Global Address Object:Build History

← Global Address Object

Build 1.0.0.3298

January 2022 Update

Released January 2022

General Information

For some internal technical reasons, this update is slightly delayed.

We have made an update to our timezone information. Our new timezone names are more standardized and region specific rather than country specific. With this new data, it will be easier to figure out the timezone region and there are less values to account for. Here are a few examples:

Old Timezonename	New Timezonename
Europe/Berlin	Central European Time
Europe/Paris	Central European Time
Asia/Dubai	Gulf Standard Time
Africa/Johannesburg	South African Standard Time

Country Specific Updates

BRAZIL

We have revamped Brazil with a new data source and new engine. The main reason for this switch was to cut down on overaggressive changes. You may see a slightly lower coding rate with this new engine but we believe the benefit of better quality and lower false changes is well worth it.

• Much lower aggressiveness of the engine to change the address completely in order to code the address.
• The source data now more closely matches the postal authority for the country.
• CountrySubdivisionCode now available
• MelissaAddressKey now available
• UTC, DST, and Timezone now available
• Improved Parsing
• Better standardization of parsed premise and subpremise types

CANADA

• Updated and improve logic for returning AV25 Result if the address has a subpremise that is expected in the source. An extra suite for an address that does not expect any suites will still return AV24.
• Fixed an issue where a few Canadian city names that contained a dash were not verifying.

CUBA

We have revamped Cuba with a new data source and new engine.

• Improved coding rate
• Less false coding
• Our address output now more closely matches to the preferred postal format for the country

FRANCE

We are proud to announce that we are now fully using official La Poste France postal address data. We have previously been using official La Poste Cedex information. However, we now have updated the rest of the database with full official postal data. Compared to our previous source, there is a very small percentage of changes, but we are now using data that is officially produced by the postal authority in France. The points below are the main changes with this update:

• Improved building information
• Improved address information in very rural areas of France
• More precise house number data

GERMANY

• Tuned engine to be a little less aggressive when the postal code and the locality do not match the source data
• In a few cases, we have modified the return locality to close match the postal preferred version if the postal prefer version contained parenthesis.
• Improved coding thoroughfares that are very similar to each other, resulting in AE05 – Multiple Match errors in the past.
• Improving matching for non-standard abbreviated thoroughfare types
• Improved handling of addresses where the premise number and thoroughfare are in reverse order, contains unexpected delimiters or parenthesis
• Improved parsing of AV12 partially coded addresses
• Added additional areas in English that can be recognized

GREAT BRITAIN

• Improved detection of some less common thoroughfare trailing types.
• Fixed an issue where some addresses in the Durham region incorrectly labelled Durham as the locality.

NETHERLANDS

We have done a major review and revamp of our Netherlands engine.

• Fixed an issue where a subpremise value that is not expected can override the premise number value.
• Improved recognition and parsing of a subpremiselevel value like “hoog” or “Huis” in the address
• Fixed a bug where the postal code value can be identified as a remnant value and added to the beginning of the address
• Fixed a bug where sometimes, an extra unnecessary “e” can be added to the subpremiselevel output.
• Improving handling of address inputs where locality is sent in via address lines and contains a space followed by two alpha characters.
• General improvement in parsing unparsed address inputted via address lines.
• Improving handling of addresses that contain both a street address and a post office box.
• Improved detection of Organization names in the address lines.
• Fixed an issue where on rare occasions part of the input address would be missing from the output.
• Improved handling of extra unexpected information in the address line.
• Improved address parsing for addresses that do not fully code

SPAIN

• Improved recognition and handling of thoroughfare types in the Catalonia region that differ from the rest of the country

UNITED STATES

• Fixed an issue where multiple PO Boxes in the input could cause a engine crash
• Fixed an issue where in some cases, “BLV” was not being corrected to “BLVD” and recognized as a thoroughfare trailing type
• Fixed an issue where if the input had multiple subpremise values (which are not valid), the engine sometimes mixes the values from the two subpremises

Data Updates

Reference Data Update

• ALL COUNTRIES

Address Pattern Recognition Update

• BRAZIL, CANADA, CUBA, FRANCE, GERMANY, GREAT BRITAIN, NETHERLANDS, SPAIN, UNITED STATES

September 2021 Update

Released September 2021

General Information

As we continue our on-going effort to improve our parsing result, we have made the following changes:

• Improved Great Britain parsing
• Fixed an issue where AE01 – General Error errors would incorrectly put parsed values in Building.

Made a fix to our windows installer. The installer software we used had changed their default to not ask for destination folder based on a Microsoft recommendation. We have changed it back to ask for the destination folder.

Country Specific Updates

AUSTRALIA

• Fixed a bug where it was possible to return a non-decimal and non-blank latitude and longitude value.

CANADA

• Improved the handling of duplicate address information. Please see examples in the notes for United States for more details.

GERMANY

• Fixed an issue where two different thoroughfares which has the same abbreviations would get matched to one another.

GREAT BRITAIN

• Improved parsing of partially coded records
• Fixed an issue where an address coded to AE05 – Multiple Match error would still return a valid AddressKey (UDPRN) and AddressType. This should not have been returned as we cannot fully verify the address.

ITALY

• Refined our matching logic to reduce matching thoroughfares that are very similar but in reality different thoroughfares. This is a logic especially applied to Italy because they have no many very similar thoroughfare names.

MEXICO

• Changed the AA value from “DF” to “CDMX”

SINGAPORE

• Improved recognition of subpremise types
• Improved input variation handling
• Fixed an issue where an address coded to AE05 – Multiple Match error would still return a valid AddressKey (UDPRN) and AddressType. This should not have been returned as we cannot fully verify the address.

