Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) data can now be returned using AFD’s Address Lookup and Data Cleansing Solutions.
EPC’s provide an indication of how much it will cost to heat and light a property, and how much CO2 the property emits.
The better the rating on the EPC certificate, the lower the cost of running the property.
Find out more about EPC data and how to access it when validating an address or appending to existing databases here.
The AFD team recently sponsored the Student Records Officers’ Conference (SROC) which brought together staff working in the field of student records within HE Providers together to:
AFD’s HE specific solutions that help the sector are detailed below:
Address Lookup
Fast, accurate address validation helps ensure student address data is correct at the point of entry. Our solution is quick to install as confirmed by the University of Dundee: “Upgrading to AFD Software within our student record system took the best part of a couple of hours. It just worked straight away. We needed to do some work within our online forms as we were now offering an online postcode lookup. The solution works straight out the box, but we needed to spend some time reorganising the structure of the forms so the postcode question was asked first rather than last. The actual postcode popup screen just worked with some small configuration changes made once globally.”
Batch cleansing address data – HESA Returns
Even with data validation in place, student address data can still be entered incorrectly and can be received in bulk from UCAS.
As accurate address data is one of the requirements for the HESA return, AFDs Refiner tool helps universities by taking all their address records and cleansing them against the best possible sources.
Many of our customers would have staff spending huge amounts of time manually checking addresses before discovering we could help do this process in around an hour.
POLAR data – Widening participation
In addition to cleaning and reformatting addresses, Refiner can also append Education specific data sets including POLAR4.
If an HE provider wishes to charge above the basic tuition fee cap, they are required to have an “approved access and participation plan” for students from minority groups, areas of lower Higher Education participation, lower household income and/or lower socioeconomic status groups.
POLAR4 data shows how likely young people are to participate in higher education according to where they live, this allows Universities to target specific areas with marketing efforts in a bid to meet targets for widening participation and essential funding.
Other datasets include Index of Multiple Deprivation (governments official rank of Postcode from most deprived to least deprived) and Censation, AFD’s geodemographic classification system that shows the typical age, affluence, lifestyle, interests and professions at Postcode level.
Phone and Email
HESA confirms that each institution is required to collect graduates’ personal contact details to contact them 15 months after graduation for the “Graduate Outcomes” survey.
it is a requirement for the details to be “robust, accurate and comprehensive” and it is recommended that point of collection validation is in place for when details are entered and updated on the student record, and that alumni contact details are thoroughly cleansed prior to submission to HESA.
Email and telephone validation from AFD further help meet this requirement and achieve the target of “robust, accurate and comprehensive” contact data.
If your institute would benefit from AFD’s range of data validation and cleansing solutions contact one of our Data Quality Consultants on 01624 811711 or email postcode@afd.co.uk
Thousands of unique organisations rely on AFD’s validation and cleansing solutions to get contact data right. Based on customer feedback, our range of available datasets continues to increase as teams processing and analysing data look to avoid manual processes and maintain multiple datasets. Accurate addresses combined with relevant datasets have the power to yield much more useful information than either the address or the dataset on its own. Here are just some examples of datasets we already offer:
Participation Of Local Areas (POLAR ) classification data shows how likely young people are to participate in Higher Education (HE). Each postcode is given a rank between 1–5, with 1 being the lowest likelihood of HE participation and 5 being the highest. This data then helps AFD customers in the HE sector to more effectively target specific areas with marketing efforts to meet targets for widening participation (attracting students from areas less likely to go to University) and essential funding.
Not Yet Built (NYB) data helps identify properties that are still under construction or have been completed but do not yet appear on the Postcode Address File (PAF). NYB data allows businesses to process orders to deliver white goods and furniture, as well as critical services such as energy, phone, and internet, that wouldn’t ordinarily be possible without a valid address.
Censation, AFD’s geodemographic classification solution, indicates the relative affluence, life stage and lifestyle of the people living within a particular postcode. This powerful dataset helps organisations understand more about the ‘profile’ of their best customers and use this information to either target prospective customers or upsell to existing customers with relevant goods or services.
Property level latitude and longitude data combined with a valid address provide a pinpoint location at metre level accuracy. Integrating this solution into your chosen mapping tool allows delivery teams to find the actual delivery location quickly and accurately – preventing late or abandoned deliveries as well as lost time, additional staff cost and wasted fuel.
In the same way that adding AEB data transformed the productivity of Learning Curve Group’s database of student records, would your CRM database benefit from the inclusion of any datasets which are specific to your industry sector?
AFD’s expertise in combining datasets to overcome pains for our customers is one of the many reasons why the Postcode People at AFD are the go-to partner for address and data quality solutions.
