Address data updates
Submitted by info@bordc.org on Fri, 2008-02-15 11:49.
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We have just completed a major fund-raising campaign with address service requested from the post office in order to clean up our data base. We now have a table full of mail returned "unable to forward", as well as a large pile of address corrections, and several things we would like to accomplish:
1. Unable to Forward
a. If the contact has never donated and we no longer have a correct address, we just want to delete that contact from ebase.
b. If the contact HAS donated before, we want to delete the incorrect address but check to see if the associated email address is still correct.
2. Address Correction Provided - we want to update the contact's address only.
Is our only option to update contacts one at a time, or is there a quicker way?
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Depends on prior planning; not automated
If, when you sent your ebase data out for address verification and clean-up, you included the ebase contact ID for each, you have the basic information you need to reliably automate the steps you describe. If you did not export the contact ID, you might still be able to get it using the old addresses (if they're in the data returned by the PO) as a lookup, but doing so is less reliable where there are duplicate addresses.
Once you have contact IDs for each address, an ebase consultant (or someone skilled in FileMaker and data manipulations) should be able to implement the logic you describe above... but no it's not an end-user feature. Typically, in my experience, I can do it cost-effectively (compared with expending staff time), but if you have no consultant or if you have good volunteers you might need to do it manually.
Here's one thing to consider, too: it's sometimes the case that the address returned by the PO is not your contact's preferred address, and that the address you have is the one you should keep. Check with your address clean-up vendor: they may be able to indicate to you which of the addresses were identified as explicitly changed or invalid and which were merely replaced with another address that was on file.
Best wishes!