UNITED STATES

• Major improvement in the handling of duplicate address data. Our engine will now look at the additional lines of input and if it detects that they contain only duplicate address information, that whole line will be removed. However, if there are other significant pieces of data in the additional lines, we will err of the side of caution and leave the input there as additional information.

Example where A2 would be removed:

A1: 12345 Main St
A2: Main Street, Dallas Texas
Locality: Dallas
AdministrativeArea: TX
PostalCode: 34521

With the example above, if A2 were something like these, they would not be removed:

A2: Main Street Dentist
A2: Dallas Real Estate

Data Updates

Reference Data Update

• ALL COUNTRIES

Address Pattern Recognition Update

• AUSTALIA, CANADA, GERMANY, GREAT BRITAIN, ITALY, SINGAPORE, UNITED STATES

June 2021 Update

Released June 2021

General Information

One of the main focuses of this update is improved parsing, especially thoroughfare parsing. When we code an address, we are very confident in the parsed results that is returned back to the user. However, when we do not code the address, we will make a best attempt parse and do not always return results. In this update, we have focused on improving and returning the parsed results for addresses that do not code, specifically AE01 and AE05. There is still more room for improvement and we will continue to work on improving parsing, but we believe this update provides a massive improvement of parsed results.

We fixed an issue where AV24 was sometimes also returned with AE11 due to inconsistency of source data.

We have worked to cut down on address records that could take more than one second to verify, typically with a lot of junk or garbage data.

Country Specific Updates

AUSTRIA

• Improved speed for more complex inputs that could take longer than normal

FRANCE

• Fixed an issue where a small number of records returned with a non-preferred version of the thoroughfare instead of the preferred version

GREAT BRITAIN

• We have improved our matching engine to recognize more possible patterns, especially with addresses containing multiple sub-premises.
• Improved the address format of records where the source data has a subbuilding that behaves more as a subpremise instead.
• Improved coding of RoyalMail Multi-res records.

HONG KONG

• Improved speed for more complex inputs that could take longer than normal

INDIA

We have been working on acquiring better more up to date data for India for some time. We also wanted to address the issue of over-aggressiveness due to the spotty nature of source data in India. To that end, we have completely redone India with new data and matching engine.

• Improved Formatted Address to more closely match postal standards
• Decreased over-aggressiveness and false coding
• Improved parsing

JAPAN

• Fixed some cases where an invalid address would partially code to the locality (AV12). They now correctly return AE01.

KOREA

• Cut down on records that could take more than 1 second. A few long single line addresses may be affected.

SINGAPORE

• Improved speed for more complex inputs that could take longer than normal

SPAIN

• MelissaAddressKey and MelissaAddressKeyBase numbers are now available.
• Fixed an issue where some records could have returned an empty locality.
• Improved data where some data with accents were corrupted from the data source

SWITZERLAND

We have updated our source data for Switzerland to use data that more closely matches Swiss Post. The changes you see in this country are derived from this data change. The new data is better and more official than the data previously used.

• MelissaAddressKey and MelissaAddressKeyBase numbers are now available.
• Improved Formatted Address to more closely match official postal standards in less common scenarios.
• SubNationalArea and SubAdministrativeArea are no longer returned as they are not included in official data.
• Improved Thoroughfare parsing
• Locality and alias locality data have been improved

UNITED STATES

• Improve data returned in the SubAdministrativeArea (County Name) for some addresses that were on the border of two counties.

Data Updates

Reference Data Update

• ALL COUNTRIES

Address Pattern Recognition Update

• AUSTRIA, FRANCE, GREAT BRITAIN, HONG KONG, INDIA, JAPAN, KOREA, SINGAPORE, SPAIN, SWITZERLAND, UNITED STATES

March 2021 Update

Released March 2021

General Information

We have been working on reducing the file size of the product for those with limitations on the data. We have been able to reduce the size of the product by approximately 20% without affecting the user. We hope to be able to reduce it even further in the future.

We have made a standardization to the way we treat FormattedAddress and CountryOfOrigin. The default functionality is described below:

• If the CountryOfOrigin is not set, the FormattedAddress will contain the destination country name at the end*.
• If CountryOfOrigin is set and the same as the destination country, the FormattedAddress will not contain the country name at the end.
• If CountryOfOrigin is set and different than the destination country, the FormattedAddress will contain the country name at the end.

*There is an exception for this item which is US and CA. These countries will not have the country name at the end of FormattedAddress is CountryOfOrigin is not set. This is due to backwards compatibility reasons as the majority of our users use these two countries.

Country Specific Updates

BELGIUM

• Added some improvement for typo handling

CANADA

• Improved handling of AV24 vs AV25 codes.

Previously:

• Case #1) 12-345 Main St -> AV24
• Case #2) 345 Main St Ste 12 -> AV25

Now, we will identify both cases as AV25.

FRANCE

• We have made CEDEX data available now in the database. CEDEX addresses are business addresses that have special postal codes and address data.

GERMANY

• MelissaAddressKey and MelissaAddressKeyBase numbers are now available.
• Improved recognition and handling of typos and misspellings.

HONG KONG

• We have changed our data source to use the official land registry data for Hong Kong. This data includes the building information for addresses.
• We have made changes to our engine to try and cut down on over-aggressive coding.
• MelissaAddressKey and MelissaAddressKeyBase numbers are now available.

ITALY

• MelissaAddressKey and MelissaAddressKeyBase numbers are now available.
• We have added additional variation data to improve coding rates
• We have sourced and added additional data for the South Tyrol region that often uses German versions of the address.

JAPAN

• Improved matching of addresses that are all in one line

KOREA

• We have transitioned to a new data provider for Korea we believe contains better overall data for the country.
• Formatted Address now is closer sync with postal preference
• Less overly aggressive false coding
• MelissaAddressKey and MelissaAddressKeyBase numbers are now available.

