Do you provide address validation?
Yes, Service Objects provides US address validation and Canadian address validation. Services are available through our either real-time XML interface or a batch FTP service.
Do you provide address correction?
We consider address validation and address correction one in the same. We validate an address we also correct an address. We correct almost every address in some small way, whether it be adding a road type (like Avenue, Street or Drive) or appending a new zip code. Virtually every address we touch is validated then corrected in some small way.
How do I get a copy of the developer's guide?
You can find a link to our developer guide here:
http://www.serviceobjects.com/devguides/dots_address_validation_us.pdf
Are free trials offered?
Yes, free 15-day trials are offered. Visit our web site, and click on the Free Trial button. You do not need to submit a credit card to get a free trial.
http://www.serviceobjects.com/signup/signup_aio.asp?wsid=3
Can your web service be integrated with a custom .NET application (C#)?
Our web services are created in C#. Integration with C# clients is our preferred client. The service has been tested with a C# client auto-generated from WSDL by the wsdl.exe tool. It should work fine from any .NET language.
Are there any performance metrics/ratings that can better evaluate the web service?
DOTS Web Services are continuously monitored by an independent third-party provider named AlertSite. This company is the leading provider of web performance measurement, systems monitoring and security vulnerability scanning products to ensure our web services are always available and running at peak performance.
http://www.serviceobjects.com/products/dots_performance_reports.asp
How scalable is the web service (in terms of volume of service requests or no. of users)?
We deliver over 500,000 transactions per day to 600 clients in over 25 different industries. Service Objects is the only contact analysis service entirely focused on helping marketers generate more sales through enhanced data quality. We have verified more than 600 million contact records - with reliability of 99.999 percent - for 600 customers.
What are the terms of support included with purchase?
Service Objects assumes that every customer we have will be a customer for life. Once we deliver a solution, our real success will depend on quick and focused resolution to questions, issues, and follow-up tasks related to the services we deliver. There is no limit on the number of support issues. We offer multiple access paths to your knowledgeable project manager: phone, fax, online-chat, a support forum and e-mail. For our DOTS Gold and Platinum package customers our support help line is available to you 24 hours a day - 365 days per year.
Do you cover Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam and military addresses?
Yes, we provide support for APO boxes and American territories.
Where can I find a copy of your Service Level Agreement (SLA)?
http://www.serviceobjects.com/support/dots_sla.asp
Is your solution dependent on any external service providers?
No, we are not dependent on external service providers. We maintain all data for address validation internally.
Where do you get your address data from?
Our core data comes from the United States Postal Service (USPS) and Canada Post.
How do you address any data privacy and security issues?
Transactions to our web service can be sent securely via XML using 128-bit SSL encryption. Transactions sent to our service are never stored onto persistent media (never stored to a database and never written to a file). We do not use customer provided data to improve our data set.
Do you have provisions for the solution to be moved from the hosted service to in-house and vice versa?
Our service is designed to be a remotely hosted solution only. We do not provide in-house software for address validation.
Is your software CASS certified?
Yes and no. Our core address validation engine is CASS certified. It meets and exceeds all requirements for address correction expect bulk mail discounts. However, the web service does not print the USPS forms required for bulk mail discounts, and because of this we are not formally CASS certified. You cannot use DOTS Address Validation for bulk-rate postal discounts.
Do you have any disaster recovery plan? Do you perform any periodic tests?
Yes, Service Objects maintains a backup server farm in New York. The backup server is design to run completely independent of the primary server farm. We test the New York server farm hundreds of times per day to ensure proper failover.
If address validation fails what happens next, is the user alerted?
Service output varies slightly from operation to operation. But the gist is - if the address provided is so poor that we can't correct it, an error is returned. It is up to the developer how they choose to handle the failed address.
Are any suggestions made for close matches to incorrect addresses?
Here again, functionality varies from service to service. Some operations do offer multiple suggestions if a perfect match cannot be found.
What are the platform & hardware specifications of the service?
On our side we run multiple load-balanced Windows and Linux servers. Load balancing is stateless and is performed by redundant Cisco content switches.
Where do I get a list of closest matches for an invalid address?
The operation of interest is called GetPossibleMatches. It returns the possible validated matches for a given US postal address. For example if 120 Cota Street is submitted the application will return two validated addresses for the programmer to chose from (ie. 120 EAST Cota and 120 WEST Cota Street). How the multiple choice dialog-box is presented to the user is up to the developer.
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