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