MOROCCO

• We have made improvements to this country to reduce occurrences of false coding.

NETHERLANDS

• Corrected an issue where AC03 (Locality change) was being incorrectly reported.

SINGAPORE

• We have improving handling of building data in Singapore. We will now only append the building information if we do not detect the input as already having building information. This is because we found the user often had correct and desired data but that was slightly different than the value in the database.

SPAIN

• We have improved our pattern matching for better recognition of subpremise patterns. This will improve coding rates.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

• Fixed a data issue for the Sharjah region.

Data Updates

Reference Data Update

• ALL COUNTRIES

Address Pattern Recognition Update

• BELGIUM, CANADA, FRANCE, GERMANY, HONG KONG, JAPAN, KOREA, MOROCCO, NETHERLANDS, SINGAPORE, SPAIN

November 2020 Update

Released November 2020

General Information

Currently, the Global Address Object product contains all countries and territories in the world. This allows users to add new countries with a single update to their license. However, we understand that for some users who are not subscribed to many countries, the file size may be prohibitive. We are working on a way to provide smaller versions of the Global Address Object product for those users. Please stay tuned.

We are also working on upgrading our infrastructure and data source relationships so that we can start providing monthly updates for a number of countries. We expect this to be available early 2021. Some countries we expect to roll out with for Monthly updates are: United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Netherlands.

Country Specific Updates

AUSTRALIA

• MelissaAddressKey and MelissaAddressKeyBase values are now available
• Removed some house numbers that were invalid
• Subpremise values with are single letters are now capitalized
• SubAdministrative Area data was deemed to be too inconsistent and no longer returned. This value is not used in the mailing address.

BELARUS

• Postal code verification improved

CHILE

• Fixed area slotting for Region Nuble

COSTA RICA

• We have updated the data source to be one that is much more comprehensive in the country. This data source does not have house numbers while the previous one did but has much better thoroughfare coverage throughout the country.

FRANCE

• MelissaAddressKey and MelissaAddressKeyBase values are now available
• Cleaned up some of the subadministrativea area, administrative area, and subnational area values for addresses near boundary borders
• AV25 coding now possible

GREAT BRITAIN

• Added support for The British Forces Post Office (BFPO) addresses as they typically contain more lines and data than regular addresses.

KYRGYZSTAN

• Improvement in verification results with locality and thoroughfare levels.

SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE

• Updated this country to thoroughfare level (AV-3) address coverage and Thoroughfare level Geocoding (G-3) coverage

SINGAPORE

• MelissaAddressKey and MelissaAddressKeyBase values are now available
• Updated values for Dependent Locality and Double Dependent Localities (These are not used in the mailing address)

MACAO

• More addresses can now be verified to the house number level.

MOZAMBIQUE

• Data updated to a new source with postal code information and engine revamped for this new data.
• Decreased the chances of false coding to the wrong address

TAIWAN

• Improved matching engine for more AV24 level coding
• Increase number of rooftop level geocoding
• AV22 for incomplete or not fully validated address no longer returned. We will instead return AV12 if the locality level data is correct but the full mailing address is not correct.
• Decreased level of false coding

VIETNAM

• We have changed to a new data source and adapted our engine.
• MelissaAddressKey and MelissaAddressKeyBase values are now available
• Improved Postal Code coverage
• Less over-aggressive coding that will cause the engine to match to the incorrect address. This may result in some previous matches that happen to be correct to no longer match, but we believe that it is better overall to decrease false coding.
• Results will now be in Vietnamese instead of transliterated Vietnamese. This is a much closer match to the data expected in the country. For example:

Vietnamese: Phố Lê Đại

Transliterated Vietnamese: Pho Le Dai

• AV22 for incomplete or not fully validated address no longer returned. We will instead return AV12 if the locality level data is correct but the full mailing address is not correct.
• Formatted Address updated to be closer to specification expected for the country

Data Updates

Reference Data Update

• ALL COUNTRIES

Address Pattern Recognition Update

• BELARUS, COSTA RICA, GREAT BRITAIN, KYRGYZSTAN, MACAO, SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE, MOZAMBIQUE, SENEGAL, TAIWAN, VIETNAM

August 2020 Update

Released August 2020

General Information

Installation Note

• When installing, please do not combine with a previous update. Files from a previous update included in the same directory may interfere with the loading of this update.

• We have worked to improvement the speed of edge cases in our engine. The number of records that could trigger a hang in the engine should be greatly diminished. If you run into a record that takes a long time to process, please submit it to Melissa.
• We introduced these new output fields in the previous release, but we would like to highlight them again as we think they can be very useful to many users. Additionally, we have added additional countries supported to a number of these outputs.

MelissaAddressKey

This is a globally unique and persistent key for the location, even if parts of the address change. When an address is fully validated this field returns a 10-digit proprietary key for the address. With AddressKey (US and Canada only), if an address zip code changes, the AddressKey would also change. Melissa Address Key (MAK) is independent and will not change. This makes MAK a good way to permanently identify and locate addresses. Once you have a MAK it can be used as an input in most Melissa services and thus is a good tool for deduping. Current countries support include: US, CA, BM, GB, IT, NL, PT, SI, and TR.

MelissaAddressKeyBase

Every full address has its own Melissa Address Key (MAK). If that address is a suites or apartment, we will also return a Melissa Address Key Base (BaseMAK) that corresponds to the overall building. This provides a link between all the individual MAK addresses that belong to the same building. This field also returns a 10-digit proprietary key. Note, if we can validate the address to the building but not the suite, we can return just the BaseMAK. Current countries support include: US, CA, BM, GB, IT, NL, PT, SI, and TR.

