A new, upgraded version of AFD’s Postcode Evolution service (the server solution for accessing AFD’s datasets) has been completed by our Technical teams and is now ready for all AFD customers to benefit from.

“Performance Evolution” has taken the excellent foundation of the Postcode Evolution Service and added significant upgrades to three key areas, namely; Speed, Resilience, and Facilitating new features.

Speed
AFD’s Postcode Evolution engine is fast, as all current users will attest. Performance Evolution has seen the average lookup speed in a real-world environment increase by between 4 and 15 times! Your choice of deployment; Hosted (cloud service) or Installed (integrated on your own network) will determine the performance increase you enjoy.

Additional features usually slow things down, but the improvements in speed in AFD’s Performance Evolution further highlight just how effective the substantial work on the data engine has been.

Resilience
AFD Software has invested heavily into resilience so that we maintain optimal service levels to all customers. Customers trust us to maintain reliable services 24/7/365 and we do just that.

To further advance our resilience, Performance Evolution is now set up as a cluster of services with built-in redundancy so that when a fault is detected it is resolved automatically and without impacting service levels. In short, detected issues are resolved faster – but service levels remain robust, reliable and fully available.

FastFind Enhancements
AFD’s FastFind functionality has been incorporated into our range of data validation solutions to help users find the correct address by spotting typing errors or missing characters in any address fragment entered, and still returning the best match.

With the latest version of FastFind, both its performance and relevance of results have been improved. As a result, multiple requests can be handled simultaneously and faster than ever before. Results are now displayed in the most relevant order based on the data entered, reverting back to postcode order if there is no relevant match

TypeAhead
TypeAhead further improves our users’ experience using AFD’s data validation tools. As data is entered, the full address is predicted and narrowed down as more data is provided. This saves time, key strokes, and of course data errors!

How to benefit from Performance upgrades
These significant upgrades are now available Free of Charge to all Postcode Evolution customers. AFD is recommending all customers make the upgrade and benefit from both the enhanced performance and additional features. If you choose not to upgrade, nothing will break and your software will run as it always has – with excellence. Accessing Performance Evolution will depend on your choice of deployment: Installed or Hosted.