CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Hi all:

I tried to set up the USPS address validation and got the following message from USPS (below).  I never got it to work, only receiving a yellow banner at the top of the page saying "Address not found in USPS database. Your Individual contact record has been saved."  Was this validation tool supposed to work on a record-by-record basis, or was it also capable of doing batch validation?

Does the message below effectively remove the functionality that had been added to CiviCRM to validate addresses?  Is there a workaround?  Here is the address we're using in the 'Web Service URL': http://testing.shippingapis.com/ShippingAPITest.dll

Any guidance will be much appreciated.  Thanks.

(message from USPS)

 Subject: Web Tools - Address APIs Request
 
 Discussion Thread
 Response (Daren H)   11/23/2007 11:50 AM
Dear HEALUtah Staff,

Thank you for contacting the USPS Internet Customer Care Center regarding Web Tools.

Thank you for contacting the USPS®. Unfortunately the Address API's can only be used in conjunction with USPS Shipping Services and is not intended for the use of cleansing databases or batch processing.

The USPS offers the Address Management System API CD as an alternative, which has all the addressing needs on it that would have been provided through the Address API. The Address Matching System Application Programming Interface is $3,500/ annually for in-house use. This allows the customer to place the data in one location on one server and develop on one platform. If the customer wishes to develop on multiple platforms or develop software for resale, there are additional charges. The customer receives an update via CD-ROM every other month. The customer may request to receive monthly CD-ROM updates for additional charges.

If you're interested in ZIP Code™ information, various ZIP Code products are available on CD-ROM on an annual subscription basis with monthly updates.

For more information, please write to the following address or call 1-800-238-3150.

National Customer Support Center
United States Postal Service
6060 Primacy Pkwy Ste 201
Memphis TN 38188-0001

Thank you for contacting United States Postal Service®.

If you have any additional questions or concerns please contact us again.

Thank you,

Daren H
USPS Internet Customer Care Center
icustomercare@usps.com

Lobo,

Thanks for your reply.  I went ahead and called them and then sent a follow-up email saying how we'd be using the service.  I have a feeling that they'll give us the production web service URL now.

I just want to make sure I understand how it will work . . .

As I understand it, when I save a new or edited contact record, the service will send an xml message to the web service, and the web service will respond with a message that says "yes, it is correct" or "no, it is not correct."  Or would it actually send back a standardized address to the database?

Thanks.

I think my question is similar.  To determine house and senate districts, we need to have 9 digit zip-codes and also for mailing 9 digit zip-codes would be helpful. There is a product called ZP4 which does this in bulk, but I was wondering if we could have an automated interface into USPS 9 digit zip-code lookup:
http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/welcome.jsp

http://www.usps.com/webtools/htm/Address-Information.htm

I received authorization for testing - but not sure how to do in php.  Tried doing as a readfile, but can't get anything to return.  Anyone have a php example?
- - - -
Actually I got it to work.  Here is my code which I found on the internet (use your own USPS ID):
$url='http://testing.shippingapis.com/ShippingAPITest.dll?API=ZipCodeLookup&XML=';
$msg='
<ZipCodeLookupRequest USERID="xxxxxxxx">
<Address ID="0">
<Address1></Address1>
<Address2>6406 Ivy Lane</Address2>
<City>Greenbelt</City>
<State>MD</State>
</Address>
</ZipCodeLookupRequest>
';

//get the response from the USPS
$newurl = $url . urlencode($msg);
$contents=file_get_contents($newurl);

echo $contents;
- - - - - -
I'm not sure what do do with this now or how to ask for the zip code from within CiviCRM.

After having the zip code which we will use for mailing purposes, we can also use the zip code to access the routine on www.Vote-smart.org to lookup political information.