Standardizing MLS Addresses

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
lajackson
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#11

Post by lajackson »

boomerbubba wrote:The biggest frustration is the multiple steps in the MLS user interface, and accompanying latency, to call up each member record and edit it.
I find this to be very true of most MLS things, not just addresses.
russellhltn
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#12

Post by russellhltn »

Alan_Brown wrote:The MLS address format is indeed US-centric in the US, but not anywhere else.
Now, is it "US-centric" or is it the same settings for everyone who connects to same area office (in our case, SLC)? I'm thinking the latter, which means it's "North America Area-centric", but I could be wrong.
kmalone-p40
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Correcting addresses

#13

Post by kmalone-p40 »

There is another way to quickly audit the addresses and to identify errors that I haven't seen talked about yet.

Run the database in Access, set up to check for these change the colors to the errors and just correct the ones needed.
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aebrown
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#14

Post by aebrown »

kmalone wrote:There is another way to quickly audit the addresses and to identify errors that I haven't seen talked about yet.

Run the database in Access, set up to check for these change the colors to the errors and just correct the ones needed.

I don't quite understand what you are suggesting. What does "run the database in Access" mean? As far as I know, you can't connect to the MLS database using Microsoft Access, and even if you could, it would be a very bad idea because of the risk of damaging the database.

Or are you talking about exporting the data from MLS as a CSV file and running some analysis on that data? If so, it seems like a spreadsheet would be a simpler choice than Access, but you're welcome to use any tool you want, as long as you have a legal license and preserve the security of the exported MLS data.

But in any case, for your suggestion to help anyone, I think it would be good for you to clarify, perhaps listing some specific steps.
RossEvans
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#15

Post by RossEvans »

kmalone wrote:There is another way to quickly audit the addresses and to identify errors that I haven't seen talked about yet.

Run the database in Access, set up to check for these change the colors to the errors and just correct the ones needed.

I am not sure I follow. I can readily understand how Access or many other applications could identify differences between one snapshot (such as an export from MLS at a particular time) and another. That would be helpful on an ongoing basis to identify changed records, if you knew the original list was clean.

But how do you propose that Access find errors in postal addresses in the first place?

Also, remember that you cannot install MS Access on the clerk's computer. You would have to export a .csv file from MLS to your own computer, do your processing, and export another flat file back.
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aebrown
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#16

Post by aebrown »

boomerbubba wrote:Also, remember that you cannot install MS Access on the clerk's computer.

Not to digress, but the above statement is not true. With proper licensing and approval from both the stake technology specialist and the appropriate priesthood leader, there is no prohibition on installing MS Access. If a unit is considering purchasing it, I would highly recommend that they reconsider using Budget funds for that purpose, especially since OpenOffice includes a database at no cost. The Church recommends the use of OpenOffice. But from a policy perspective, it is not prohibited.
RossEvans
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#17

Post by RossEvans »

lajackson wrote:In the good old [hehehe] MIS days, I used to go through the files to standardize the addresses and phone numbers. After I had done it a few times, I figured I could print a report and visually scan it to check for needed changes.

Do you have a savant's memory skills, or live in one of those compact wards with only 10 streets where everyone's address looks like 138 W 400 N? In that case, I find that claim reasonable.

But other wards have many streets, and complex address ranges. It is not visually apparent whether "3247 Montana St" is a valid address. Such an address may not exist within the USPS database because there is no such number, there might be no such street, or it might really be "3247 Montana Blvd."

A few styliistic and formatting conventions -- such as using the correct form "Apt 1234" instead of "#1234," stripping out extraneous punctuation and using correct abbreviations -- can be fixed by visual scan or simple programatic rules. But fixing these items is far short of true address validation and standardization. And I daresay that most membership clerks have received no training on what correct USPS formatting is.
lajackson
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#18

Post by lajackson »

boomerbubba wrote:A few stylistic and formatting conventions -- ... stripping out extraneous punctuation and using correct abbreviations -- can be fixed by visual scan or simple programatic rules. But fixing these items is far short of true address validation and standardization. And I daresay that most membership clerks have received no training on what correct USPS formatting is.
No, I did not hit the USPS database directly. The changes were for proper formatting, although corrections "in the city" came more easily.

The closest I did to a USPS database check was the annual mailing of Christmas cards from the bishopric with the old "address correction requested" / "do not forward" endorsement. (The proper way to do that now in the US is "Return Service Requested".) I figured if the Postal Service did not return the mail piece, the address was good enough.

