- Address Management
- PostCoder API Professional
- PostCoder API Compact
- PostCoder Pro/Lite/Local
- PostCoder Rapid
- PAF® Data
- PostCoder for Sage Line 50
- PostCoder Web SOAP
- PostCoder Web Nearest
- PostCoder Server
- Installation
- Trials & Demos
- Licences
- General
- What is Address Management?
- What are the components of a postcode?
- What is a postally correct address?
- What is the difference between 'thoroughfare' and 'premise level' data?
- What is the difference between street and dependent street, and between dependent locality and double-dependent locality?
- What is Postzon?
Please see our Address Management Guide
Print this pagePostcodes are made up of areas, districts, sectors and units. The elements are joined as shown below:
There are 124 Postcode areas in the UK, approximately 20 Postcode districts per area, approximately 3000 addresses in a sector and approximately 15 addresses per unit.
Cities that have single-letter area codes tend to be ones that had been split into postal districts before the arrival of the postcode as it is known today, thus Sheffield has a postcode area of 'S' and Glasgow has 'G'. Some London districts (e.g. in London EC) have a letter on the end of the outward part to make the districts more manageable in size, for example EC2M.
Although the Outcode may consist of a single letter and single number, e.g. W4, the Incode always consists of a single number followed by 2 letters e.g. W4 1AP.
When writting a Postcode, it is normal to separate the Incode from the Outcode with a single space.
A 'postally correct address' is an address that is formatted in the Royal Mail approved manner containing only the details specified in the PAF® database (apart from the addressee details). The following PAF® elements may be present in a correctly formatted address. Only the Post Town and Postcode are guaranteed always to be present; most addresses only use three or four of the available PAF® elements in addition to these:
Organisation
Department
Post Office Box Number
Sub-building name
Building name
Building number
Dependent street (thoroughfare)
Main or only street
Double dependent locality
Dependent locality
Post Town
Postcode
J. Smith and Co. Ltd
Sales Department
77
Unit 6, Flat 3B etc
Rose Cottage, Tolworth Tower etc
7, 16-18, 108A etc
Sea Mews, Shopping Centre etc
High Street
Little Bromley
Great Bromley
BROMLEY
BR6 4AB
Note that County is no longer postally required, but may optionally be present between Post Town and Postcode if desired. The Postcode should be on a line of its own, and there should be nothing below it on the mailing piece (except by agreement with Royal Mail). Ideally, the Post Town and Postcode should be fully capitalised and other address lines should be in mixed upper and lower case.
Thoroughfare data is to street level only and does not include a list of premises. Premise level data includes street numbers, building names, sub-building names and organisation and department names.
The number of delivery points in the Postcode area is specified in both thoroughfare and premise level data.
Premise level data also includes the delivery point suffix.
In practice, this means that thoroughfare data will give a list of the Postcodes for a particular street and will give the complete address when a premise and postcode is entered. However, in order to verify the premise, premise level data would be required.
Where the Postal address only contains one street, this is simply given the title 'street' (or 'thoroughfare'). Where there are two streets (e.g. a shopping parade off the high street), then the minor one is called the dependent street, and appears before the main street on an address label. In the same way, dependent localities are smaller villages, and are used by Royal Mail when required for unambiguous addressing. A double dependent locality may also be required where there is ambiguity. Industrial Estates with multiple streets are often recorded on PAF® as double-dependant localities.
Postzon is an additional data set that provides geographic data about an address and comprises Ordnance Survey grid reference data (Eastings and Northings), Local/Unitary Authority Electoral Ward information, Primary Care Trust (Local Health Board in Wales) codes and NHS Health Board or Strategic Health Authority statistics. Grid reference data is provided on a per Postcode basis and is accurate to within 100m of the Postcode mean. Postzon is available as an optional extra.
- What development environments support the PostCoder API Professional?
- What level of performance does the API Professional offer?
- What type of licence is required to use the API Professional on a website?
- What level of technical knowledge is needed to be able to use the API Professional?
