"My biggest struggle right now with AlignStar is that it is too easy to use. I have loaded (our) information to build a document and this took about 5 minutes. Way too short a time, scares me. No really, the product is excellent... OUTSTANDING...!!!" 
Geocoding Service
what is it?
Geocoding is a process by which geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude) of a location are determined based on street address, zip code, or other location descriptors. These coordinates can be then be used by AlignStar to graphically represent geographic data points on a map allowing you to interact with them (query, align, lasso, etc.).
why geocode?
There are several benefits to having your data geocoded:
- Your address information will be scrubbed and standardized resulting in savings on mailings and fewer returns
- You will be able to create account based AlignStar documents with accurately placed accounts
- You will be able to align individual accounts
- You can establish rules in AlignStar to control account display
- And many others
If your data is not already geocoded you will still be able to use it in AlignStar or other mapping programs however the placement of your data will be less accurate. Geocoding provides very specific positional information allowing your data to be precisely plotted on a map. In addition, geocoded data in AlignStar can be used for account based territory design vs. more typical geographic territory design.
AlignStar supports individual account level alignments, optimizations and other functions by working with your linked account information. To take advantage of these new features you will need to link to a data source that has the appropriate geocoded account level information. Specifically, AlignStar requires that your data have a field for latitude and longitude (in decimal degrees). Today, many corporate data sources already contain this information. You may want to contact your IT department or the provider of your data to see if this information is currently available.
details
If it is not already part of your data or readily available from your data provider, you can have your data"geocoded". This is an automatic process that appends the latitude, longitude and other geographic information to your data. TTG provides this service as a convenience to their clients. Typically, before we geocode a data set, we "scrub" or clean and standardize the address information to ensure its accuracy and consistency. This not only ensures that we get the best possible match from the national street level database but has the added benefit of providing you with a much cleaner data set when the process is complete. Address information is updated with correct ZIP Codes (and ZIP+4 where available), misspellings are corrected and standard USPS postal abbreviations are applied. If you use this data for mailing purposes, this can be a huge benefit since your mailings are much more likely to get to their intended recipients.
cost and timing
TTG prices it's geocoding services based on the number of records processed. There is a minimum processing fee of $100 per file or worksheet processed. To give you an idea on the costs of geocoding your data, refer to the following table:
| Number of records processed | Cost per record | Maximum Total Cost |
| 0-1,000 | $0.10 | $100 |
| 1,000-3,000 | $0.08 | $240 |
| 3,000-10,000 | $0.06 | $600 |
| 10,000-50,000 | $0.04 | $2,000 |
| 50,000-100,000 | $0.03 | $3,000 |
| 100,000+ | Call |
These costs include both the address scrubbing (cleaning and standardization) as well as the appending of the latitude and longitude information required for use in AlignStar. As you can see from the table above, the cost per record drops quickly to only 3 cents per record. For most businesses, this is a one time investment with the exception of periodic updates and additions to the data.
Most geocoding jobs can be completed in 3-5 business days. If your data set is particularly large or troublesome it may require more time. An estimate will be provided to you upon receipt of your data.
If you would like a quote for larger quantities of data or would like to have your data scrubbed and geocoded, contact your TTG sales representative.