Location Data Knowledge Base

A guide to finding City based on a Zip Code

CASS expires soon and I can't update.  Is there a grace period past the expiration date?

Add or remove someone to the CASS list for notifications

The Q2 2019 Business and Location Insights data packages are now available for 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.

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

The option to be able to search a field with wildcard characters is often needed. This functionality within the Calgary suite of Tools can be accomplished by having a “Contains” function, where this is accomplished without utilizing a wildcard to search. This also allows you to be able to use the Indexing power that the Calgary products offer, without having to do these searches with downstream functions like Filter or other Formula based tools. Tools used: Here's how 1) Create a base cydb file with this option selected: 2) Once the base file has been created, you now want to modify that cydb file to enable the Fields you want to query with the “Contains” option. In this example dataset, we want to be able to do these type of queries for the “CONAME” and “ADDR” fields:   Setup Calgary Input into Calgary Loader, when the following message will appear. Make sure you check “Yes”               3) Select the “Load a single advanced index” option   Set the Index Name you would like (in this case, keeping the same name), and choose the field desired from the “Source Field”.  Also, set Advanced Index Mode to Full Text     4) Repeat this process with all of the fields you’d like to be able to search.  In this sample, placing “mail” in the CONAME and “ln” in the ADDR fields returned this record:

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 

If you need more geographical information on a coordinate, try converting it into a spatial object and using the Find Nearest Tool to find coinciding Experian geographical data from an Allocate Input Tool.

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.

How to find the latest CASS datasets

Have you recently updated your Alteryx version, and now are getting an error when you try to run workflows that use Spatial Data? This article outlines the symptoms, diagnosis, and solution for the Error: “The Designer .x64 reported: InboundNamedPipe::ReadFile: Not enough bytes read. Overlapped I/O operation is in progress.” message associated with Spatial Tools.

The ConsumerView Matching macro enables users to match their customer file to the Experian ConsumerView data. Starting with customer information such as name and address you can leverage the ConsumerView macro in Alteryx to append a variety of information about your customers such as household segmentation, home purchase price, presence of children in a home, estimated education and income levels, length of residence, and many more!

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.

The Q4 2019 Business and Location Insights data packages are now available for 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.

As we announced in December, we have partnered with Mapbox to provide new basemaps for designer 2019.4. For our Q4 2019 Business and Location Insights release we will be transitioning from our previous provider to Mapbox. Workflows that have “Most Recent Vintage” selected from the basemap drop down will transition smoothly to the new provider.

We are excited to announce an improvement to our US Business Insights data package! Specifically, we have upgraded the access to traffic count data, TrafficMetrix, provided by Kalibrate Technologies.

Hi folks,   The remaining 2019 Insights and CASS release schedule is as follows...     And here is the CASS schedule for the remainder of the year...     Regards,   Jerad Rades Team Lead, Data Products

As of the Q4 2018 data release, Experian's CAPE offering accessed through Alteryx's Demographics Analysis toolset will move to an annual update schedule instead of semi-annual. The change was made by the vendor, whose research determined there isn't enough variance to warrant updating the Annual Update to the Thin Update (“A” to “B” in Alteryx terms).   This affects the following data sets:   CAPE Demographics, “Current Year Estimates” and “Five Year Projections” (CYE & FYP) CAPE Seasonal Population CAPE Daytime Population CAPE Consumer Expenditure, CYE & FYP CAPE Retail Demand & Retail Supply (Scaled) American Community Survey, Mosaic Workplace and Mosaic Residential are already on an annual update schedule and will remain on that release cycle. However, the annual Mosaic updates will be delivered with the rest of the CAPE updates beginning with the Q2 2019 release.   This change does not affect the quarterly Alteryx Data delivery frequency to our customers, as geographies and other data sets follow their own release cycles. We will continue to deliver Alteryx Data quarterly as the other data sets included within the offering follow their own update release cycles.

Greetings Everyone!   The Q3 2019 Business and Location Insights data packages are now available for 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. All data packages are available via the Downloads & Licenses portal. US & Canada Business Insights customers will receive their hard drives later this week, but they are also welcome to download the data from the portal.   All documentation packages are included in the attached .zip archive. Be sure to take a look at some of the recent articles in the Location Data Knowledge Base which will help you get started with your Insights packages. There are articles related to installation, mapping, and many more.   Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns by commenting below.   Happy Alteryxing!