Get in touch with our team today to discuss any requirements your organisation may have around linking datasets to reduce manual work, improve efficiency and of course, data accuracy.
Contact joel.miller@afd.co.uk or call 01624 811 711.
Learning Curve Group are a national training and education specialist. Their vision is to transform lives through learning, and by working with individuals, employers, and education providers, they make lifelong development accessible to everyone.
Data shows that adult participation in learning is not distributed evenly and those least likely to access available resources are adults living in poverty with the lowest qualifications. Targeted funding and delivery of the right training provision will help people in this demographic, enabling them to enter the workforce and enjoy the associated benefits of health, wellbeing and encouraging others in their communities to participate.
As one of the largest training providers in the UK, Learning Curve Group are unrivalled in the breadth and choice of courses they offer. Each year they also help over 4,500 employers with workplace development plans and qualifications. They deliver training to 100,000 learners helping them attain nationally recognised qualifications, learn new skills, and advance their careers.
Funding for adult learning has seen significant changes over the past few years. Until 2019, the Adult Education Budget (AEB) provided funding for adult learning, but funding is now split between the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) and devolved authorities.
The postcode of each learner determines who they receive funding from, so providers of adult learning courses need to know whether a course has available funding for a particular student. In some cases, addresses separated even by just one postcode district e.g., PE8 and PE9, have different sources of funding – and that’s where AFD can help!
We spoke with Steve Morris, Commercial Director at Learning Curve Group, to understand how they have navigated these changes to funding:
“In the new devolved-funding world, we now have a situation where there are multiple devolved authorities responsible for their own AEB, and the other postcodes that do not fall within those areas receive funding from ESFA. We now must understand who funds each learner based on their address and, more specifically, if funding is available to them for the course they have chosen. This will soon get even more complex when county devolution becomes a reality.
We need to avoid the scenario where learners were completing a 25-minute enrolment process then finding that their source of funding does not cover that course, resulting in wasted time and disappointment.”
“To ensure we could continue to provide our learners with the best possible experience from initial interest to enrolment, we needed a solution that would instantly identify which courses were available to each learner, based on their postcode.
After searching online, we found The Postcode People – who had the exact solution to our problem: an address lookup that provided an accurate address AND returned the relevant AEB data.
Now we had the right solution, the next job was to ensure we covered all points of data entry on the website, CRM system, and Management Information system.
Prior to introducing AFD’s solution, we had multiple tools to validate addresses and capture and attach funding data. We would run a separate process to check the address in the back office and then match this with the funding information. We now have an automated process using the learner’s valid address to tie it all together, saving valuable time and helping ensure address and funding accuracy, and helping to avoid disappointment and frustration for the potential student.
After introducing point of entry validation, attention turned to other areas of the organisation that would benefit from linking address data with the relevant funding bodies.
Rachel Cornforth, Head of Marketing, explains: “By appending the additional geodemographic classification data from AFD which adds relative affluence, lifestage, and lifestyle, we can build a better picture of an ‘ideal learner profile’ for specific courses. We can then take this data to upsell courses to existing customers with a similar profile and reach out to similar potential learners, safe in the knowledge that the correct funding is available for the courses we advertise to them.
We also contact employers to provide training courses to their teams. Our sales staff needed support in categorising businesses as they added them to our CRM system to facilitate business segmentation. Using AFD’s business data we can quickly append business sector, turnover and employee count to our data, and tailor which courses are relevant to their business. Segmented marketing will save both manual processing time and wasted opportunity costs.
Specifically targeting businesses with courses that are relevant to them and their industry, will improve sales performance and ensure the sales team can better target their efforts.”
When discussing AFD Software as data quality partners, Steve commented: “AFD not only had the right solution for our exact requirement, they also had the right team to talk us through all their relevant solutions and help improve wider data issues.
We used a third-party contractor to help us implement the AFD solutions, and the AFD team went above and beyond communicating with them and representing us to have everything put in place.
I genuinely cannot say enough good things about the service that has been delivered, the proposal was clear and all the staff we dealt with were highly knowledgeable about this area and skilled in what they do.
This project went beyond validating an address, I am confident that The Postcode People at AFD are the go-to provider of data quality solutions and would recommend them to other organisations that need accurate data and a review of data processes.”
To discuss your organisation’s data accuracy requirements and review data processes, contact joel.miller@afd.co.uk or call 01624 811711.
We enjoyed exhibiting and presenting at the Tribal Empower conference this week. AFD Software is the preferred supplied of address, email and phone validation and cleansing to over 90 universities and 200 colleges.
AFD’s data cleansing engine, Refiner, specifically helps Universities with cleansing contact data received in bulk from UCAS and in preparation for HESA returns.