- What DLL is used for ActiveX?
The PostCoder API Professional will run on Windows 32-bit platforms. Any development language supporting standard DLL, COM interface or ActiveX library calls may be used. Examples included with the API installation demonstrate how to integrate with Access, ASP, C++, C#, Delphi, Visual Basic, Visual Foxpro, VisualBasic.NET, Visual C++.NET, ASP.NET
The complex matching algorithms used by the API do not come at the expense of speed. Our optimised database ensures high speed Rapid Addressing as well as maximising the accuracy of results from the Address Matching and Basic Search functions.
To use Royal Mail PAF® data on a public facing website you must be registered for Premise level data with or without Postzon. Please contact us for costs.
You must have a basic understanding of interfacing with a DLL or ActiveX control and be able to create and manipulate objects based on a DLL or ActiveX control, examples are provided. You also need to be able to write functions and procedures that reference DLLs or ActiveX controls. A basic knowledge of the screen design components and how to allocate functions or procedures to them in your chosen development environment is also required.
The ActiveX library is called PCUTAX.DLL. PCUTILS.DLL is a standard dynamic link library and is used only if ActiveX is not required.
- What are the differences between the Compact and Professional API?
- What development environments support the PostCoder API Compact?
- What level of performance does the API Compact offer?
- How many licences are required to use the API Compact on a website?
- What level of technical knowledge is needed to be able to use the API Compact?
- What DLL is used for ActiveX?
- Why does my PostCoder API Compact not find house numbers?
The API Compact uses a thoroughfare level database which is optimised for speed and size. The whole database is only 11MB in total. Because it is a thoroughfare level product premise information is not available. If you require premise or additional information such as grid references or NHS codes, then the Professional API is the product to choose.
The API Compact is a Rapid Addressing tool and is optimised for this purpose. If you require more complex matching on different parts of an address then the PostCoder API Professional should be considered.
The PostCoder API Compact will run on Windows 32-bit platforms. Any development language supporting standard DLL, COM interface or ActiveX library calls may be used. Examples included with the API Compact installation demonstrate how to integrate with Delphi, Visual Basic 6, Access 97/2000, C++ and ASP using Microsoft Internet Information Service.
With a small footprint and optimized thoroughfare level database the API Compact provides extremely fast rapid addressing capability.
A thoroughfare system licence is required to use the API Compact on a website. This permits unlimited use of a single copy of PAF® for one organisation. Please contact us for costs.
You must have a basic understanding of interfacing with a DLL or ActiveX control and be able to create and manipulate objects based on a DLL or ActiveX control, examples are provided. You also need to be able to write functions and procedures that reference DLLs or ActiveX controls. A basic knowledge of the screen design components and how to allocate functions or procedures to them in your chosen development environment is also required.
The ActiveX library is called THFUTAX.DLL and is commonly used in ASP pages, and any development environment that supports access to a COM interface.
THFUT32.DLL is a standard dynamic link library for static linking in Visual Basic, Delphi and other environments
THFUTVC.DLL is a standard dynamic link library specifically for static linking with Microsoft Visual C++.
This is because PostCoder API Compact is a street level product. If you would like to be able to search on premise level fields, you could upgrade to PostCoder API Professional. Contact our sales team for more info on +44 (0)1508 494488 or our enquiry form.
- What search options are available?
- Can an address found by PostCoder® be transferred/saved to another application?
- How do I set up PostCoder® to send an address into my chosen application?
- Can PostCoder® print Address Labels?
- What is the best way of producing multi-address label sheets in PostCoder®?
- Why does my installation code not work?
- What is the difference between 'mixed' case and 'postal' case?
- Why does the text case reverse when sending address data?
- Why does my PostCoder Lite not find house numbers?
Three search types are available on the PostCoder Pro screen: Basic Searching, Rapid Addressing and Address Matching. Basic Searching would be used if you have been given specific address details over the telephone such as the street, locality and post town and you want to know the postcode. In a call centre environment, you might ask a caller for their postcode and house name or number, for which Rapid Addressing would be ideal. If you have been given very sketchy details of an address and it is unknown which PAF® element is being given, Address Matching could be used to search for matches anywhere in an address.
