make an informed decision on your next weekend Poke-session without first understanding more than just the location on a map!

This note is to alert users of Alteryx 8.6 to 10.1 of a potentialmessage window that may appear after updating the US andCanadian CASS engine.

CAPE Consumer Expenditure and Retail Demand.  How are they different?

Experian ConsumerView - how do we identify the head of household?

A guide to submitting corrected map or geocoding information to the vendor

This note is to alert users of Alteryx 8.6 to 10.5 of an error message that may appear if a user previously installed the combined US and Canada CASS dataset and then in subsequent data updates separately installs CASS for a single country.

Other Name Places area/demographics aren't the same as Places.  Why not?

Am I wrong expecting CAPE or Census values for Households and Housing Units to match exactly?

Read this alert if using the CAPE Population Summary report from Q1 2016 or Q2 2016!

The Q4 2020 Business and Location Insights data packages are now available for your analysis.

The US and CA Data and Spatial Bundles contains many datasets, including the Melissa Data CASS engine.  While the US and CA Data Bundles are updated every quarter, CASS is updated every 2 months.  Luckily, the install file size for CASS is just over 1gb, so we are able to provide this update as a download.  Once downloaded, a few simple steps will get you on your way to using the most updated version of CASS. On occasion though, users have reported a few issues with being unable to utilize CASS.  Because of this, we have decided to provide full download and install instructions, with a final portion of frequent questions and issues.   To install the latest CASS: Download the latest version of CASS.  This is sent via email from Alteryx Products on a bi-monthly basis and will be in the format of the following: http://downloads.alteryx.com/CASS_US_CAN_20YY_MM.exe YY is the current year and MM is the current month release of CASS.  Double-click on the .exe file.  This starts the 7-Zip Self-Extractor.  Choose a location where you would like to extract the install files. IMPORTANT: This does not actually install the files, it only extracts the install files. Once the install files have been extracted, located and double-click the file DataInstall.exe.  This will be in the directory you just extracted to in the previous step. When the install dialogue pops up, check the box to accept the license agreement and click Next. The next screen allows you to select datasets to install.  Depending on which install you've chosen, you will see the option to install US, Canada, or both versions of CASS.  Check all boxes, then click Next.  This screen displays all current datasets installed on your machine.  Checking any box here will uninstall the dataset.  By default, the previous version of CASS will be checked for uninstall.  Make sure all prior versions of CASS are checked, then click Next. IMPORTANT: You must uninstall all previous versions of CASS during this process.  If you have any expired versions of CASS on your local machine, no other versions of CASS will work properly. Browse to the directory you wish to install CASS to, then click Finish. Once the above steps have been completed, you will be able to use CASS on your local machine. FAQ/Common Errors: Error: CASS (2): CASS is not installed properly or it has expired. Please contact your reseller or Client Services at 1-866-516-2400 1-866-516-2400 FREE to receive an updated CASS database. This is often because a prior version of CASS is still installed.  Re-run DataInstall.exe and make sure all prior versions of CASS are checked in the Uninstall screen. CASS was installed on a network drive and permissions are not allowing you to see it.  Try re-running DataInstall.exe and install CASS on a local drive. Error: CASS (1): The Melissa Data CASS engine appears to not be installed (can't find dll). This is often the result of mismatched registry entries or install folders.  Please contact support@alteryx.com for resolution. In most cases, the solutions for error 1 above will resolve your issue, but if not please don't hesitate to reach out to support@alteryx.com for handling. Thanks, and until next time! Chad Follow me on Twitter! @AlteryxChad 

This note is to alert users of 2010 Census SF1 Data in the Core and Spatial Data Bundles (including Q4 2015) of the reversed values in a report template. The report SF1 2010 Report - US Census 2010 Overview Comparison reflects reversed values for % Hispanic and % Not Hispanic. The corrected report will be included in Q1 2016.  This report can also be updated in a desktop install now by overwriting the existing report template with the corrected report template.   Action required: Replace the incorrect report template file Close open instances of Alteryx or Allocate Download, unzip and extract US Census 2010 Overview Comparison.rptx from the Community Article to the local Alteryx location. A typical install location is C:\Program Files (x86)\Alteryx\DataProducts\Portfolio\ALTERYX_US_Census_2010_SF1_15D\Reports Overwrite the existing template dated from 2011 with the updated templated dated 4/18/2016 Launch Alteryx or Allocate and generate output for the report SF1 2010 Report - US Census 2010 Overview Comparison  If you have other concerns or need assistance with these instructions, please contact our Customer Support team at support@alteryx.com.   How do you know if the report is corrected? Generate the report SF1 2010 Report - US Census 2010 Overview Comparison for the United States and review the fields % Hispanic and % Not-Hispanic. Depending upon the version of data installed the values may differ slightly but the proportions will be similar to the image below.     If you have other concerns or need assistance with these instructions, please contact our Customer Support team at support@alteryx.com.  

The 2021 scheduled release dates for the standard Data packages.

The Q2 2020 Business and Location Insights data packages are now available for your analysis. The packages include analytics-ready data from a variety of vendors as well as data-specific analysis tools which will empower users to get the most from the packaged data. Here’s what you have to look forward to in this release!

The Q3 2020 Business and Location Insights data packages are now available for your analysis. The packages include analytics-ready data from a variety of vendors as well as data-specific analysis tools which will empower users to get the most from the packaged data. Here’s what you have to look forward to in this release!

The Q1 2021 Business and Location Insights data packages are now available to plug into your analytic processes.

You know what really stinks? Working with addresses that aren’t standardized or verified. Whether human-input, or one of the many address formatting standards in the U.S., being stuck with an address you can’t either (1) identify or (2) ensure it exists can be a real pain in the… well…\n  \n CASS is here to help!

There are thousands of unique coded values in ConsumerView: 4,070 to be exact! It can be overwhelming to have to look them up. Fear not! The ConsumerView Output Decoder brings back the functionality of the ConsumerView Renaming Macro, but is now included with our data releases as of Q4 2019.

Previous Methodology Guzzler (Q1 2015) Removed from data installers starting Q2 2021

When installing the US Business Insights data package on an external drive that is connected by USB, an extract error from the Alteryx Data Manager may occur.

When registering the point datasets in Allocate, it is possible to get them mixed up between the Experian FULL US and Experian US datasets. When this happens the datasets are put into an error state and the Allocate tool will not open properly.