The University of Dundee has worked with AFD’s solutions to improve their student data processes, they provided feedback around how much time and frustration we helped them overcome;
“Following the implementation of AFD’s Refiner address cleansing process, for the first time since the introduction of Graduate Outcomes return we have managed to process the return and successfully submit with just a handful of errors compared to thousands each year that we have had to manually cleanse record by record. We managed to process, deliver and commit the return in less than 24 hours which is monumental and a real step forward for the optimisation of our Statutory Returns.”
Find out more at www.afd.co.uk/education
AFD Software is attending the Microsoft Cloud Community event “Scottish Summit 2022” to meet with other organisations that develop solutions for Dynamics 365 or use Dynamics 365 as their CRM system.
Come and visit the team on the 10th and 11th of June to discuss how address, email, phone and bank validation integrated within D365 could benefit your organisation at The Technology and Innovation Centre, Glasgow Strathclyde University.
More information about our D365 plugin can be found here
AFD Software and The Algorithm People have partnered to deliver AFD’s market-leading geocoding and address lookup technology within The Algorithm People’s award-winning “My Transport Planner” route optimisation service.
Colin Ferguson, CEO of The Algorithm People said: “Combining our optimisation algorithms with AFD’s advanced geocoding and postcode-lookup service, will generate even greater savings and efficiencies for our clients. We saw a combined 24% reduction in mileage and 17% overall saving in time in trials we carried out, due to the very high accuracy of the address information.”
Jonathan Stocks, Head of Sales & Marketing at AFD Software explains: “Partnering with The Algorithm People and integrating our respective technologies, opens a new market for us, and offers an enhanced value proposition with tangible benefits for our existing customers. Our Address Validation and Matching technology provides a greater level of location accuracy, which reduces time spent by the driver trying to find addresses and when used in conjunction with The Algorithm People’s optimisation algorithms, delivers a further reduction in mileage“.
If you are interested in finding out how AFD’s address and location validation and cleansing solutions are helping other organisations in the logistics sector, contact one of our address and location data experts today.
Channel preferences are unique to everyone. Physical mail, email, text, phone call, messaging apps and social media are all used by organisations to communicate with their customers.
Accurate data is key to organisations that want to maintain contact with their customers or supporters.
As of 2021, 96% of UK adults have a mobile phone they actively use and choose as a channel of communication, the requirement of accurately capturing and maintaining phone numbers has never been more important.
AFD’s phone validation solution helps ensure accurate data by confirming the number of digits and format are correct, then going a step further by confirming the number is live.
Phone verification gives organisations full confidence that they can communicate with their customers. To highlight the cost an incorrect phone number can have, we caught up with a long-term customer of AFD to get their feedback.
Paul Brownlow, Systems Development Manager at South & City College Birmingham states: “The college were concerned about the accuracy of student entered phone numbers and emails. When contacting students for course interviews, open days and other key information, we found multiple instances where the mobile phone numbers provided were wrong, either due to error or intentional misinformation.
Each student studying at the college between 16 and 18 years old effectively provides us with £5,000 per annum of vital funding, whilst students over 18 provide £2,000. Preventing one or two students from slipping through the net, because they would otherwise miss a key communication and fail to enrol, more than covers the cost of email and phone validation from AFD.”
Have you implemented email address checking from AFD Software? Human error is all too easy when keying in data. One wrong character in an email address will result in a failed delivery.
For a business or service-based organisation this can be costly to both revenue and reputation. An enquiry from a prospective customer appears not to have been answered or an order goes unfulfilled
AFD Software make it easy for businesses to check email addresses wherever they are entered by staff or customers. There are three checks:
Some services check only syntax, some only domain and many do not check the local part. Email address validation from AFD Software checks all three: Syntax, Domain and the Local Part. It is not always possible to validate the full email address at each domain – however, whenever it is at all possible the AFD email validation service will do so.
Did you know? One third of the earth’s population use email and together send around 74 trillion emails each year – so we reckon an email address check is worth implementing!
The Royal Yachting Association (RYA) is the national body for dinghy, motor and sail cruising, all forms of sail racing, Rigid Inflatable Boats, sports boats, windsurfing, personal watercraft, and a leading representative body for inland waterways cruising.
With over 100,000 personal members and more than 1,500 affiliated clubs and classes, the RYA sets and maintains an international standard for recreational boat training through a network of RYA-recognised training centres, world-class courses, and educational material.
Responsible for one of the UK’s most successful Olympic medal-winning sports, the RYA’s coaching, and development schemes actively support the UK’s top sailors, from talented juniors to Olympic and World Champions.
