What Is an NCOA Update?
The National Change of Address (NCOA) update involves both standardizing your address formats per recommendations from the US Postal Service and comparing the addresses on file to the information in the National Change of Address database.
Why Do an NCOA Update?
Over 40 million Americans change their address each year. Additionally, addresses in Bloomerang CRM may not have been consistently entered correctly or in the preferred USPS format. Over time, both of these factors can lead to a significant number of invalid addresses in your data, which can lead to wasted resources in undeliverable mailings and missed revenue when your mailings are not being received by your intended audience. An NCOA update can help you greatly increase the deliverability of your mailings by standardizing address formats and updating address information.
NCOA and Deceased Processing in Bloomerang CRM
Bloomerang partners with TrueGivers to offer you nightly National Change of Address (NCOA) and deceased updates as part of your Bloomerang CRM standard subscription. With this integration, individual constituents with US addresses are updated nightly with:
NCOA information, including move information and address standardization
Deceased information wherein the constituent account status is updated
Other demographic information that you can opt-in to.
Tip: To add NCOA processing to your subscription, contact your account manager. If you're not sure who your account manager is, email [email protected].
NCOA Updates
Addresses are automatically updated in Bloomerang CRM.
If the address is current, it is standardized based on USPS guidelines.
If the current address is not mailable, the current address is marked as Bad.
If a new address is found, the new address is marked as Primary.
To see which constituents have been updated by NCOA, read Report on National Change of Address (NCOA) Updates.
Deceased Information
As part of the NCOA updates, deceased constituents are marked as Deceased in Bloomerang CRM. Search the constituent in your NCOA Dashboard to see if there is additional information like deceased date and a link to an obituary.
Demographic Information
You can bring in demographic information as custom fields:
Birth Year — Indicates the year of birth of an individual
Business Owner — Indicates that an individual self-identified as a business owner
Home Owner — Indicates if the home is owner occupied or if the resident is a renter
Income Decile — Indicates the household income rank
Market Value Range — Indicates a market value rank
Net Worth Decile — Indicates the household net worth rank
Religion — Indicates an individual’s religion
Heritage — Indicates an individual's origin
Activate NCOA and Deceased Processing
To activate NCOA processing:
Click Settings.
Click Integrations.
Click Integrated Partners.
Click Settings.
In the NCOA section, click Activate NCOA Processing.
Bloomerang CRM synchronizes with TrueGivers, which might take a few minutes.
Review your customizations before you sync for the first time. Any selected fields will be created and tracked as custom fields in Bloomerang CRM. Customize the fields by clicking the checkboxes. Bloomerang CRM updates automatically every night. Click Synchronize to initiate the sync immediately.
Pause NCOA Processing
To pause NOCA processing:
Click Settings.
Click Integrations.
Click Integrated Partners.
Click Settings.
In the NCOA section, click View NCOA Dashboard.
To pause the integration, click Pause Integration, and then click OK. Bloomerang CRM no longer updates nightly.
To resume nightly updates, click Resume Integration, and then click OK.
To customize sync settings, click the Settings icon. Update your settings, and then click Save.
Important: If a sync is already in progress, you'll need to let it complete before you can pause NCOA processing.
For more information about how to pause NCOA processing, view Manually Process the TrueGivers Integration on the TrueGivers website.
Customize NCOA Settings
In the settings section, you can:
Create download, update, and sync schedules.
Customize address sync settings.
Customize deceased sync settings.
Customize custom field sync settings.
Customize notification recipients.
Create Schedules
Using schedules, you can control when NCOA downloads, updates and syncs data to Bloomerang CRM. Each setting has its own schedule, so you can automate some and run others by hand.
To create a custom schedule:
Click Settings.
Click Integrations.
Click Integrated Partners.
Click Settings.
In the NCOA section, click View NCOA Dashboard.
Click the Settings icon.
In the notification section next to the action you want to edit, select the day of the week and time you want the action to start.
8. Click Save.
The downloads, updates or synchronizations will now take place on your set schedule.
Address Settings
Archive Addresses — Keeps a history of address changes. When selected, TrueGivers stores the earlier address on the constituent record instead of replacing it. Clear this checkbox if you want TrueGivers to update only the primary address and keep no history.
Sync Addresses as One Line Only — Combines address line 1 and address line 2 into a single line. Select this checkbox if your mailing process expects one street line rather than two.
Synchronize Postal Code Extension — Adds the four-digit ZIP+4 extension to all addresses, so 46204 becomes 46204-3536.
Do Not Parse City/State From Postal Code — Stops TrueGivers from filling in a city and state based on the postal code you supplied. Select this checkbox when you want TrueGivers to use only the city and state already on the record.
Synchronize Verbose Line 1 — Writes full street names instead of abbreviations, so N. becomes North and Rd. becomes Road. Clear this checkbox to keep the abbreviated forms.
Synchronize Verbose Line 2 — Writes full unit names instead of abbreviations, so APT. becomes Apartment. Clear this checkbox to keep the abbreviated forms.
Existing Addressee Option — Sets how TrueGivers handles addressee information when the addressee's name is in Address Line 1 on an existing record.
Ignore — Do not copy addressee to the existing address during synchronization. This will remove your addressee data from the standardized address identified via data enhancement. The addressee data will still be available in TrueGivers.
Copy — Copy addressee to the standardized address during synchronization. This will copy your addressee data onto the standardized address identified via data enhancement.
Skip — Do not synchronize records with an addressee in the address. Records with addressee data and no move address will not be standardized during synchronization.
New Addressee Option — Sets how TrueGivers handles addressee information when it creates a new address on a record. Copy copies the addressee to the new address.
Ignore — Do not copy addressee to new address during synchronization. This will remove your addressee data from the new address identified via data enhancement. The addressee data will still be available on the old address.
Copy (recommended) — Copy addressee to new address during synchronization. This will copy your addressee data onto the new address identified via data enhancement. The addressee data will also be listed on the old address.
Deceased Settings
Synchronize Deceased — Controls whether TrueGivers sends deceased matches to your database. When you clear this checkbox, no deceased data syncs, no matter how Synchronize Deceased Preference is set.
Synchronize Deceased Preference — Records the deceased match as preference data on the constituent record.
Custom Fields
Select the data you want TrueGivers to add to your constituent records. Each selection writes to a custom field in Bloomerang CRM.
Birth Year — The year an individual was born.
Home Owner — Whether the household owns its home or rents.
Income Decile — The household's income rank, expressed as a decile.
Market Value Range — The market value rank of the household's property.
Net Worth Decile — The household's net worth rank, expressed as a decile.
Religion — An individual's religion.
Heritage — An individual's origin.
Customize Notification Settings
You can opt to receive notification emails whenever Bloomerang CRM synchronizes with new data. The notification email contains the count of records updated during synchronization.
To view or edit the email address that receives notification emails:
Click Settings.
Click Integrations.
Click Integrated Partners.
Click Settings.
In the NCOA section, click View NCOA Dashboard.
Click the Settings icon.
Select one or more email addresses.
Click Save.
For more information about notifications, view Integration Settings – User Notifications on the TrueGivers website.