PostCoder Local has the same three search types available.
With PostCoder Lite, Basic Searching and Rapid Addressing are available.
Single address results can be directed to other applications. The results can be sent to databases, spreadsheets, graphics packages, accountancy packages, word processors and other applications that take text input. See our answer to PostCoder® question 3 on this.
This requires configuration of a Send Format. Carry out the following actions:
- Choose Tools | Options | Send Format
- You can either choose an appropriate pre-defined Send Format for your application from the dropdown list or create your own customisable format by clicking New and choosing from the options available.
- Choose whether you would like packed or fixed format, tidy premises, and configure the number of lines you require in your send output as well as the address elements that will appear in each line.
- Click on the Send Target tab to choose whether to send to the Hot Key source or to a particular application window.
- To assign a Hotkey to your custom Send Format, within the Edit Send Format dialog, click on the Hot Key tab. On this form you can choose which keyboard combination will perform the Hotkey action.
- To ensure this layout is always loaded when you start PostCoder®, choose Tools | Options | Send Format, choose your format from the dropdown list and click 'Default'.
We have made every effort to make the configuration of Send Formats as intuitive as possible. However, if you are having problems getting addresses sent to your application, please call us on +44(0)1508 494488 and we will be happy to assist you.
PostCoder® can print to a sheet of labels or to an individual envelope. PostCoder® also supports printing to labelling devices such as Dymo label printers. For further details of how to configure printing, please refer to the manual by choosing Help | Contents
You should use Microsoft Word (or similar) to produce a sheet of labels and then use Send Direct within PostCoder® to transfer the address into the appropriate label. In Word 2000, you would do this as follows:
- Create a new document in Word.
- Choose Tools | Envelopes and Labels...
- If the required label type is not selected, click Options and choose the required label from the selection box.
- Click on New Document.
- Click in a label and switch to PostCoder®. At this point, if PostCoder® is already active, you may press Alt-P to activate PostCoder®.
- Retrieve the desired address and click on Send.
You should repeat steps 5 and 6 above until you have got all the required addresses on the sheet and then print the document.
When registering your copy of PostCoder® during the installation process, all the information that you enter on the page entitled "Registration" is case sensitive and must be entered exactly as given on your registration sheet.
Mixed case uses a mixture of upper and lower case characters for all elements of the address. Upper case letters are used for the first letter of each word except the postcode, which is all upper case. In postal case, the upper and lower case mixture is used for all elements except the post town and the postcode, which are both in upper case. This is the Post Office approved format and makes the post town and postcode stand out from the address, which makes sorting much easier.
Postal Case:-
Allies Computing Limited
Manor Farm Barns
Fox Road
Framingham Pigot
NORWICH
NR14 7PZ
Mixed case:-
Allies Computing Limited
Manor Farm Barns
Fox Road
Framingham Pigot
Norwich
NR14 7PZ
Occasionally PostCoder® reverses case when it sends addresses to an external application - e.g. capital letters come through in lower case and lower case letters come through as capitals.
This is because PostCoder® uses the keyboard settings when sending data. If you have got Caps Lock pressed, you will get the effect described. To rectify this, simply turn off Caps Lock on your keyboard.
This is because PostCoder Lite is a street level product. If you would like to be able to search on premise level fields, you could upgrade to PostCoder Pro. Contact our sales team for more info on +44 (0)1508 494488 or use our enquiry form.
- What search options are available?
- Can PostCoder Rapid data be transferred directly to other applications?
- How do I direct the address to the application I want?
- Which layout should I use to send an address to Microsoft Word or a similar word processor?
- Which layout should I use to send an address to Microsoft Excel or a similar spreadsheet package?
- Which layout should I use to send an address to Microsoft Access or a similar database package?
- Can PostCoder Rapid print Address Labels?
- Is the installation screen case-sensitive?
- What is 'postal' case?
