Using Geo-coding to Find Neighbors

Each ZP SQL customer's Staff web site will get some new pages devoted to Geo-coding options. These are options that use the Latitude and Longitude fields to do mapping, etc. The most exciting page, I think, is the Find Neighbors page. This page uses the Latitude and Longitude fields to calculate distance between property records. It gives you the option to find neighboring properties around a starting property record and then uses the Tag field to mark these records. You can then print reports or labels for these records from the Mailing Label report screen. I've set up the Find Neighbors option to find properties at a radius of a tenth of a mile, a half a mile, or a mile. This option should be useful in many cases where you need to notify neighboring properties of a change a specific property wishes to make. This option only works if surrounding properties have their Latitude and Longitude values filled, so to facilitate that process another new page can be used to Map Streets. This page allows you to select a street name from a drop-down box and will then fill in the Latitude and Longitude fields for every property on that street that has a valid address. It's a quick and easy way to populate these fields.