The annual Christmas card mailing was used mostly to get updated addresses for missing members to keep the membership records located properly. Address validation by the Postal Service happened rarely.

And the ward was over 100 miles north/south and 70 miles east/west. We usually just used zip codes as geo codes. [grin]
jbh001
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#19

Post by jbh001 »

boomerbubba wrote:On a one-at-a-time basis, if the user has an Internet connection, the USPS web site will validate an address at http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/welcome.jsp Be aware of a maddening thing about this method: The new address is returned in all-caps..
USPS standards require the address be in uppercase. That is why the USPS returns the address that way. I have followed the same formatting in MLS. That way it serves a s key for me to know if the address has been checked against the USPS database. If the address in MLS is in ALL CAPS then I know I have already checked it. If some or all of it is in lower case, then I can see at a glance which addresses need to be checked.
boomerbubba wrote:In that case, it is too bad they did not take the next step and include USPS validation and standardization of US addresses.
While this would be an improvement, it shows that you still don't live in rural Oklahoma. A good chunk of our unit is in another county. When that county converted over to enhanced-911 service, they decided that eliminating rural routes and assigning street names and numbers would be too costly. Instead they simply went around to each address in the county with a GPS unit and geo-located it with latitude and longitude coordinates. Therefore, for this county, the standardized USPS address is still RR 1 BOX 12345. Unless one knows which rural routes are which, these addresses are imp[osible to find (unless one starts stalking the mail cariier while they are out making deliveries).
RussellHltn wrote:Now, is it "US-centric" or is it the same settings for everyone who connects to same area office (in our case, SLC)? I'm thinking the latter, which means it's "North America Area-centric", but I could be wrong.
Canada has slightly different address formatting standards; US-centric is most likely.
boomerbubba wrote:Do you have a savant's memory skills, or live in one of those compact wards with only 10 streets where everyone's address looks like 138 W 400 N? In that case, I find that claim reasonable.

But other wards have many streets, and complex address ranges. It is not visually apparent whether "3247 Montana St" is a valid address. Such an address may not exist within the USPS database because there is no such number, there might be no such street, or it might really be "3247 Montana Blvd."
I have done exactly that in three different wards each with 150 to 300 households, and the first was in the MIS days. In each case I don't remember spending more than a week to 10 days getting ALL the addresses standardized and updated. I simply printed out a ward directory, took it home, checked each household address against the USPS website, noted the corrections in red on my printout, and then updated the address in MIS/MLS.

I can see how some may see this as a daunting task, but I can vouch for the fact that once done, maintianing is is rather simple and can be done monthly or quarterly if desired, with minimal hassle. Additionally, the potential of Meetinghouse Internet with access to the USPS website directly from the ward clerk computer simplifies this process by reducing the steps required. I could potentially verifiy records and standardize the addres as soon as they arrive in MLS or as soon as I am notified of an address change or move-out.

Maybe for your unit, you just need to break the task down into smaller chunks, Like one week to all the A's, the next week do all the B's, etc. Doing that it shouldn't take more than 6 months to clean up the addresses in your unit. That is definately doable.
JamesAnderson
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#20

Post by JamesAnderson »

At one worksite I was at for many years, I had to regularly verify people's addresses, and found another nagging problem that some of the third-party software packages that clean up address databases to conform with USPS standards have problems.

The package my employer used was called 'Finalist' I believe. Went through the argument with my employer about how it screwed up certain NYC addresses, you know the ones on Long Island with a dash in the house number, such as 123-45 114th St, or something similar.

What the software was supposed to do is take your input, and convert it to the proper format. If it could not do that with the actual address, it would put a dash in front of the number, like -123-45 114th St. Then it would also fail to insert the proper zip+4 code, and the technicians (I was in a call center that took repair calls) would have to figure it out manually, as this software problem played havoc with their end of things.

Other software packages have their own problems that are different from the above, such as some that call -100 North' in Provo 100th North. I had to tell a classical music mail order house in Vermont once how to fix the problem and cheat the system so it would show 100 North properly, for example.

No third-party software package is completely innocent. Another package had a cow with the Texas Farm to Market Road system. An address there should read like 225 FM 2133 or 1445 RM 2004 (Ranch to Market), but with something like regular state highways, loops, and spurs there they never seemed to have had a problem with those.
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