- Why does the text change case when I send an address to another application?
There is one search type available in PostCoder Rapid: Rapid Addressing. PostCoder Rapid is designed for rapid lookups such as in a call centre environment, where you might ask a caller for their postcode, lookup the address details and then add the house name or number.
PostCoder Rapid returns thoroughfare level data, which is address info to street level, but not to individual premises. However, there is a facility for manually adding (unverified) premise information to the address before it is sent to your application.
To add a name (organisation or personal) and/or a house number/building name to the address, use the Name and Premise buttons, and include the tags ORG: and/or PRM: respectively in your layout. For example:
Which with the addition of Name = "Allies Computing Ltd" and Premise= "Manor Farm Barns" becomes:
N.B. The Name and Premise will only show in the address window if you have included these fields in your layout.
Single address results can be directed to other applications. The results can be sent to databases, spreadsheets, graphics packages, accountancy packages, word processors and other applications that take text input. See our answer to PostCoder Rapid question 3 on this.
With PostCoder Rapid, you must use the hotkey approach. In your application, press the hotkey sequence (default is ALT + P) to switch to PostCoder Rapid. Once you have looked up the address, press the send button to send the address back to your application.
To configure a different hotkey combination for a given Layout:
- Choose Configuration | Layout
- Click on the Layout you wish to change, then click Amend
- Click on 'Hotkey Assignment' and choose an appropriate key combination for your Hotkey.
- Click OK, then OK again, then Use to make sure this Layout is in use
The standard Label or Letter layout is probably the best one to start with because it will give you a postally correct address without any blank lines. However, this layout cannot be amended so if you need to customize it, use one of the others - Label with County would be a good choice, or download one of our Letter layouts. Note: If you wish to send to a table within Word, then you would be better off using the Table layout.
The standard Table layout is the best one to start with because it separates the address elements with tabs, and tabs are the most common key used to skip between fields in a spreadsheet or table.
The standard Table layout is the best one to start with because it separates the address elements with tabs, and tabs are the most common key used to skip between fields in a database form or table.
No, PostCoder Rapid cannot print address labels on it's own, but you could use it to gather addresses for printing in (say) a word processor.
Alternatively, use PostCoder Pro or PostCoder Lite to print addresses directly from PostCoder® onto address labels.
When registering your copy of PostCoder Rapid during the installation process, all the information that you enter on the page where you enter your name and company is case sensitive and must be entered exactly as given in the registration details that we send you.
In postal case, upper case letters are used for the first letter of each word except for the post town and the postcode, which are both in upper case, for example:
Allies Computing Ltd
Manor Farm Barns
Fox Road
Framingham Pigot
NORWICH
NR14 7PZ
This is the Royal Mail approved format and makes the post town and postcode stand out from the address, which makes sorting much easier.
Occasionally PostCoder Rapid reverses case when it sends addresses to an external application - e.g. capital letters come through in lower case and/or lower case letters come through as capitals.
This is because PostCoder Rapid uses the keyboard settings when sending data. If you have got Caps Lock on, you will get the effect described. To rectify this, simply turn off Caps Lock on your keyboard.
- What data formats are available?
- What fields are available?
- Information: WCD - Local/Unitary Authority Ward Code
- Information: PCG - Primary Care Trust Code (formerly the Primary Care Group Code)
- Why do I get a "File not loaded completely" message when I open my data extract in Excel?
- What is the difference between 'thoroughfare' and 'premise level' data?
- What is the difference between street and dependent street, and between dependent locality and double-dependent locality?
- What is Postzon?
Data is available in dBASE, CSV and fixed text format as standard. Other formats are available. For further details please contact Allies Computing Ltd on 0845 644 8111 or use our enquiries page.
