[AccessD] Zip+4?

JC

...to my utter chagrin, I already know far too much about CASS and NCOA 
...the client uses a mailing house that validates his data against the US 
post office's data and rejects anything that doesn't match ...there is an 
additional service which we used once for address correction based upon NCOA 
data but basically what we got was a list of rejections without any data on 
WHY they were rejected ...with a paltry few actual updates ...he now does 
this on a quarterly basis against his entire address list.

...but that is only the reason the +4 has become a problem, not a solution 
to it ...as I noted, the problem is that most zips are still 5 digit but the 
number of +4 zips is increasing rapidly and the US postal service is now 
rejecting addresses that it, in its indomitable wisdom, thinks should have 
the +4 ...but I know of no way to know this before the data is actually 
rejected by them ...thus I can't force an initial +4 data entry because in 
most cases it doesn't yet exist ...so I'm dependent upon the data entry 
people actually entering the +4 data entry, when its available, in a 
separate field AFTER they've used the Geo cbo to select the right geo record 
...and they just are not doing it consistently.

...any ideas besides colbyizing them all would be appreciated :)

William

--------------------------------------------------
From: "jwcolby" <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 12:50 PM
To: "Access Developers discussion and problem solving" 
<accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Zip+4?

> William,
>
> Correctly handling the postal services requirements is a non-trivial task. 
> The process is called
> CASS and NCOA.  CASS stands for Coding Accuracy Support System.
>
> http://www.nextmark.com/glossary/definition.jsp?glossaryTermId=a0800000000EqQrAAK
>
> What is essentially does is to verify the addresses against USPS supplied 
> database (which changes
> quarterly), and if a given address passes CASS it means that the address 
> represents an actual
> deliverable address.
>
> NCOA stands for National Change of Address, and it has its own 
> requirements but in general the USPS
> wants all addresses CASSed and NCOAed no more than 90 days before use to 
> qualify for bulk mail
> discounts and such.
>
> NCOA states that a specific person moved (no longer lives at the previous 
> address) and may / may not
> supply the current address.  NCOA is a much more nebulous thing than CASS 
> simply because people may
> or may not live at an address at all, may have moved and not filed a COA, 
> may have lived there but
> moved years ago etc.
>
> I am heavily involved in CASS / NCOA, and in fact I am able to provide 
> such processing if desired.
>
> John W. Colby
> www.ColbyConsulting.com
>
>
> William Hindman wrote:
>> Group
>>
>> I use a separate tblGeo table to manage
>> city/state/post/country/region/timezone/dst/lat/long data with an fk join 
>> on
>> tblOrgAddress.
>> This is presented as an enforced combo with any new org address entry, 
>> thus
>> ensuring that only valid entries are allowed for that data.
>> When US zip codes were only 5 digits, this worked quite well ...but the
>> growing number of +4 zips is beginning to grow out of control ...adding 
>> the
>> +4 means an additional 10k entries per US post code are possible ...which
>> would drive the db to its knees.
>>
>> So I've separated out the +4 and isolated them in the tblOrgAddress to 
>> limit
>> the impact on lookups and just concatenate them when I assemble 
>> addresses.
>> This is of course time and code intensive in its own right but limited to
>> only those times when a full mailing address is required.
>>
>> The problem comes in requiring data entry people to enter the +4 separate
>> from the post code ...it just isn't getting done ...and the client is now
>> seeing address rejections from the postal service bulk mailing because 
>> the
>> +4 is missing.
>>
>> Question is, does anyone have a better way of handling the zip+4 issue?
>>
>> William
>>
>>
>>
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