AddressKey

This is a country dependent field. This field returns an identifier that is used in the country by the official postal agency or another well-recognized agency or standard.

US: This returns a 11 digit code representing the combination of the zip code, the plus4, and the delivery point. This is a fairly good representation of a unique US address and often used as the core of postal barcode. However, this code is not guaranteed to be unique to an individual address, please use the MelissaAddressKey instead for that purpose. It is possible that this field is empty or not 11 digits if the address is a Non-USPS address (link to something about non-usps addresses).

GB: This field returns the UDPRN, which stands for Unique Delivery Point Reference Number. It is an 8 character code that is assigned and maintained by Royal Mail to each delivery point address.

DeliveryPointSuffix

This is a country dependent field. This field returns an identifier that represents a suffix code usually tied to a delivery point.

US: This returns the 2 digit delivery point assigned by the USPS to an DPV validated address.

GB: This is a 2 character (first is numerical, 2nd character is alphabetic) that is assigned by Royal Mail. When added to the postal code, this allows each live delivery point to be uniquely identified.

DeliveryIndicator

This field returns a one character code that indicates if the address is a residence (R), business (B), or unknown (U). It is not available for all countries. Currently supported inlcude US, GB, and NL.

CountrySubdivisionCode

This field returns the ISO 3166-2 country sub-division code. This code is part of the ISO 3166 international standard to represent the relevant administrative divisions and dependent territories for a country. For most countries, this code is tied to the administrative area.

Not all countries currently return this code. Current countries supported include: US, CA,GB,NL,TR.

AddressTypeCode

This is a country dependent field. This field returns a code to identify the type of address that the input is identified as.

US

Code	Definition
A	Alias address
F	Firm or Company
G	General Delivery
H	Highrise or Business Complex
P	PO Box
R	Rural Route
S	Street or Residential

CA

Code	Definition
1	Street
2	Street Served by Route and General Delivery
3	Lock Box
4	Route Service
5	General Delivery
B	Large Volume Receiver Street
C	Government Street
D	Large Volume Receiver Lock Box
E	Government Lock Box
L	Large Volume Receiver General Delivery
K	Building

GB

Code	Definition
L	This address is identified as having a large user postal code. This is due to the large volume of mail received at that address, or because a PO Box or Selectapost service has been set up.
S	This address is identified as having a smaller user postal code. This means this postal code will have usually around 15 delivery points but never more than 100.

For a list of all outputs available, please reference our wiki page: Global Address Object.

Country Specific Updates

ÅLAND ISLANDS

• After review, we found that the thoroughfare level data is not at a level to justify the AV-3 (Thoroughfare level) classification and can incorrectly code legitimate thoroughfare. We are moving this country to AV-2 (Locality level) while we work on finding better data.

ARGENTINA

• Improved the area alignment for Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires AdministrativeArea.

CANADA

• Improved handling of Canadian addresses that start with the format of ###-#### and is all in address lines. Before, the engine would confuse this valid but rare subpremise number and house number format for a phone number. This would only happen if postal code and locality input fields were not used.

CURAÇAO

• Improving handling of address1 only input handling.

BARBADOS

• Improved our thoroughfare level data. You should expect much more AV23 than before.
• Improved geocoding

CÔTE D'IVOIRE (IVORY COAST)

• Improved our thoroughfare level data. You should expect much more AV23 than before.
• Improved geocoding

NETHERLANDS

• We have switched to a new premium level data source. This new data source contains highly accurate street level information and also new subpremise information. Additionally, it also includes highly accurate rooftop level geocoding.
• Due to the addition of subpremise level data, you should start receiving many more AV25 Result codes.
• SubPremise information and parsed fields will now be populated for AV25 records.
• We will return rooftop level geocodes and GS05 for almost all coded records.
• Formatted Address reviewed and ensured to match postal agency specifications. This includes double spaces beween the locality and postal codes.

NIGERIA

• Improved our data source to include much more extensive thoroughfare level data.
• You should expect much more AV23 than before.
• Improved our engine to cut down on false coding
• Improved Geocoding

NORWAY

• Updated our area values to match the new administrative region revamp instituted by the Norway government in 2020.

PAKISTAN

• Added extensive street level data to the country. You should receive much more AV23 now.
• Improvement in geocoding result returned.

SRI LANKA

• Improved our thoroughfare level data. You should expect much more AV23 than before.
• Improved geocoding

TURKEY

• We have added a new high quality data source and revamped our engine for that source.
• Subpremise level data with Building data and AV25 coding now available.
• Increased number of GS05 rooftop level geocoding.
• Reviewed and revamped Formatted Address to ensure match with postal agency standards.

UNITED STATES

• Changed handing of two unique zip codes (12345 and 88888) based on customer data. We will no longer allow any and all input to code as valid (as per CASS specifications) but require a recognized street. This will improve data quality as we see many fake inputs using these postal codes.

Data Updates

Reference Data Update

• ALL COUNTRIES

Address Pattern Recognition Update

• ALAND ISLANDS, CANADA, CURACAO, BARBADOS, IVORY COAST, NETHERLANDS, NIGERIA, PAKISTAN, SRI LANKA, TURKEY, UNITED STATES

February 2020 Update

Released February 2020

General Information

We had to combine the 2019Q4 and 2020Q1 update due to data source provider issues. However, this update includes a significant and extensive update for Great Britain. Please make sure to review the Great Britain section.

Country Specific Updates

COLOMBIA

• Moved Building information to AddressLine2 instead of the same line as the thoroughfare.
• Now using a dash in the premise number to separate values instead of a space.

GREAT BRITAIN

We have been working on a major update for Great Britain and are pleased to be able to provide them to you in this update. This update should represent a major improvement in quality and feature set.