The following is a list of the fields available:
Extract Level:  = standard  = optional |
||||||
| Field Name/ Column Heading |
Description | P r e m i s e |
T h o r o u g h f a r e |
L o c a l i t y |
P o s t z o n |
M a x L e n g t h |
| BNA | Building Name (eg Rose Cottage, Bush Tower) | |
50 | |||
| CAT | User category (Residential, Non-residential or Large | |
|
|
1 | |
| CCN | Current County | |
|
|
30 | |
| CTA | Administrative County (top tier local government) | |
|
|
30 | |
| CTP | Former Postal County | |
|
|
30 | |
| CTT | Traditional County | |
|
|
30 | |
| DDL | Double Dependent Locality (small village) | |
|
|
35 | |
| DDLDLO* | Localities - postal order | |
|
|
71 | |
| DLO | Dependent Locality (large village) | |
|
|
35 | |
| DLODDL* | Localities - sorting order | |
|
|
71 | |
| DPS | Delivery Point Suffix(es) (eg 3AB) | |
3 | |||
| DPSORGPRM* | Organisation, Premise - full (see PRM), DPS and Unique Delivery Point Reference Number (URN) | |
168 | |||
| DPSPRM* | Premise - full (see PRM), DPS and URN | |
107 | |||
| DST | Dependent Street (thoroughfare) | |
|
80 | ||
| DSTSTR* | Streets - postal order | |
|
161 | ||
| GME | Grid mean easting in metres (Postzon 100 metre reference) | |
6 | |||
| GMN | Grid mean northing in metres (Postzon 100 metre reference) | |
7 | |||
| GRE | Grid Easting (100 metre reference) | |
5 | |||
| GRN | Grid Northing (100 metre reference) | |
6 | |||
| LGE | Longitude - ETRS89 | |
|
|
15 | |
| LGO | Longitude - OSGB36 | |
|
|
15 | |
| LNC | Country Code | |
|
|
3 | |
| LNN | Country Name | |
|
|
30 | |
| LOCTWN* | Locality and Post town | |
|
|
102 | |
| LOCTWNCTA* | Locality, Post town and Administrative County | |
|
|
133 | |
| LOCTWNCTP* | Locality, Post town and Former Postal County | |
|
|
133 | |
| LOCTWNCTT* | Locality, Post town and Traditional County | |
|
|
133 | |
| LTE | Latitude - ETRS89 | |
|
|
15 | |
| LTO | Latitude - OSGB36 | |
|
|
15 | |
| Field Name/ Column Heading |
Description | P r e m i s e |
T h o r o u g h f a r e |
L o c a l i t y |
P o s t z o n |
M a x L e n g t h |
| NDP | Number of Delivery points in this postcode record (not the entire postcode) | |
|
|
3 | |
| NHS | NHS Strategic Health Authority or Health Board Code | |
3 | |||
| NNH | NHS Strategic Health Authority or Health Board name | |
40 | |||
| NNR | NHS Regional Office name | |
30 | |||
| NUM | Street Number(s) (eg 6, 4A, 22-24) (not populated if tidy premise option selected) | |
12 | |||
| NUMRANGE* | All Street Number (NUM) values for the Postcode record summarised as ranges | |
1299 | |||
| ORD | Department(s) (within Organisation) | |
60 | |||
| ORG | Organisation name(s) | |
60 | |||
| ORGORD* | Organisation(s), department(s) | |
121 | |||
| ORGPRM* | Organisation and Premise - full (PRM) | |
155 | |||
| PCD | Postcode | |
|
|
|
8 |
| PCG | NHS Primary Care Trust/Local Health Board (Group) Code | |
3 | |||
| PNH | NHS Primary Care Trust Strategic Health Authority code | |
30 | |||
| PNP | NHS Primary Care Trust/Local Health Board (Group) Name | |
40 | |||
| POB | PO Box number (optionally with "PO Box" or other custom text) | |
6/12 | |||
| PRM | Premise - full. Street number and/or Sub-building and Building names (/ delimiter) | |
94 | |||
| PRMFMT* | Premise name - formatted - formatted list of premise info for all residential delivery points for the postcode record | |
10,099 | |||
| SBN | Sub-building Name(s) (eg Flat 1, Unit A etc) | |
30 | |||
| SCD | Sortcode (for Royal Mail Mailsort) | |
|
|
5 | |
| STR | Street - main or only street (thoroughfare) | |
|
80 | ||
| STRDST* | Streets - sorting order | |
|
161 | ||
| TWN | Post town | |
|
|
30 | |
| URN | Unique Delivery Point Reference Number (UDPRN) | |
8 | |||
| WCD | Local or Unitary Authority Ward Code | |
6 | |||
| WNA | Local or Unitary Authority name | |
30 | |||
| WNW | Local or Unitary Authority Ward name | |
40 | |||
Fields marked with an asterisk * denote complex fields - see individual field descriptions for details of each component. Field lengths for complex fields include comma "," or slash "/" delimiters between the fields. Some fields are always populated, where present in an extract - these are TWN, PCD and NDP. In addition, for premise level extracts DPS and URN are always populated.