Benefits of RYA membership includes advice and support, certification, offers and discounts, insurance, and the latest relevant information on all aspects of recreational boating. We caught up with Andy Galvin, Information Systems Manager, to understand more about his role within the organisation and the importance that accurate customer and address data plays in communicating with and recruiting its members.
“When I joined the team in 1997, one of the projects the IT team was involved in was scoping out a solution that would improve data accuracy. We needed to migrate over 300 Microsoft Access databases into a single Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution. Whilst attending a CRM EXPO, other businesses mentioned how they partnered with AFD to get address data right, so we got in touch.
Whilst many things have changed including that initial CRM system, one thing that has been consistent is our partnership with AFD that has now been in place helping us get customer and address data right for 24 years.”
Manual data entry has two main drawbacks: time and human error. Having automatic address validation in place helps to remove these challenges. Data accuracy helps ensure communications get to the right place, and when the message being sent contains critical information, this is essential.
Andy describes: “As a membership organisation, we actively communicate with our members via traditional mail – sending out updates, events and literature which include safety information updates and protocol changes. We need to make sure this vital information is getting to our members and instructors quickly and accurately to help them stay within the latest guidelines.
We have up to 70 team members processing contact data in the CRM at any time. When we consider that manually typing an address can take between 15 and 20 seconds (slowed down further when struggling to read hand-written application forms), and processing over 250,000 address checks per year, AFD’s address lookup solution is saving 1400 hours each year in staff time and headaches!
Following the easing of government restrictions last summer that allowed sailing to resume, we found a much higher volume of applications for RYA Certificates of Competence (boat and yacht qualifications) and membership. Despite the high spike in applications, we were able to accurately process an increased number of applications in the same timeframe. Without AFD in place to help process the data, our application processing time would have increased and data accuracy would have dropped massively.”
Due to the difficulty in processing handwritten applications, the RYA now provide the ability to sign-up as a member on their website. To ensure they have plugged all the gaps for data accuracy, AFD’s address validation is deployed to help quickly capture the right address.
Validating addresses on entry has additional benefits which Andy goes on to explain: “When the application is completed online, our CRM system then checks if the applicant is already in the database via a postcode and surname match. This process relies on the accurate address AFD provides, allowing us to eliminate duplication which in turn reduces wasted costs and administration in rectifying.”
With a growing international presence and members from around the world wanting to train at RYA centres to gain their International Certificate of Competence, the website and UK-based team process international applications which come with their own challenges.
Andy continues: “We have found some countries addresses are more difficult than others to process. These difficulties are further compounded when most applications are filled out using pen and paper. Having a tool that allows the team to search for international addresses makes a tricky process very straightforward and saves us having to recruit address experts with local knowledge for the 50+ countries’ varying postal systems we work with.
AFD’s International address validation allows us to search by postcode or other address fragments and find the right address without having to do further research or spend time contacting the member.”
Funding from membership revenue allows the RYA to continue its work and deliver the benefits and certificates that members sign up for. With a range of membership plans available for both individuals and families, payments can be made for annual memberships online and over the phone.
Describing the process of capturing payment details Andy continues, “When an error is made during a direct debit process, it’s not only the cost of a missed payment but also the cost of fixing the issue. A member of the team will need to go into the record, remove the direct debit and try to contact the member to update the record. This complication results in a poor experience when becoming a member or renewing.
With AFD’s bank verification solution for our team and the website, we can spot and rectify any errors whilst the customer is still on the phone or completing their application online, helping to achieve a smooth onboarding process.”
In summarising the partnership between the RYA and AFD Software, Andy concludes: “The way we have designed all our processes is tailored to give the best experience for both members and our team. We view services from AFD as far more than just address lookups; onboarding, finding, and communicating with members all rely on our partnership in data quality.
We have worked with The Postcode People at AFD Software for over 20 years. Two decades of partnership is a testament to the quality of solutions that we receive and the team that sits behind them.
We have found all the team are proactive and quick to respond to any of our requests. Being able to pick up the phone or send an email to a real person rather than an automated response is especially important for our small team. From a technical perspective, the APIs are straightforward to work with and deliver the results we need. I would recommend the team at AFD to help overcome challenges around contact data accuracy.”
For nearly 40 years, AFD has helped organisations get data right.
In the membership and not-for-profit sector, accurate contact data is crucial to ongoing communication and support. Our data validation and cleansing solutions help thousands of organisations accurately capture and maintain millions of contact records each year.
To find out how our solutions could benefit your organisation contact joel.miller@afd.co.uk or call 01624 811711.
We serve thousands of organisations and a network of hundreds of partners across multiple industry sectors, enabling them to have full confidence in their contact data.