Prerequisites, Required Documentation, and Usage Notes for Address Update
Prerequisites
Before you can use the Address Update add-on, you must perform the following tasks outside of the SAS Data Management Studio interface.
- Install a Quality Knowledge Base from 2011 or later as the default QKB. Follow the QKB installation instructions in the SAS Data Management Studio Installation and Configuration Guide.
- Run the Address Update installer, which updates SAS Data Management Studio to support the Address Update add-on.
- Install SAS USPS Verify Data (CASS, DPV, LACS Data). Follow the instructions in the "Installing the Address Update Add-On" topic of the SAS Data Management Studio Installation and Configuration Guide.
- Install NCOALINK Data from the United States Post Office (USPS). Follow the instructions in the "Installing the Address Update Add-On" topic of the SAS Data Management Studio Installation and Configuration Guide.
To improve the security levels of all of its products, the USPS is changing the digital signatures on USPS address reference data in 2017. The USPS is moving from a digital signature of SHA-1 to SHA-256. SHA stands for secure hash algorithm, and 256 indicates the more secure standard.
Because SAS licenses address data from the USPS to support United States address verification functionality in several products, USPS address verification in SAS Data Management offerings will no longer work with older DataPacks after July 2017. For information about patches that are required to use SHA-256, see Problem Note 58733: Patches Required due to important changes to USPS Address Verification and National Change of Address (NCOA). - Update paths to data in the ncoa.cfg and app.cfg files. Follow the instructions in the "Installing the Address Update Add-On" topic of the SAS Data Management Studio Installation and Configuration Guide.
- Enter the Platform IDs that you were assigned by the USPS. You must create a comma-delimited list of these Platform IDS and specify them in the NCOA/PLATFORM_IDS option. Here is a sample Platform ID list:
NCOA/PLATFORM_IDS=ABCD, EDFG, HIJK. This list must be added to either ncoa.cfg or app.cfg. If you try to run a job with a PAF ID which does not correspond to one of the specified Platform IDs, you will get an error message stating that you must add the Platform ID to a .cfg file.
You must also perform the following setup tasks in SAS Data Management Studio.
- Create the address update repository. See Work with Address Update Repositories.
- Add information about one or more Processing Acknowledgment Form (PAF) forms to the address update repository. See Work with PAFs.
If you will run address update jobs on a SAS Data Management Server, see Using the Address Update Add-On with Data Management Server.
Required USPS Documentation
You must complete the required information in step three on page 11 of a USPS document entitled FSP_INFO/SVC_PROV_CERT_PROC.PDF. Access this document at the following location:
https://ribbs.usps.gov/ncoalink/documents/tech_guides/FSP_INFO/SVC_PROV_CERT_PROC.PDF
Complete the information listed in the following table:
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| NCOALink Software Vendor | SAS Corporation |
| NCOALink Software Product Name | SAS DATA MANAGEMENT PLATFORM |
| NCOALink Software Product Version | 2.2 |
| Is Software Hardware Dependent? | No |
| Address Matching ZIP + 4 Product Name | SAS Data Quality Integration Solution |
| Address Matching ZIP + 4 Product Version | 08.03.00 N |
Select the Closed System option in the CASS Certification Options and enter the values listed in the following table:
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| DPV® Product Name | SAS Data Quality Integration Solution |
| DPV Product Version | 08.03.00 N |
| LACSLink® Software Product Name | SAS Data Quality Integration Solution |
| LACSLink Software Product Version | 08.03.00 N |
Usage Notes
USPS Documentation for NCOALINK
The USPS provides documentation for NCOALINK on its Web site: https://ribbs.usps.gov/ncoalink/documents/tech_guides
Out of Memory Errors Associated with Address Update Lookup Jobs
The "Installing the Address Update Add-On" topic of the SAS Data Management Studio Installation and Configuration Guide describes a number of NCOA options that can be specified in the ncoa.cfg file.
Monitor the impact of the NCOA/DFAV_CACHE_SIZE and NCOA/DFAV_PRELOAD options on the available memory on your system. If you run out of memory, you might want to decrease the amount of memory that you have allocated to these options. For example, when you use the following option:
NCOA/DFAV_PRELOAD=ALL
you can get out of memory errors. This option preloads the CASS data, but it requires approximately 3.5GB of additional memory. You should be cautious with this option unless you know that your system has sufficient memory available.
Set the NCOA/TESTING option before testing Address Update software
The reference data that you must use to test Address Update software during configuration is published infrequently and on no fixed schedule. However, Address Update software is required by USPS rules to refuse to process addresses when the release date of the NCOALink reference data is more than 45 days in the past. Therefore, you must override Address Update's internal data expiration date check before you run the certification tests.
Override the data expiration date check by setting the NCOA/TESTING option in the ncoa.cfg configuration file as follows:
NCOA/TESTING=Y
Be sure to reset the option to NCOA/TESTING="N" before you use Address Update software in a production environment to process data. Using data older than 45 days old is a violation of the USPS rules. Note that the data reference dates are visible on the required monthly NCOA reports, so any violation will probably be noticed. Therefore, the flag should only be enabled during Stage 1 and Stage 2 testing.
Also note that this option is only available with testing data. If non-testing or live data older than 45 days is used , the following error occurs even if the option is set:
NCOA - The NCOALink(R) data has expired
Specify the operator ID for an NCOA audit run
You should enter an operator ID into the CSL report when you run a Stage 1 or Stage 2 Audit report. Enter the operator ID by adding the NCOA/AUDIT_OPERID=Your Operator ID option to either the ncoa.cfg configuration file or the app.cfg configuration file. Note that this option is not provided by the installer. If you do not specify an operator ID, AuditOper is specified automatically.