This code is structured as follows:
33UHHX
33 - For two-tier Local Authorities this is the county portion. In England and Wales this is a two character code. In Scotland and Northern Ireland it is two digits. Unitary Authorities do not have a county code.
UH - This is the code for the Local/Unitary authority. In England, Wales and Scotland including the Scottish Islands, this is a two-character code. In Northern Ireland, the first character is a letter from A - Z with the second character represented by a space.
HX - the code for the Ward within the Local/Unitary Authority. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, this is a two-character code. In Scotland, including the Scottish Islands it is a two-digit code.
The above example is for the 'Poringland with the Framinghams' Ward in the South Norfolk Local Authority of the county of Norfolk.
More examples:
QS27 - Merchant City Ward in the City of Glasgow Unitary Authority
95Z 41 - Duncairn Ward in the Belfast Local Authority in the 'county' of Northern Ireland.
This field now contains the Primary Care Trust (PCT) code for England and Local Health Board (LHB) code for Wales. Primary Care Trust information is only available in England and Wales. Where Primary Care Trust information is unavailable (Scotland and Northern Ireland) a default PCT code may be allocated of '49998'.
PCT codes consist of the digit 5 followed by two further characters. LHB codes are similar but begin with the digit 6.
Microsoft Excel has a built in limitation of 65,536 rows (Excel v.2000 and above) per worksheet. If you purchase a PAF® Data extract at one record per premise for an entire Postcode Area, it is highly likely that you will exceed this limit. Data at one record per Postcode may fit into an Excel worksheet for a single area.
To resolve this, you can either:
- Use a database package such as Microsoft Access (recomended option)
- Request the data from us at one record per Postcode or in split files
Thoroughfare data is to street level only and does not include a list of premises. Premise level data includes street numbers, building names, sub-building names and organisation and department names.
The number of delivery points in the Postcode area is specified in both thoroughfare and premise level data.
Premise level data also includes the delivery point suffix.
In practice, this means that thoroughfare data will give a list of the Postcodes for a particular street and will give the complete address when a premise and postcode is entered. However, in order to verify the premise, premise level data would be required.
Where the Postal address only contains one street, this is simply given the title 'street' (or 'thoroughfare'). Where there are two streets (e.g. a shopping parade off the high street), then the minor one is called the dependent street, and appears before the main street on an address label. In the same way, dependent localities are smaller villages, and are used by Royal Mail when required for unambiguous addressing. A double dependent locality may also be required where there is ambiguity. Industrial Estates with multiple streets are often recorded on PAF® as double-dependant localities.
Postzon is an additional data set that provides geographic data about an address and is comprised of Ordnance Survey grid reference data (Eastings and Northings), Local/Unitary Authority Electoral Ward information, Primary Care Trust (Local Health Board in Wales) codes and NHS Health Board or Strategic Health Authority statistics. Grid reference data is provided on a per Postcode basis and is accurate to within 100m of the Postcode mean. Postzon is available as an optional extra.
- What search options are available?
- In a Sage address box, where should the postcode be entered?
- Can PostCoder for Sage Line 50 retrieve a full postal address when no Postcode is given?
