Global Address Verification:FAQ

← Global Address Verification

Result Codes

How do I use Results Codes for the Global Address Web Service?

The Global Address Web Service will return a number of codes to inform you of the status of an global address. These codes can be divided into AV codes for status, AE codes for errors, and AC codes for changes.

AV Codes

These codes tell you how good the returned address is. They are slightly different than the AS codes you are used to in our US only products.

• AV2X denotes an address that has been fully verified.
• AV1X denotes a partially verified address, but something was invalid.
• The second number (X) indicates the level of verification to which the output address is valid up to. The possible values from between 1 to 5.

For example

1. AV25 indicates the output address was fully verified to the SubPremises(level 5.)
2. AV24 indicates the output address was fully verified to the Premises(level 4.)
3. AV22 indicates the output address was fully verified to the Locality(level 2.) but we did not have data above the locality.
4. AV14 indicates the output address was partially verified but is good up to the Premises(level 4.) You can imply that this means something was wrong with the sub-premise.
5. AV13 indicates the output address was partially verified but is good up to the Thoroughfare(level 3.) You can imply that this means something was wrong with the premise.

AV24 vs AV25

Both of these codes are similar in that they tell you the address is fully good down to the delivery address. You will get an AV24 if the destination address is a house or building without any sub-premises (therefore level 5 is impossible). AV25 means the address was fully good and that the destination address does contain sub-premises. If you have a apartment complex and you enter a wrong suite, you will get an AV14 (partially good address, good to the premise).

Using the AV Codes

One use of the AV codes is to simply look for AV2. This will indicate that all addresses have been fully verified with no errors up to the data available. However, if you want to ensure all addresses are correct down to the delivery address, you should look for AV24 or AV25.

AE Codes

AE codes will tell you what type of error occurred when verifying the address. It is possible to get AE codes along with AV codes (like Sub-premise invalid, multiple match) or AE codes by themselves (postal code error).

AC Codes

AC codes will tell you what we changed in the output address when compared to the input address. Standardizations (Street to St) do not count as changes.

Inputs

The Global Address Web Service has a number of different input fields. They include AddressLines 1-8 as well as parsed input fields like locality, administrative area, postal code, etc. You can pass an address into the global web service in two ways:

1. Pass the entire address using just the Address Lines

Address1: 2 Holt Street

Address2: Surry Hills

Address3: NSW 2010

Country: AU

2. Pass the delivery address in the Address Lines and the area information in using the parsed inputs.

Address1: 2 Holt Street

Locality: Surry Hills

AdministrativeArea: NSW

PostalCode: 2010

Country: AU

Additional Tips

1. If you have the area information parsed out already and you trust it, pass it into the input parsed fields (method #2 above). We do not want to lose that piece of information and making the service re-parse introduces an unnecessary area for errors. If you are not sure that your parsed area information is correct, pass it into the address lines.
2. Be wary of duplicate information. Try not to pass in duplicate information if possible. A common example is the address lines containing the locality and also passing the same value into the input locality.
3. Country input is required. It can contain a country name or an ISO 3166 code, but it must be there.

Outputs

The Global Address Web Service has a decent number of output fields. These fields can return duplicate information so it is important to understand exactly what each field returns. Please see the Response Fields for more detailed information. For this FAQ, we will focus on which pieces will return you back a full address:

Normal Mode

FormattedAddress

Returns the mailing address in one line.

Organization + AddressLine1-8

Returns the full address back in multiple lines

ParsedAreaFields

Returns the parsed area fields. These fields do not constitute a full address and its data duplicated in FormattedAddress and AddressLines1-8. This data can be used for profiling or de-duping.

(These are the additional fields which include: locality, dependent locality, administrative area, sub administrative area, sub national area, & postal code.)

DeliveryLines Options

This option must be turned on. Please see the DeliveryLines option for information on how to do this.

FormattedAddress

Returns the mailing address in one line.

Organization + AddressLine1-8

Returns just the delivery address (including the dependent locality). Any area information locality or larger is not included.

ParsedAreaFields

Returns the area information in their individual fields not included in AddressLine1-8.

(These are the additional fields which include: locality, dependent locality, administrative area, sub administrative area, sub national area, & postal code.)

Encoding

The Global Address Web Service uses UTF-8. Make sure you are storing your address data in Unicode (nvarchar) and passing them to the web service in UTF-8. Be on the lookup for question marks (?), squares (▖) or other weird characters like �. They may be an indication of encoding issues and may result in data loss.

Throughput Speed

What throughput speed can I expect from Global Address Web Service?

The response time of the Global Address Web Service can depend highly on a number of factors:

• The country of the input: Different countries have different algorithms and verification paths. A more structured country like the US would be faster than a less structured one like India.
• The quality of the addresses: A good address is faster than a bad addresses. Bad addresses, especially with extra unnecessary data requires more attempts and fuzzy logic to try and find a match before we give up.
• The travel distance from your server to our server.
• The current load on our public server. The Global Address Verification Web Service is a shared service so high volume could potentially slow down processing speeds.
• The protocol used. We have seen processing using SOAP be up to 10% slower than using XML or JSON.

For a single address request, the vast majority of our records are between 50-250 ms. It can go higher based on the factors listed above.

For a batch of 1000 addresses, when being sent 100 at a time, we typically see the per address speed be around 25%-50% faster than the single address request. We typically see throughputs between 200K-500K an hour.