Install and use the Excel add-in

The actual steps: what your Microsoft 365 admin does once, what you do the first time you open it, and how to price a whole RFP.

The Excel add-in puts Market Rates inside your own bid file, and it is included with your Cargado subscription. Two people are involved, once.

Once, for the company

Your Microsoft 365 admin

Deploys it from AppSource to everyone. Part 1 below is the section to send them.

Once, for yourself

You, after it appears

Part 1 · Your admin deploys it

Individual users do not install anything.

In the Microsoft 365 admin center

Open the listing on Microsoft AppSource

Search AppSource for the Cargado Add-in for Excel, or go straight to product WA200009075.

Click Get it now, then Get it now again

The second one is in the popup that follows the first.

Click Deploy

At the top of the page, next to the message saying the add-in is waiting to be deployed. The Deploy New App popup opens.

Under Add users, choose Entire organization

What we recommend. Only people with a Cargado account can use the add-in, so a company-wide deployment does not hand it to anyone who could not already sign in.

Next, then Next again

Through Accept permissions requests to the deployment review screen.

Click Finish deployment

Microsoft emails an announcement when it is out. Forward it to your team with a link to this article.

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Then wait up to 24 hours.Microsoft can take that long to show a newly deployed add-in to every user. This is the single most common “it is broken” report we get, and it is not broken. Check again the next day before raising a ticket.

Part 2 · The first time you open it

In Excel

On the Home tab, click Show Cargado

On the single-line ribbon layout it sits inside the overflow menu rather than on the ribbon itself.

Click the blue Log in button

The task pane opens on the right. If Excel asks permission to display a new window, click Allow.

The same username and password you use in the browser. The window closes on its own and the task pane shows a welcome message.

Click Create sheets

The black button in the task pane. It adds Cargado Mappings and Cargado Rates to your workbook.

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Create sheets overwrites both sheets if you click it twice.The rest of your workbook is untouched, but anything you edited in those two tabs goes. Rename them first if you want to keep it.

Part 3 · Teach it your vocabulary

Your customer’s RFP will not use Cargado’s words. You reconcile that once per workbook, in the Cargado Mappings sheet, and a VLOOKUP translates everything downstream. The yellow cells arrive pre-filled with examples; replace them with your own.

What your sheet says

What Cargado calls it

53' Van

→

Dry Van

Laredo TX

→

Laredo

◎

Leave a row blank for anything you do not run.You do not have to map every trailer type or every crossing, only the ones that appear in your freight.

Part 4 · Price one lane, then the whole file

Open Cargado Rates and fill in a single row before you paste two hundred. The sheet reads left to right, and the middle block is what makes a wrong answer obvious.

You type

Origin

Destination

Trailer type

Crossing

Cargado mapped

Matched market

Trailer category

Crossing used

Route miles

Cargado rates

Low · Mid · High

Confidence

Margin of error

Sparkline

If a lane comes back wrong it is almost always the mapping, and the middle column shows you exactly where. That is why one row first is worth the minute.

Then skip the sheet entirely

Once the mapping is right, call the functions straight into your own RFP tab and fill down. Every function takes the same arguments:

=CARGADO.RATE_HISTORY_P50(origin, destination, trailerType, [crossing], [miles])

Square brackets are optional. Leave miles out and Cargado works out the distance. Leave crossing out on a lane that does not cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

With origin in column A, destination in B, trailer in C and crossing in D, the mid rate for row 2 is:

=CARGADO.RATE_HISTORY_P50(A2, B2, C2, D2)

Fill that down your bid file and the rest prices itself.

The functions

Function	Returns
CARGADO.RATE_HISTORY_P25_P50 · _P75	The low, mid and high rate for the lane.
CARGADO.RATE_HISTORY_PER_MILE_P25_P50 · _P75	The same three, as a rate per mile.
CARGADO.RATE_HISTORY_ALL_IN_P25_P50 · _P75	The same three, as an all-in rate.
CARGADO.RATE_HISTORY_P50_SPARKLINE	The mid rate’s history as a text sparkline, so it fits in one cell.
CARGADO.RATE_CONFIDENCE	STRONG, MEDIUM or LOWER.
CARGADO.RATE_CONFIDENCE_SCORE	The number behind that label.
CARGADO.RATE_MARGIN_OF_ERROR	The margin of error in dollars.
CARGADO.RATE_RELATIVE_MARGIN_OF_ERROR	The margin of error as a percentage, 0 to 1.
CARGADO.RATE_ORIGIN_MARKET_NAMECARGADO.RATE_DESTINATION_MARKET_NAME	The market each end of the lane matched to.
CARGADO.RATE_ORIGIN_MARKET_TYPECARGADO.RATE_DESTINATION_MARKET_TYPE	Whether that market is standard or extended.
CARGADO.RATE_ORIGIN_MARKET_CODECARGADO.RATE_DESTINATION_MARKET_CODE	The market code, for joining back to your own data.
CARGADO.RATE_TRAILER_CATEGORY	The trailer category the rate was priced on.
CARGADO.RATE_BORDER_CROSSING	The crossing used in the lookup.
CARGADO.RECOMMENDED_BORDER_CROSSING(origin, destination, trailerType)	The crossing Cargado would recommend, and the first one if several qualify.
CARGADO.RATE_ROUTE_MILES	The route distance in miles.
CARGADO.RATE_CURRENCY_CODE	The currency the rate is quoted in.

What counts against your plan

Rate lookups are metered on unique combinations of function arguments, once a week, not on how often Excel recalculates.

1,000

lookups for a thousand different lanes priced across your bid file.

lookup for the same lane recalculated all afternoon.

If your plan’s rate lookup quota is exceeded, a Cargado sales associate will reach out to you.

Common mistakes

Raising a ticket on the first day. Microsoft takes up to 24 hours to propagate the deployment.

Pasting two hundred rows before checking one. Do a single lane and read the mapped columns first.

Clicking Create sheets a second time. It overwrites both generated sheets.

Mapping every trailer type and crossing. You only need the ones you actually run.

Reading the mid as the answer. It is the middle of a band. Read the confidence and the margin of error beside it.

Still stuck?

Email success@cargado.com or bring it to your success manager. If the add-in is deployed but not appearing, tell us which Excel your team runs and whether the admin chose Entire organization.

Related: Part 2 · Price it first covers reading the band, and what to do with a lane that has no rate.