Seeking best practices/policies for all aspects of managing/updating addresses especially in light of using both Blackbaud’s Address Accelerator (ole Address Validation) and Address Finder (NCOA) updates. E.g.,  What are your steps for adding addresses when adding a new individual? If you are adding a Business tab address, how do you handle the defaulted blank home address? Policies for changing addresses? Do you have ‘business’ addresses that aren’t on ‘Business’ tab; if so, how do you find/fix problems this causes? What ‘address types’ do you use? What’s your process for handling a known bad address? If it’s the preferred? And if it isn’t? Do you leave the ‘type’ alone (e.g., home) or change it (‘previous home’); how does this impact how you process Address Finder results?  (We prefer to keep prior addresses; most users don't have rights to delete addresses; we’ve had RE since it was on DOS version and are in midst of major clean-up of everything.) Any and all feedback greatly appreciated including extracts from user manuals sent to me at lambersonb@si.edu if you don’t want to send via forum.  Thanks.  

What are your steps for adding addresses when adding a new individual? Our steps to adding an address is simple, we go to the address tab, click new address and just type in the address of that constituent then click save and close.

If you are adding a Business tab address, how do you handle the defaulted blank home address? When you are adding an address in the Business tab, it will not load that address to the constituents main file.

Policies for changing addresses? Our policies for changing addresses is if we get "returned mail" we update that constituents file with "unable to forward" or whatever is on the sticker from the post office. If we are getting a totally new address, we click on "Constituent-Copy Preferred Address to Alternate" and then enter in the new address. We like to have the former addresses in case they send in documentation with their old address on it.

What ‘address types’ do you use? Here are the types that we use: Business, Church, Contact, Estate File, Former Address, Home, Honor/Memorial File, No Mail, Organization, and Seasonal.

What’s your process for handling a known bad address? For a known bad address we code that constituent with "No Mail" if we cannot find a new address. Then, if a new one comes about, we put them back on the mailing list.

I don't know if this is the information that you are looking for, but if you have any questions and/or comments, please feel free to contact me.

Thanks!

Andrea did a great job of explainign things for the 1st three sections. 

For Bad Addresses : Constituent-Copy Preferred Address to Alternate for someone with out a new address, we actually give them the address of "Lost".  we also check the No Valid Address box and the Send mail box is unchecked.  We however, have a double entry in that we give these people a "Mail code" attribute of "No mail -- lost" with the date.   We also make a note of where we looked for a new address in Notes, Type Mail:  usually something along the lines of "Mail returned by USPS return mail service.  No new address found Internet White pages"  We make the note because a new person can figure out why and when the constituent is coded lost, and if time has passed try again to find a new address.  We are a college and do not like to lose track of Alumni.

Address Types:  Home, Business, Previous Address, Previous Business, Campus, Parents, Winter, Summer, Secondary. 

Hope this is what you were looking for