• We have added the following new data sets from Royal Mail at no change in cost for our users:

• Not Yet Build – Addresses in the planning or construction phase
• Multiple Residence – Individual dwellings in multiple occupancy buildings that share a front door
• BFPO –British forces personnel serving overseas

• We have incorporated a new geolocation source with much more accurate rooftop points for Great Britain. This data is not available from Royal Mail.
• We have made changes in the Administrative Area field. Administrative Area is not used in the mailing address. We will be following the Royal Mail Unitary Authority Name administrative county where available.
• We are currently working on infrastructure to move GB to a monthly update cycle. Additionally, we are also working on the ability to expose additional UK elements like UDPRN/DeliveryPointSuffix.

ISRAEL

• Modified the Formatted Address and address lines to match in country postal rules.
• Building and subpremise information now returned at the end of address1 instead of in a new line as per our country research.
• Engine will now preserve valid 7 digit postal codes
• Post office box values now returns as PO Box instead of Ta Do'ar

JAPAN

We have done a major re-configuration for Japan. Our previous data source for Japan is no longer available so we have acquired a new equally good source.

• We have turned down the aggressiveness of the engine that would change the premise number value in order to code the address. This will result in more AV13 coding and less AV24 but we believe it is better this way.
• Will now return a 〒Prefix for the postal code in the Formatted Address as per in country postal standards.
• Slight variations in area parsing for new data source
• Some changes in the makeup of the address lines using the deliverylines option.
• Japan uses both full width and half width numbers, the half width version being the one that most latin languages are used to. To bring Japan in line with our other countries and more consistent in its behavior, we will using full width numerals in the Formatted Address if the OutputScript is set to Native and half width numerals if the OutputScript is set to Latin. If it is set to Match, we will detect the width from the input. For Address lines and parsed fields will always use half width as they are designed for database storage, comparison, and matching.

MONGOLIA

• Changed from AV23 to AV22 country. The street data available was too out of date and preventing legitimate locality verification. Working on finding and evaluating new providers.

MYANMAR

• Change in configuration to keep more input data on output
• Updated area vales

NICARAGUA

• Changed configuration to recognize locality for more records

SYRIA

• Changed from AV23 to AV22 country. The thoroughfare information was dated and unreliable given the current state of the country.

TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS

• Change in configuration to keep more input data on output
• Updated area vales

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

• Reduced the rate of false coding. May result in slightly lower matching rates.
• Improved matching and parsing of house number and Villa information.

UZBEKISTAN

• Changed from AV23 to AV22 country. The street data available was too out of date and preventing legitimate locality verification. Working on finding and evaluating new providers.

YEMEN

• Changed configuration to recognize locality for more records

Data Updates

Reference Data Update

• ALL COUNTRIES

Address Pattern Recognition Update

• COLOMBIA, GREAT BRITAIN, ISRAEL, JAPAN, MONGOLIA, MYANMAR, NICARUGUA, SYRIA, TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, UZBEKISTAN, YEMEN

October 2019 Update

Released October 2019

General Information

This update is considered a partial update as we are still waiting for updated data from some of our sources. This update combined with the next update, scheduled to arrive before the end of the year, should cover all countries

Country Specific Updates

ARGENTINA

• We have made a number of changes to better correspond to the postal preferences of the country:

• Formatted Address has been slightly modified
• The Locality and Postal code are now returned on separate address lines
• Premise Numbers will be returned with a prefix of “N°”
• SubPremise, Building, SubBuilding information now returned at the end of the address lines.

• We have tweaked our matching engine to better avoid false positive matches that will incorrectly change the address.

BELIZE

• We have re-evaluated our data source for Laos and decided that it was not good enough to justify being an AV-3 country. We have removed the spotty thoroughfare data and improved our locality data so that more records can be verified at AV22 instead of returning an error. We are looking for better data to use in the near future.

CHRISTMAS ISLANDS

• Improved our locality matching

COMOROS

• Improved our locality matching

COOK ISLANDS

• Improved our locality matching

GAMBIA

• We have re-evaluated our data source for Laos and decided that it was not good enough to justify being an AV-3 country. We have removed the spotty thoroughfare data and improved our locality data so that more records can be verified at AV22 instead of returning an error. We are looking for better data to use in the near future.

GERMANY

• Fixed an issue where some Postfache and postal code values were not available

GREAT BRITAIN

• Minor improvement in matching rate

JAPAN

• We have fixed an issue where changes to the premise number did not trigger an AC20 change code.
• We have fixed an issue where the ISO 3166-2 Country Sub Division Code of JP-23 was not returned

JORDAN

• We have removed some matching logic that caused false or over-aggressive matches

LAOS

• We have re-evaluated our data source for Laos and decided that it was not good enough to justify being an AV-3 country. We have removed the spotty thoroughfare data and improved our locality data so that more records can be verified at AV22 instead of returning an error. We are looking for better data to use in the near future.

PORTUGAL

• Formatted Address is now returned in all capital letters based on the preferences of the CTT.
• We have turned down the aggressiveness of the engine to lower the possibility of coding to the wrong address.
• We have switched our data source to one that we believe is better aligned with the official CTT data.

URUGUAY

• A hyphen is returned between postal code and locality as per postal preference
• Sub Premise information returned at the end of the street address as per postal preference

Data Updates

Reference Data Update

• ARGENTINA, BELIZE, CANADA, CHRISTMAS ISLANDS, COMOROS, COOK ISLANDS, GAMBIA, GERMANY, ITALY, JORDAN, LAOS, PORTUGAL, UNITED STATES, URUGUAY

Address Pattern Recognition Update

• ARGENTINA, BELIZE, CHRISTMAS ISLANDS, COMOROS, COOK ISLANDS, GAMBIA, GREAT BRITAIN, JAPAN, JORDAN, LAOS, PORTUGAL, URUGUAY

August 2019 Update

Released August 2019

General Information

• We have changed the change code logic so that one input cannot be used against two output values in terms of the change code. This would apply in cases where two areas like the locality and administrative area are the same. If the input contained that value, in the past, we would not report any change code. However, now that single input will only be counted against a single output, and we would add a change code for appending the 2nd area value.

