Introduction
DOTS NCOA Live is a public XML Web service that uses the USPS’s Change of Address (COA) data to determine if, and to where, a person has moved.
This information is only available if the resident has given the USPS their forwarding address; as such, this service is to be used for mailing purposes only.
In addition to move information, this service also standardizes the input address, appends Zip+4 data, and includes additional meta-data about the move-to address such as whether it is currently vacant, whether the address qualifies for pre-sort discounts, and general information about address deliverability.
DOTS NCOA Live provides summary reports as required by the USPS. The CASS Summary Report, and the NCOALink Summary Reports both return data such as how many records were processed, how many were Zip+4 encoded, etc.
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Sample Data
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Quick Lookups
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Developer Guide Map
- Operations
This section lists the DOTS NCOA Live operations and goes into the details behind the inputs and outputs.
Operations:
- RunNCOALive (Recommended Operation)
- RunNCOALiveSingleAddress
- GetCASSSummaryReport
- GetNCOALinkSummaryReport
- GetJobSummaryReport
- Codes, Notes, Correction
This section shows additional supporting data tables for the codes, notes, and corrections. - Errors
This section reflects details on the error outputs that can happen with the service. - Code Snippets and Sample Code
Here you’ll find code snippets for various programming languages and frameworks along with links to our sample code page on the web site. - Frequently Asked Questions
This is a list of some of the questions we hear more often that you can reference and get answers on right away.
Integration Basics
Integrating NCOA Live into your application is relatively simple, but has a few pitfalls to be aware of. If you are using a common platform, Service Objects may already have sample code built that you can use:
https://www.serviceobjects.com/developers/sample-code/
However, if you are using a common platform that does not already have sample code, you can ask Service Objects to build you an example. Email support@serviceobjects.com for more details.
Web Service Structure:
Web services are methods that integrate with other applications via the web, and encapsulate tricky business logic. Web services are too large a topic to cover in this document, but Service Objects has developed its web services to be as easy to integrate and as accessible as possible.
NCOA Live is a public XML web service that supports SOAP, POST, and GET operations. Note that due to the nature of the primary operation (RunNCOA Live), only SOAP is supported. The reporting operations support all three.
The host path, or physical location of the web service is here:
https://trial.serviceobjects.com/nl/NCOA Live.asmx
The location of the WSDL, or Web Service Definition Language document, is here (This is also accessible via the “Service Definition” link.) :
https://trial.serviceobjects.com/nl/NCOALive.asmx?WSDL
Important Notes!
- This XML is the definition of the web service, meaning its inputs, outputs, operations, and the like. Most likely, you will have another tool read this WSDL and make the operations available to you in your application. Whenever your utilities or IDE asks for a WSDL path to NCOA Live, you can provide this one. Every web service has “operations” that it offers to subscribers – methods that do different work and return different output. Examining the link above, you will notice several of these operations available, which are described in detail later on. Each of these operations will be described in detail later in this document.
- SOAP is done via POST, only with special XML markup in the post-body.