Just recently i used bb services for NCOA, along with it they suggested that we should look into address accelerator. Can anyone tell me if the address accelerator really serves the purpose of validating addresses?

I have the address accelerator, and it does a good job of standardizing the addresses, and also automatically adds the county, CART, and LOT. The only issue that I have with it is if you have non-standard information in the address (for instance, UAF verses University of Alaska Fairbanks) it puts it in sentence case (Uaf), which doesn't look good. I submitted a suggestion a while back to make a way to add "exceptions" to the case rule, or set it up so that if you find "XXXX" make it "YYYYY", but was told they cannot change it due to Postal regulations and standardization... Note that address accelerator verifies that the address EXISTS, but not who is AT that address. So if you have a new subdivision pop up in the two month interval between releases, it may error on that address. It also has a slight problem with very rural addresses that may not get reported correctly (I'm in Alaska, so we have a lot of rural addresses that they just deliver it to the town, since the town is less then 20 people.) Hope this helps. Doug Doug Creek University of Alaska Database Administrator [Email Removed]

Thank you. I think it is a good investment inorder to keep the addresses updated. So does BB send you an updated CD every month. Do you also use their NCOA service?

The new CDs are released every 2 months. Note that you have to mark that you want the CD otherwise you just download. I actually download and just copy it to the server, so there is no CD involved at all. I do have the NCOA also. I run that every 6 months to capture our graduates as they file change of addresses to move home or to wherever they end up. Seems to be pretty successful so far. Doug Doug Creek University of Alaska Database Administrator [Email Removed]

It probably only changes the address if the legal delivery address of that location changes (the town changes the street name, or the building is torn doqn and made into a parking lot, etc) and I'm not even sure it does that. It does not keep the address updated if the person moves. Only NCOA will do that. If the person moves and you run it through AddressAccelerator it is still a valid address (it's just someone elses address now). Address Accelerator's best feature is standardization. You get the addresses formatted the way the PO likes it which ensures accurate and faster delivery. Standardization is also needed to even do NCOA because it is computer matching person and address and if you have 123-B First Street and the valid address is 123 Main Ave Apt B then it may not match for you and not give you the person's new address. You get a new Address Accelerator file every 2 months. *** my spelling is fine, it's my typing that stinks. Where is spell check? Melissa S. Graves Manager, Development Database & Direct Mail Planned Parenthood of Connecticut [Email Removed] 203-752-2804

We also use, and generally like, Address Accelerator, although it does have it's share of problems. The previous download (Canadian version) was corrupt and I had to make registry changes to get it to work. The current download works but I again had to do some manual settings on each workstation to get it to work properly. And, some of the postal data was a bit wacky - some addresses had the city name in all caps, others in mixed case. When it works , it works very well, and we particularly like it for finding Postal Codes (Zip Codes.) We just purchased Address Finder (was NCOA) and look forward to using that service. Harriet Farmer Ottawa Humane Society

I have used BB NCOA service twice, its pretty good. The only thing that i have a problem is the way the addresses come back. They are in the post office format, but my organization is very particular about the address format. The addresses have to appear more presentable and personal, in other words, all the street names and the cities have to be spelt out, so i ended up paying extra 200.00 dollars for the DCASS service. I wonder if anyone has any other suggestion to fix this problem. Rupinder Kaur Database Administrator Cancer Research Institute

You know, I will never understand that concept... 1) No one looks at the bloody address on an envelope. I open it at the end, and immediately the envelope goes into the trash, and 2) You have spend more for bulk mailing things if they aren't in postal format, and 3) I just don't get it... Now that I've ranted about ineffiencies (this is not targeted at anyone in particular, I just don't get it), the only issue that I had with NCOA is that the last one didn't go into the database as cleaning as they have in the past. The addresses didn't match up 100% correctly and some of them came back really dirty looking and took some manual cleanup. But for the most part it worked out for us. We found roughly 1500 addresses for people, which was nice. Doug Doug Creek University of Alaska Database Administrator [Email Removed]

I kind of understand the concept but I have adopted the CASS formatting for the reason that it increases accuracy and timely mail delivery. That, above all, should be the reason you want to CASS format. If you have particular donors who are picky about how theri donors appear then don't send them through NCOA - put them in an exclusion file. If they move maybe you will find out when mail is forwarded or returned. We allow for CASS formatting or our addresses but put back in the punctuation. Without punctuation it really looks funny in a letter. You can then strip punctuation on the envelope using Mail for PO regulation but so we keep punctuation in the Dtb for quick letters. *** my spelling is fine, it's my typing that stinks. Where is spell check? Melissa S. Graves Manager, Development Database & Direct Mail Planned Parenthood of Connecticut [Email Removed] 203-752-2804

I forgot to mention in my rant, you can also use the address accelerator to take all the abbreviations out of the addresses. That was an option that was added with the last version or so. So if you must have them spelled out completely, this will do it for you... My apologies for the second email. Doug Doug Creek University of Alaska Database Administrator [Email Removed]