Country Specific Updates

ARGENTINA

• Improved the alignment of the address area values

AUSTRALIA

• Improved pattern recognition to increase coding rate

BULGARIA

• Made an effort to decrease the number of false positive coding. This may result in some addresses coding before that do not now but we believe the overall quality is better now.
• Improved parsing result
• Standardized use of abbreviated thoroughfare types

BERMUDA

• We have acquired and incorporated a better data source that includes thoroughfares and house numbers. The quality of the thoroughfares has also increased. Overall it is a dramatic improvement in the coding quality of this country.
• Improved parsing
• Administrative Area no longer returned for this country. It is unnecessary for a country of this size.
• Improved Formatted Address structure

COLOMBIA

• Improved recognition of addresses without thoroughfare leading types

EGYPT

• Changed Formatted Address to better conform to country standards

FRANCE

• We have standardized the latitude and longitude to 6 digits after the decimal to bring it in line with other countries. The 7th digit of the latitude/longitude corresponds to a variance of around 11 millimeters, which is insignificant for the use of coordinates in addressing.

ESTONIA

• Improved coding quality
• Improved address structure in Formatted Address

HUNGARY

• Improved coding accuracy and thoroughfare name recognition
• Improved recognition of real life address patterns, especially ones involving a period in the input premise number

ITALY

• Improved recognition of abbreviations for better coding accuracy

PHILIPPINES

• We have greatly improved our address pattern recognition for the Philippines so that our coding accuracy has increase dramatically.
• Decreased cases of false coding
• Will no longer return AV22 for bad address
• Improved Parsing

QATAR

• Decreases cases of false coding. This could affect addresses that have previously coded but overall we believe the quality is better
• Moved Building information to before thoroughfare but on the same line in accordance to our research

ROMANIA

• Greatly increase our coding accuracy and the return of AV24 results.
• Restructured the Formatted Address in accordance with preference by the Romanian post office.
• We are returning the Locality in all capitals in accordance with postal preference.

THAILAND

• Improved detection of dependent locality

Data Updates

Reference Data Update

• ALL Countries

Address Pattern Recognition Update

• ARGENTINA, AUSTRALIA, BULGARIA, BERMUDA, COLOMBIA, EGYPT, FRANCE, ESTONIA, HAITI, HUNGARY, ITALY, NICARAGUA, PHILIPPINES, QATAR, ROMANIA, THAILAND, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

April 2019 Update

Released April 2019

General Information

• This update had been delayed due to some issues with getting data updates from several of our providers. Melissa apologizes for any inconvenience this may have caused and we are working to prevent delays like this in the future.

Country Specific Updates

BENIN

• Decreased false address correction

BOTSWANA

• Decreased false corrections
• Improved address recognition and coding rates

BURKINA FASO

• Decreased false address correction

BURUNDI

• Greatly reduced false address corrections
• Improved address pattern recognition

CAMEROON

• Improving coding rates
• Decreased false address correction

JORDAN

• Greatly improved our address recognition engine and coding rates
• Improved parsing
• More accurate Formatted Address positioning and casing

MACEDONIA

• Improved address recognition

MALAYSIA

• We have made an effort to decrease the false positive that would change the address to a different one than intended in coding. This may result in some addresses not coding which did before, but we believe the tradeoff for better overall quality is worth it.
• Improved general parsing and sub-premise level parsing
• Improved change code detection

MALTA

• Decreased false address correction
• Improved parsing

PERU

• Improving pattern recognition and coding rates
• Improved parsing
• We have researched and more closely aligned our output to postal authority documentation
• Improving handling of sub-premise values
• Addresses with errors no longer return AV22

SERBIA

• We have moved to a new and improved data set that includes the most current postal code data for Serbia. This is the PAK (Post Office Location Code) which we are now appending to the address.
• This new updated data set does not include geocoding, so latitude and longitude is currently not available. We are working hard on adding this information in on a future update.
• Improved parsing of the address
• Improving casing of the Formatted Address

UNITED STATES

• Increased the number of addresses in our database that are real physical addresses but not serviced by the USPS.

Interface Update

We have added to the Global Address Object additional inputs and outputs specific to the US and Canada. These inputs and outputs were only available in our US/CA on-premise products before and not the Global Address Object. In this update, we have opened up access to these fields for use.

For most users, these updates will have no effect. This is only to be used if you want to access some US or Canada fields that were not in the previous Global Address Object.

New US Features:

We have added several new data files to open up US only features for our Global Address Object users. They are included in this update and will be available for all users by default. They include:

• AddressPlus Database – This database allows you to find and append a missing suite based on the input address and last name. To use this, set the LastName input described in the New Inputs section.
• Delivery Indicator Database – Gives you access to our delivery indicator data and will tell you if an address is a business or residential address.
• Melissa Address Key Database – This new feature gives you access to our proprietary MAK number. This is a 10 digit number assigned to each unique address in the world, which will stay unique across time and area updates (like a zip+4 split). Currently it is only available for the US and CA but we plan on adding additional countries soon.

