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Dear Customers and Business Partners,

More than 25 years after the invention of the PC, the daily office routine has changed, but not always for the better. People are overwhelmed with information of sometimes questionable quality. You probably know this from your own database. How many times have duplicate addresses, missing ZIP codes or other errors in your data annoyed you? People are often awed by the precision of computers. Electronic helpers can process enormous amounts of data in the shortest time, yet a simple typo might be enough to shrink the results to zero.

There are a multitude of "human" errors: Typos, misunderstandings, lack of knowledge, carelessness or laziness are some of them. Sometimes even system restrictions like field lengths can make correct data storage impossible. This newsletter explains how AddressDoctor can help you with many of these challenges. Typos can be corrected by our powerful address validation. They are also not much of a challenge for our Deduplication Engine.

Last but not least, we have significantly improved our Postal Code Lookup. Based on our Web Services and the FastCompletion technology it takes postal code lookups to the next level. Not only can you search in many of the countries supported by AddressDoctor, but it also shows a properly formatted address label. Please try it and share your feeback with us.

With highest regards,

Sven Schreiber
Managing Director
 

The AddressDoctor Deduplication Engine combines modern similarity algorithms, an ultra-fast fault-tolerant search and knowledge about international addresses into a powerful tool.

Address quality does not end with clean and correct addresses. Many databases contain lots of duplicate entries, with new duplicates being added daily. Large databases are especially subject to even more duplicates being introduced. A database's classic search possibilities are rarely any help, because they can't match entries in differing spellings.

The AddressDoctor Deduplication Engine combines two powerful features: Quickly finding duplicates, even in large data pools, and fault tolerant searches on already cleansed data, including sophisticated, fault-tolerant retrieval.

The engine's own data repository makes it independent of you database and its performance. Up to 10 different lists or data sources may be combined and queried together.

Like every AddressDoctor product, the Deduplication Engine is available for several platforms and with different interfaces. Currently available are C and Java for Windows and Linux. Additionally, a .NET interface is available on Windows.

Since March, Client Vela has been using the AddressDoctor Web Services with much success. The address pools of Munich's Client Vela's customers are cleansed with this powerful service.

Over 50 companies trust Client Vela. Through the use of the AddressDoctor Web Services the customers' data can be cleansed quickly. "Data quality and the hassle-free usage of AddressDoctor has impressed us", says Oliver Jentzsch, Partner at Client Vela. "Without annoying waiting times we can access the system from several locations and work stations simultaneously. Even on the weekend."

The AddressDoctor Web Services are powerful, SOAP based Web Services designed to improve the quality of addresses. Addresses from all over the world can be cleansed through a single interface.

Address format

Even though it is an Asian country, addresses in Singapore are written in English. Singapore has over 120000 six-digit postal codes. This high number can be explained by the high population and building density, which necessitates postal codes down to the street blocks. Addresses from Singapore use one of three formats: Addressing by house number / street, by block / street or by post box. If present, the house number is written to the left of the street name.

RECIPIENT
HOUSENUMBER STREETNAME
CITY POSTALCODE
SINGAPORE

• Example:
  
  Fann Wong
  155 Kallang Way
  Singapore 349244
  SINGAPORE
  

If the address is in a building complex, often the block number is given. In this case you can find the floor and apartment numbers in the address as follows:

RECIPIENT
BLOCKNUMBER STREETNAME

FLOOR - APARTMENTNUMBER BUILDINGNAME
CITY POSTALCODE
SINGAPORE

• Example:
  
  Anabel Chong
  Blk 38, Defu Lane
  # 13-37
  
  Singapore 539215
  SINGAPORE
  

Post box mailings require the post office name in front of the post box number.

• Example:
  
  Rama Mae
  Robinson Road Post Office P.O. Box 639
  Singapore 901239
  SINGAPORE
  

There are no provinces in Singapore, since most of the country's area is composed of the city Singapore.

Use the possibility of AddressDoctor to output addresses in this format automatically. The Property "FormattedAddressLine" supports automatic output in this format.

New Postal Code Lookup

After almost five years we have put our postal code lookup through a thorough renovation. Recently the new, powerful lookup has gone live at www.AddressDoctor.com/Lookup/. It is based on the current Web Services and not only supports foreign character sets, it also uses the newer and more detailed reference data of the current version. By utilizing the FastCompletion technology it offers results even for incomplete input.

Mixed casing now available for all countries

A new feature of the AddressDoctor software libraries is the complete support for output in mixed casing for all countries. Many postal organizations and data suppliers make their reference data available in capital letters only. For example, all city and street names in France are in upper case letters. The reason is a regulation by the French Post to improve automated sorting. However it may not always be acceptable to present an address in upper case. This makes it necessary to "proper case" the data. Many systems use a simplistic "Capitalize-the-first-letter" algorithm. This can lead to curious results, like

Quai Louis Xviii

which are often even less acceptable than an output in capital letters. AddressDoctor uses specialized algorithms to case the street correctly:

quai Louis XVIII

Of course company names and titles are processed correctly as well. Extensive algorithms make sure that even rare specialties from all over the world are handled correctly.

This feature is also available in the AddressDoctor Web Services.

Field too short – abbreviate the data

Another new feature of the AddressDoctor software is a powerful algorithm that can abbreviate address elements. Even though hard drive space is increasing steadily, many database fields are too short. Changes are often not possible or too expensive. Especially existing databases with corresponding applications can not be changed. Thus the field contents must fit the field size, making useful abbreviations necessary. AddressDoctor offers a new solution. Instead of simply truncating the data, it uses country specific abbreviation methods. As an example, the 32 letter input of

2 BOULEVARD DU GENERAL DE GAULLE

can be abbreviated to 20 letters

2 BL D GEN DE GAULLE

The placement of the house number and its lengths will be observed. The number of characters can be configured for each output field. Additionally, multi-line fields, like address lines, can be limited to a certain maximum number of lines. This feature is available both in the software libraries and the Web Services.

Updated Reference Data

This spring we have extended the AddressDoctor database significantly. Completely new data with increased information density has been integrated for Chile, Mexico and Poland. Cape Verde and San Marino have been updated with extended data sets and new postal codes. More updates were done for Croatia, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg and Norway. For these countries we were able to increase the frequency of updates as well.

The AddressDoctor databases are updated monthly, as new data becomes available. They are available for download by our customers. As always our web site holds extensive information about the databases in our country list. Users of our Web Service can find the status of the available data at the bottom right of our Web Service Homepage.

The World is Flat – AddressDoctor at the Hitec Show

"The World is Flat" is the title of Thomas Friedman's bestselling book. Globalization is everywhere, especially in the Hospitality industry. Guest arrive from all around the world, while IT systems have not made it to the 21st century. If you run a hotel, you might be faced with these challenges. Please share your experience with us and fill out our online survey. If you come to visit us at this year's HITEC show in Minneapolis, please bring the survey and receive a copy of the book.

HITEC 2006 runs from June 19th to the 22nd. AddressDoctor is at booth 255.