Hi,
I'm wondering if anyone out there has used the NCOA utility.
This is something new to me, so if you have used it, and have any suggestions/issues for the best practice, it will be appreciated.
Thank you!
Hi Dan. I am also interested in hearing from anyone who is using the new NCOA/address standardization utility. Anybody?
We rolled our own tool last year, and I'll probably use it again for our next update, but I also plan to research the Tessitura system at that time: probably middle of next month.
We're just starting to look at the utility ourselves so I thought I would revive this thread. From reading the documentation it sounds pretty exciting. Here are some questions we're going to be thinking about:
Who should we include and exclude in the export? Is there a set of addresses we need to run separately to use the enhanced address format?
Do we want to run phone numbers as well?
How do we want to schedule running it to stay compliant?
For anyone who has done it, can you tell me if the addresses come back in all capital letters? From the documentation it doesn't sound like that's the case, but I know that's how the PO prefers things (though not necessarily how our users do).
Thanks! I'd love to hear any other experiences, planning, etc...
Sarasota Opera was the first to sign up and run it in production. It works as promised. The FTP file process is a little clunky but since it is done manually from your PC it isn't a big deal at all. The export and import process work smoothly and the reports reflect what was done. I really like the fact that you can run it in "Demo" mode to see what will happen if you run it.
I've seen something about waiting for v2 to be released but we have had no problems with it.
The vendor was able to keep his promise of turning the data around is 24 hours if submitted before their cut-off. It is all documented in their paperwork.
The cost is far less than anything we were doing some running this every 90 days is completely possible.
Questions? Call me any time. 941-366-8450 x330
Parnell,
Thanks for the info! Are you using the Tessitura partner vendor (Experian) or someone else?
Leslie,
This is exactly the reassurance I was seeking. Thanks!
You are correct it just overwrites the address. But as I remember the 1) The updated address show that NCOA updated it 2) old address does appear in the Audit history and 3) There is an Attibute that provides the date of NCOA update.
You can use 1 & 3 as a comparison. Not having an inactive address bothered me and also broke with protocol but it turned out not be a problem. Why? Because the auto update is not done for “sensitive” records such as subscribers or high end donors. If you have special procedures for when and who can update address in these records then auto update is not done. Instead you can receive reports to update manually. You can then have an inactive copy should it be warranted.
From: Stacey Voigt [mailto:bounce-staceyvoigt1752@tessituranetwork.com] Sent: Friday, March 31, 2017 4:44 PM To: McKinley, Leslie <LMcKinley@nycitycenter.org> Subject: [Tessitura Technical Forum] NCOA Utility
I'm looking for organizations, particularly consortia, that use or have used the NCOA Utility for address updates/corrections.
We want to explore this but have heard that the utility overwrites the address without leaving an inactive copy of the old address, which contradicts our data audit trail process.
Has anyone used the utility? Has anyone customized the utility to fine-tune it for their organization's needs?
Thanks! Stacey
svoigt@granadasb.org
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As I mentioned earlier, we had rolled our own. Now, however, we use half of the NCOA utility: the part that outputs the email addresses, since our vendor prefers that. We still handle our own import, though, for two reason. First, we like to see previous postal addresses when looking at a customer record. We simply inactivate them and mark the kind of NCOA change (move or delete) using a Contact Point Purpose. The second is that though we want to not automatically update some customers (donors, records that have been updated since the last NCOA update, etc.), we still want to know what the post office thought their addresses should be, so I'm able to keep that in a custom table and our users have a report they can use to look up the "holds" and then decide how to process them.
As I mentioned earlier, we had rolled our own. Now, however, we use half of the NCOA utility: the part that outputs the email addresses, since our vendor prefers that. We still handle our own import, though, for two reason. First, we like to see previous email addresses when looking at a customer record. We simply inactivate them and mark the kind of NCOA change (move or delete) using a Contact Point Purpose. The second is that though we want to not automatically update some customers (donors, records that have been updated since the last NCOA update, etc.), we still want to know what the post office thought their addresses should be, so I'm able to keep that in a custom table and our users have a report they can use to look up the "holds" and then decide how to process them. From: Leslie McKinley <bounce-lesliemckinley4321@tessituranetwork.com> Sent: 3/31/2017 9:06:31 PM You are correct it just overwrites the address. But as I remember the 1) The updated address show that NCOA updated it 2) old address does appear in the Audit history and 3) There is an Attibute that provides the date of NCOA update. You can use 1 & 3 as a comparison. Not having an inactive address bothered me and also broke with protocol but it turned out not be a problem. Why? Because the auto update is not done for “sensitive” records such as subscribers or high end donors. If you have special procedures for when and who can update address in these records then auto update is not done. Instead you can receive reports to update manually. You can then have an inactive copy should it be warranted. From: Stacey Voigt [mailto:bounce-staceyvoigt1752@tessituranetwork.com] Sent: Friday, March 31, 2017 4:44 PM To: McKinley, Leslie <LMcKinley@nycitycenter.org> Subject: [Tessitura Technical Forum] NCOA Utility I'm looking for organizations, particularly consortia, that use or have used the NCOA Utility for address updates/corrections. We want to explore this but have heard that the utility overwrites the address without leaving an inactive copy of the old address, which contradicts our data audit trail process. Has anyone used the utility? Has anyone customized the utility to fine-tune it for their organization's needs? Thanks! Stacey svoigt@granadasb.org This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Technical Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Technical forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you! This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Technical Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Technical forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you!
As I mentioned earlier, we had rolled our own. Now, however, we use half of the NCOA utility: the part that outputs the email addresses, since our vendor prefers that. We still handle our own import, though, for two reason. First, we like to see previous email addresses when looking at a customer record. We simply inactivate them and mark the kind of NCOA change (move or delete) using a Contact Point Purpose. The second is that though we want to not automatically update some customers (donors, records that have been updated since the last NCOA update, etc.), we still want to know what the post office thought their addresses should be, so I'm able to keep that in a custom table and our users have a report they can use to look up the "holds" and then decide how to process them.
From: Leslie McKinley <bounce-lesliemckinley4321@tessituranetwork.com> Sent: 3/31/2017 9:06:31 PM
Gawain,
It sounds like your import process is addressing the exact concerns that the development teams across our consortium have.
Is there any chance you’d be willing/able to share the code for it?
From: Tessitura Technical Forum [mailto:forums-technical@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Gawain Lavers Sent: Saturday, April 01, 2017 2:05 PM To: Stacey Voigt Subject: RE: [Tessitura Technical Forum] NCOA Utility