New Inputs:

CASS Mode

The CASS (Coding Accuracy Support System) form is the USPS form for mailing discounts

Input Parameter	Input Value	Description
USCASSEnable	“True” or “False”	False is enabled by default. Set to True to be able to generate a CASS Form.
USSaveCASSForm	File Path	Path and filename to save CASS Form to with .HTML or .PDF extension

SOA Mode

The SOA (Statement of Accuracy) form is the CanadaPost form for mailing discounts

Input Parameter	Input Value	Description
CASOAFormName	text	Name to use on the SOA Form
CASOAFormAddress	text	Address to use on the SOA Form
CASOACPCNumber	text	CPC Number to use on the SOA Form
CASaveSOAForm	File Path	Path and filename to save SOA Form to with .HTML extension

Additional Inputs

Input Parameter	Input Value	Description
USPreferredCityNames	“True” or “False”	False is enabled by default. If set to true, all vanity city names will be overwritten by the USPS Preferred City Name on verification. (US Only)
USStandardizationType	"Auto" or "Short" or "Long"	Auto is enabled by Default which uses USPS preferences. “Short” means all suffixes, prefixes, and directionals will be abbreviated (NW, DR, BLVD). “Long” means all suffixes, prefixes, and directional will be written out (Northwest, Drive, Boulevard). (US Only)
USAliasMode	"Convert" or "Preserve"	Convert is enabled by default which means if we find a street that is an alias, we will convert it to the preferred street name. Use Preserve to not perform the convert. (US Only)
LastName	Text	Input LastName in which case the engine will try and append a missing suite from the address based on the last name. (US Only)

New Outputs:

US Only Outputs

Input Parameter	Description
USCityAbbreviation	Get the abbreviated city name.
USPlus4	Get the plus4 by itself.
USCarrierRoute	Get the Carrier Route.
USDeliveryPointCode	Get the 2 digit delivery point code
USDeliveryPointCheckDigit	Get the 1 digit devliery point check digit
USCongressionalDistrict	Get the congressional district number of the address
DeliveryIndicator	Returns an “R” for residential, “B” for business, “U” for Unknown
USCensusTract	Census Tract value
USCensusBlock	Census Block value
USBlockSuffix	Census Block Suffix
USCountyFips	County FIPS number
USCountyName	County Name
USPlaceCode	Census Place Code
USPlaceName	Census Place Name
USCBSACode	Census CBSA Code
USCBSATitle	Census CBSA Title
USCBSALevel	Census CBSA Level
USCBSADivisionCode	Census CBSA Division Code
USCBSADivisionTitle	Census CBSA Division Title
USCBSADivisionLevel	Census CBSA Division Level
USCensusKey	Census Key value
USCountySubdivisionCode	Census County Subdivision Code
USCountySubdivisionName	Census County Subdivision Name
USElementarySchoolDistrictCode	Elementary School District Code
USElementarySchoolDistrictName	Elementary School District Name
USSecondarySchoolDistrictCode	Secondary School District Code
USSecondarySchoolDistrictName	Secondary School District Name
USUnifiedSchoolDistrictCode	Secondary School District Code
USUnifiedSchoolDistrictName	Secondary School District Name
USStateDistrictLower	State Lower Congressional District Number
USStateDistrictUpper	State Upper Congressional District Number
USZipType	Returns the Zip Type for US US Code Description A blank zip type is a regular zip P Zip code specifically for PO Boxes U Unique Zip Code M Military Zip Code

US and CANADA Outputs

Input Parameter	Description
AddressType	Returns the Address Type for US and Canada US Code Description A Alias F Firm or Company address G General Delivery Address H High Rise or Business Complex P PO Box address R Rural Route address S Street or Residential address CANADA Code Description 1 Street 2 Street Served by Route or GD 3 Lock Box 4 Route Service 5 General Delivery B LVR Street C Government Street D LVR Lock Box E Government Lock Box L LVR General Delivery K Building
MAK	Melissa Address Key value. MAK is our proprietary unique number for each individual address in the world. Currently only available in the US and CA but we are planning on rapidly adding more.
BaseMAK	Melissa Base Address Key value. The BaseMAK is the MAK of a base building. For example, if there is a high rise with 100 individual suites, they would have 100 unique MAK values. However, all 100 would have the same BaseMAK value which is the address high rise building itself.

Data Updates

Reference Data Update

• ALL Countries

Address Pattern Recognition Update

• BENIN, BOTSWANA, BURKINA FASO, BURUNDI, CAMEROON, JORDAN, MACEDONIA, MALAYSIA, MALTA, PERU, SERBIA, UNITED STATES

Global Email Object

Reference Data Update

• New domains added

Global Phone Object

Reference Data Update

• All countries

Global Name Object

Reference Data Update

• None

Build 1.0.0.2962

Released June 2017

• Added AC22 for Organization Change
• Improved fuzzy matching logic for correcting misspelled thoroughfares

• AUSTRALIA
  • Fixed coding issue where some streets with a very large number of premises did not correctly get coded
• DENMARK
  • Improved area alignment and general engine coding effectiveness
• FRANCE
  • Removed certain abbreviations and standardization from triggering change codes
• Germany
  • Fixed some misc. coding issues
• GREAT BRITAIN
  • Fixed an issue were an input record would result in an engine crash
• Poland
  • Removed certain abbreviations and standardizations from triggering change codes
• SPAIN
  • Removed certain abbreviations and standardizations from triggering change codes
• SWEDEN
  • Improved area alignment and general engine coding effectiveness

Data Updates

• Reference Data Update: ALL Countries
• Address Pattern Recognition Update: DENMARK, EGYPT, FRANCE, HONG KONG, KOREA, MOZAMBIQUE, NEW ZEALAND, SWEDEN

Build 1.0.0.2871

Released January 2017

• Fixed handling of alpha-numeric house numbers and house ranges (eg: 10-12, 10A-12, 10A-12B etc).
• Fixed a case of triggering of AC11 without thoroughfare trailing change (targeted for DK)
• Fixed some cases of AC20 being incorrectly triggered (targeted for GB)
• Changed PO Box number errors with correct postal code or localities from AV22,AE12 to AV12,AE12 (targeted for AU,DE,NL,GB)

