When running NCOA address appends, we often run into problems with those updated addresses not being the preferred address for our Board, VIP's, etc. We then have to spend time cross-checking and doing more work than we should. How do others combat this problem? We also currently don't run NCOA through Tessitura which could be a problem itself. We have their preferred addresses marked in Tessitura but want to be sure that doesn't change when the NCOA is run. Any suggestions? Thanks so much!
Hi Angela,
The NCOA Processing utility has quite a few ways to include or exclude addresses. Typically, we will export all addresses unless we have been specifically requested not to update them by the users. So (for instance) we will exclude the address type used specifically by development for VIP donors. These addresses have things like "boulevard" spelled out for use in formal invitations. The NCOA process would shorten that to Blvd, so we exclude them.
You can also exclude or include addresses by list or constituency so you could leave out all of your board members if needed.
- Levi
Thanks, that's very helpful. Also - one more question regarding those formal (spelled out) versions of addresses... is that an address type you have to manually enter for each constituent, or is there a way that you can have a code/script/something written so that it can automatically populate a record with a formal address?
Thanks!
For us it's all manual. There aren't very many of them and Development wants to manage them by hand.
It's possible to do what you're asking by writing something in the database to do find and replace on things. However, it is wildly tedious to try and come up with ALL the rules you need to account for. For instance, if you want to see the word Street you should probably write rules for
Multiply that by all of the other types of things you will want to account for and it can get out of hand in a hurry. If you really need a formal address for all of your patrons, I'd suggest talking to whoever provides your NCOA service to see if they can provide you with the kind of results you want in addition to the normal data. They are probably more equipped to handle it.
Thank you for that info. I agree that it would be extremely tedious and a bit overwhelming. We'll look into NCOA and if they can offer the same solution with less headache. Thanks for all of your help - I really appreciate it!