If you have the VBA module you can write business rules that check address formatting before the record is saved. We did this to force email address and phone number entry.

For people with the API module, write a program that reads in the NCOA file and updates the addresses in RE and keep the link to the spouse record active.
Dan Kimble
Database Technician
Home School Legal Defense Association

I have about 31,000 constituents in the Raiser's Edge - we use it for our main contact database.  I also have about 33,000 records in another address processing software where I store the names/addresses of people who receive our monthly newspaper.  The records in the other software can overlap - may or may not be part of the RE database. We contact each of our 155 church administrators twice a year, giving them a list of names and addresses of congregants for their church that comes out of the other software.  The administrators tell us which names to delete, which addresses to change, and give us names to add.  We do this manually.  We also send the entire list to our mail services company and they process the addresses through NCOA, give the updated list back to us, and we import the changed file as a new list each month. 

In RE, we use AddressAccelerator to keep those addresses cleaned up. 

My problems come when an address change comes for someone.  In order to be thorough, I have to check both places.

My directive is to have one list for all our processing needs.  I am struggling to figure out how I could combine these two lists, our RE database and the mailing list described above, into RE.  I am pretty conversant on import in RE, but can not yet fathom the processes combined.  I have seperated the fields in the non-RE software so that they match my name and address fields in RE, but now I'm stuck.  If anyone has a suggestion, I'd appreciate it.

Shirley Platt, Database Services Manager, Episcopal Diocese of Texas, Houston - splatt@epicenter.org