• BELGIUM
  • Fixed some cases of addresses returning in mixed languages
• FINLAND
  • Improved area alignment
• GERMANY
  • Improved recognition of postal codes with a prefix
  • Improved data issue in “Rüsselsheim am Main”
• GREAT BRITAIN
  • Fixed some incorrect postal code changes in Great Britain
  • Improved coding accuracy in Great Britain
• INDIA
  • Improved parsing for inputs containing landmark elements
• IRELAND
  • Fixed matching logic that resulted in too many AE05 - multiple match errors.
  • Fixed issue with the DeliveryLines option not removing all area values into the parsed fields
  • Improving coding accuracy
• Mexico
  • Fixed several cases with missing CountrySubdivisionCode
• NETHERLANDS
  • Fixed cases of coding invalid PO Boxes
  • Improved recognition for organization name in Addressline1
  • Improved area alignment

Data Updates

• Reference Data Update: ALL Countries
• Address Pattern Recognition Update: ARGENTINA, AUSTRALIA, BRAZIL, BULGARIA, COLOMBIA, DENMARK, ECUADOR, FINLAND, GERMANY, GREAT BRITAIN, INDONESIA, IRELAND, KOREA, MALAYSIA, NEW ZEALAND, PHILIPPINES, PORTUGAL, RUSSIA, SERBIA, SPAIN, TAIWAN, THAILAND, TURKEY, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, VIETNAM

Build 1.0.0.2827

Released October 2016

• Speed Improvement for many countries
• Coding improvement for Great Britian, can now code address with just postal code and house number
• Company detection improvement for Australia
• Multiple fixes for Germany
• Added Packstation data for Germany
• Misc address issue fixes

Data Updates

• Reference Data Update: All countries
• Parsing Logic Update: ARGENTINA, AUSTRALIA, BRAZIL, BULGARIA, CHILE, CHINA, CZECH REPUBLIC, EGYPT, GREECE, GERMANY, GREAT BRITAIN, LITHUANIA, POLAND, ROMANIA, THAILAND, VIETNAM, ZIMBABWE
• Address Handling Update: LAOS

Build 1.0.0.2761

Released May 2016

• Bug fixes in Germany, United Kingdom, United States
• Fixed problem with selected address separator not being used in FormattedAddress
• Misc address issue fixes

Data Updates

• Reference Data Update: All countries
• Parsing Logic Update: AUSTRALIA, CHILE, FRANCE, GREAT BRITAIN, JAPAN, KOREA, NETHERLANDS
• Address Handling Update: BRAZIL, CHILE, CHINA, EGYPT, FRANCE, GREAT BRITAIN, IRELAND, JAPAN, KOREA, NETHERLANDS, NORWAY, TAIWAN

Build 1.0.0.2717

Released November 2015

• Bug fixes in Germany
• Fixed error in the service when blatant non-address data (like email addresses) were sent in
• Misc address issue fixes

Data Updates

• Reference Data Update: All countries
• Parsing Logic Update: AUSTRALIA, CHINA, COLOMBIA, FRANCE, GREECE, KOREA
• Address Handling Update: ARGENTINA,AUSTRALIA,CHILE,CHINA,FINLAND,FRANCE,GREECE,HONG KONG,INDIA,IRELAND,KOREA,NORWAY,POLAND,TAIWAN,UNITED KINGDOM,

Build 1.0.0.2646

Released May 2015

• Implemented Significant Speed improvements
• Coding improvements for Germany
• Added handling of new South Korean postal code format
• Misc bug fixes

Data Updates

• Reference Data Update: CHINA, ECUADOR, GREENLAND, IRAQ, QATAR
• Parsing Logic Update: ARGENTINA,BRAZIL,CHINA,DENMARK,DOMINICAN REPUBLIC,FRANCE, INDIA,ITALY,KOREA REPUBLIC OF,NEW ZEALAND, NORWAY, POLAND, PORTUGAL, QATAR,SPAIN, UNITED KINGDOM
• Address Handling Update: CHINA, TAIWAN

Build 1.0.0.2608

Released February 2015

• Made coding improvements to Germany
• Added PO Box data for Germany
• Improved verification speed for China
• Improved title casing for all countries
• Misc bug fixes

Data Updates

• Reference Data Update: All countries
• Parsing Logic Update: AUSTRIA,CHINA,SOUTH AFRICA,UNITED KINGDOM,AUSTRALIA,CANADA,CROATIA,CZECH REPUBLIC,FRANCE,GERMANY, GREECE,INDIA,IRELAND,ITALY,KOREA REPUBLIC OF,LIBYA,NEW ZEALAND,PHILIPPINES,UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
• Address Handling Update: AUSTRIA, CHINA, SOUTH AFRICA, UNITED KINGDOM

Build 1.0.0.2589

Released November 2014

• Improved casing for Australia
• Fixed case where thoroughfare change not being reported in result codes
• Improved Canadian PO Box parsing
• Increase recognition of variations of US country names
• Misc bug fixes

Data Updates

• Reference Data Update: All countries
• Parsing Logic Update: ARMENIA, AUSTRALIA, BAHAMAS, BELGIUM, BOTSWANA, BRAZIL, CZECH REPUBLIC, GREECE, HONG KONG, INDIA, INDONESIA, IRAQ, MACAO, NEW ZEALAND, SLOVAKIA, SPAIN, TAIWAN, UKRAINE, GREAT BRITAIN
• Address Handling Update: BELGIUM

Build 1.0.0.2400

Released August 2014

• Initial Release