- How should PostCoder for Sage Line 50 be activated?
- What version of PostCoder for Sage Line 50 is required for Line 50 version 9.00?
- Will PostCoder for Sage Line50 work with Sage Accounts 2008?
PostCoder for Sage Line 50 contains Thoroughfare data and supports
Rapid Addressing.
If you require the
Basic Search
or
Address Matching
functions, you may prefer our PostCoder®
application.
Provided a postcode is not entered in a name field (on some screens a name can be entered on the first line of the address), PostCoder® will recognise the postcode.
PostCoder for Sage Line 50 is a Rapid Addressing product, which means that searches are based on full or partial Postcodes only.
e.g. NR30 will give a list of possible streets and Postcodes that match NR30.
Choose Sage Additions and click the PostCoder® icon to launch the plug-in.
PostCoder for Sage Line 50 version 1.05 has been written for all versions of Line 50 up to and including V.10.
To use this version of Sage Accounts, you will need at least version 1.72 of PostCoder for Sage Line 50. Please contact us on +44 (0)1508 494488 if you need helping finding out which version you have installed.
Yes, both the username and password are case sensitive and must be entered correctly to access your PostCoder Web SOAP statistics.
Yes, any web server that supports a server-side scripting langauge that can parse XML data can be used with PostCoder Web SOAP.
Yes, you can use multiple servers and web sites. All address searches will be combined and added to your account.
Note: Each server, web site and web page using PostCoder Web can be uniquely identified.
Statistics on the number of searches from each identifier are available to PostCoder Web customers via
the login page.
If you would like to add another IP Address to your PostCoder Web SOAP account, please contact
support.
Each request for a postcode search is recorded within your account statistics. Use the Login Page and enter your PostCoder Web SOAP username and password to access your usage statistics.
- What data does it use to assess the nearest store/service provider?
- How often is the data updated?
- How many addresses can I add to my list?
- Can I add other fields to the list of nearest stores?
- Can I develop a nearest lookup for mobile phones?
- Do I have to display all of the results found or can I limit this?
- Do I get charged for unsuccessful searches?
PostCoder Web Nearest will initially accept a list of your stores/service providers to upload to the service, or a reference file to link to your list to protect your data. Then it allocates grid references to each Postcode so that when a user types their Postcode or town into your website, behind the scenes the PostCoder Web Nearest service looks up a grid reference and queries your initial file upload to display the nearest results to the online user.
The data is held on our servers and the grid reference data is updated on a monthly basis
You can add as many addresses to your list as you like.
Yes. You can add any additional information you like such as company name, website address, product type etc. and you can also add the postally correct address through the service too.
Yes, it is possible to create a nearest lookup for mobile phones – the system works in much the same way but rather than the user performing the lookup from a PC terminal, they would instead be accessing the service via the internet from a mobile phone.
You can choose whether or not to display all of the results found or you can limit your findings to the top X amount of results or all within a user defined radius. You can even choose to display sponsored links first if required.
No, you only pay for completed transactions. If the service is used where the user has entered an invalid Postcode, we will not charge you for the search.
- Is the installation screen case-sensitive?
- What development environments support the client OCX?
- Does each client have to be registered?
- What are the differences between PostCoder Web S2S and PostCoder Server?
- What type of customer is likely to benefit most from PostCoder Server?
- Does PostCoder Server allow me to develop my own bespoke address management solution for my client?
- What search options are available?
- How many licences are required to use PostCoder Server?
- How many concurrent sessions does PostCoder Server support?
- How many clients can PostCoder Server support?
- How much activity goes on in the client?
When registering PostCoder Server during the installation process, all the information that you enter on the page entitled "Registration" is case sensitive and must be entered exactly as given on your registration sheet.
The OCX can be used with most modern development environments including: Microsoft Visual C++® (version 7 inclusive), Microsoft Visual Basic®, Borland® C++ BuilderTM, Active Server Pages (ASP) and Borland® DelphiTM. Examples with full source code are included for Microsoft Visual C++®, Microsoft Visual Basic® and ASP.
Only the server application has to be activated via our registration process. Each client does however have to be registered as an OCX either via Regsvr32.exe (supplied with Windows), the installer supplied with the product or your own installer.
PostCoder Web Server 2 Server is a web-based application. Visitors to your website receive address data from our web server using web protocols. This data is sent directly to your own web server which then serves the data to your visitor's browser. PostCoder Web S2S provides thoroughfare-level address data.
PostCoder Server is a networked solution which is intended for use on a LAN or WAN. It delivers
its address data via TCP/IP protocols to a network of client PCs. It provides
premise-level
address data with full
address matching
or
rapid addressing.
Unlike PostCoder Web S2S and PostCoder Web B2S, your own server holds the Royal Mail PAF® database.
Businesses (small or large) with a network of PCs which need access to address data retained on a centrally maintained server. Call centres are a prime example of the type of customer who might gain most from this product. The product is particularly useful where the postcode is often not known for a large proportion of the addresses.
Our sensible no-nonsense licensing scheme is designed to make it possible for you to develop a solution and distribute it to your client with a minimum of fuss. The straightforward interface, richness of examples and clarity of documentation all help you on your way. On top of this, we provide a free technical support helpline that aims to get you up and running in record time.
PostCoder Server supports address matching and rapid addressing.
PostCoder Server is sold with a system licence which permits an unlimited number of clients to access the server.
PostCoder server supports up to sixty concurrent connections. To minimise the use of system resources, clients should terminate a connection once the matching operation is complete.
It has been successfully used with over 6,000 clients of whom about 170 are using the search options at any one time (subject to a maximum of sixty concurrent connections).
The results of each search are transmitted to the client immediately. The client holds these results in their entirety. This approach allows the connection to the server to be terminated quickly freeing up resources and minimising network traffic.
All PostCoder® products (except PostCoder Batch) are installed using the Setup program. With the PostCoder® CD in your CD-ROM drive, choose Start | Run... and type d:\setup.exe where d: is your CD-ROM drive letter. Follow the prompts to complete the installation.
When registering your copy of PostCoder® during the installation process, all the information that you enter on the page entitled "Registration" is case sensitive and must be entered exactly as given on your registration sheet.
If you receive a PostCoder® Data Update CD, you should replace your existing .DAT with those provided on the Update CD.
You can change your data location easily by copying the data file to a suitable location and editing the AD.INI file in your PostCoder® directory. You need to change the following line:
Where path is the location of the data file. Network Administrators should set path to be the UNC location of the data file.
All of our downloads contain PAF® Data from the BN2 Postcode district in Brighton.
A text file containing a list of the available Postcodes for the district BN2 is included with the downloads. Also, depending upon the download, the wildcard (*) can be used as search criteria to view all available Postcodes within the product.
No. A single user licence applies to a unique P.C. or terminal rather than concurrent users. You would therefore need a licence for each terminal that accesses the data (Three, in this case). If you have a large number of users accessing a single copy of the software, on a network or website for example, a fixed "System Licence" might apply, where user numbers become unlimited. Call our sales team on 0845 644 8111 or see our Licence Information page for more detail.
Yes. Excepting per click products, all PostCoder® and PAF® Data products are sold on a twelve-month licence basis only. Whether or not you update/upgrade your data or software you are still required to renew your licence. Any appropiate software upgrades, as well as the latest PAF® data are included in your renewal licence at no additional cost. We also continue to include full support in your licence every year, so there is no need to worry if you need to call and ask about changes or new features.
We offer a range of Licence Information on our website to assist you with general queries. To discuss your specific licence requirements, please do call in to our sales team and they will be happy to help. If you prefer someone to call you, just click here and complete the form.
The information collected by Allies Computing Ltd via our website will be used for the sole purpose of processing the specific request for which the information was provided. Any information collected will be held on our computer database and used for our records ONLY.
Under NO circumstances will those details be disclosed to any third party.
We are registered with the Office of the Information Commissioner (Registration number:Z5958277)
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