National Change of Address

April 5, 2010

What is This Project About

The goal of this project was to enable OKDHS to continue to receive United States Postal Service (USPS) discounted mailing rates and avoid substantial penalties. As required by the USPS, mailing addresses should be in an acceptable standard and format. Additionally, mailing addresses must be updated with valid addresses and Change of Addresses (COAs) as provided by the USPS. This information is an automated process.

Implementation is completed and is in use. Cleansing and standardization of addresses as they are entered into OSIS, elimination of the automated follow up PML (L04A), and creation of a standardized format for “Care Of” and “Attention To” are features of NCOA.

Why Should We Do It?

The USPS has initiated change throughout America with this new address cleaning mandate. All public and private sectors that send mail at discounted rates are mandated to implement this initiative.

OSIS currently maintains more than 1.2 million mailing addresses. Accuracy and promptness of entry and update of address information result in enormous savings to our agency and, ultimately, allow us to maintain the level of service to our customers for which we are renowned.

The Impact on Addresses

NCOA, provided by the USPS through various vendors, significantly impacts how we process addresses electronically and to some degree how we deal with these changes manually. At a high level the following is a list that will later be discussed in depth.

1. Address Standardization Automation – This automated process is to ensure we have the correct street name, city, and zip code in place. For example OSIS might have “Bell Street” and the USPS product has it as “Bell Avenue.” Additionally, this process verifies that the address entered is a valid delivery location. This standardization process occurs as staff manually updates an address within OSIS or as an automated process provides an address.
2. (COA) – This is the electronic method of providing addresses from the USPS where customers have submitted a forwarding address order to the USPS. These are the addresses that staff currently obtain through returned mail or by PML reply. This entire process is automated. Types of COAs automatically updated are:
   1. A new forwarding address.
   2. Moved, Left no Forwarding.
   3. The same address, converted by the USPS for 911 services. This is called a Locatable Address Conversion System (LACS) address.
   4. Moved to a foreign address. Although the USPS will not send us the new foreign address, CS specialists can request the foreign address by requesting a manual PML.

What Are the Benefits of NCOA?

• What was once a manual process to obtain customer address information and is automated.
• Reduction in paper PMLs saves money and time.
• The agency receives mailing discounts and avoids USPS financial penalties.
• Greater accuracy in OSIS for all mailing addresses and reduction of returned mail.

What Are the Daily Impacts to the Staff?

• Fewer PMLs to process.
• Fewer documents returned due to bad addresses.
• Some increase in pended documents to customers and employers, as this process will tag addresses as invalid that currently have been used for mailings.

What About OSIS?

Through matching technology in the NCOA product software (VeriMove and Finalist) only four conditions will result in an update to OSIS.

• Any LACS change that is returned will be applied.
• Any COA that is returned will be used to update the address.
• A result of “Moved, no forwarding address” will set the current address in OSIS to history with exceptions (see Type 20 Addresses section below).
• A move to a foreign address will also result in the address being moved to history, with exceptions (see Type 20 Addresses section below).

The ADI screen displays one of the following messages when an address is changed after COA processing:

CS283M01

LACS Address Match – Address Changed

CS283M02

NCOA Match (Individual) – Address Changed

CS283M03

NCOA Match (Family) – Address Changed

CS283M04

NCOA Match (Business) – Address Changed

CS283M05

NCOA Match – Address Changed

CS283M06

NCOA Match – No Forwarding Address

CS283M07

NCOA Match – Foreign Address, Unable to Update

This ADI screen captures a sample of the message shown when an NCOA match is acquired.

Another ADI screen offers a sample of the message displayed when a LACS address match has occurred.

Other address matches will be similar to the messages displayed in the sample screens.

Type 20 Addresses:

A significant number of Type 20 addresses are or will no longer be current thus affecting distribution. In order to maintain distribution to CPs and avoid increasing the undistributed workload, type 20 addresses that receive the “Moved, no forwarding address” or “Foreign Address, Unable to Update” messages will not be moved to history thus resulting in the continued flow of child support payments to our customers. ALC documents will treat these addresses as if they did not exist, resulting in a pended document that will not be mailed and subsequently returned as undeliverable mail. The small percentage of paper warrants that CSS currently issue to CPs will be pended under the conditions listed in this paragraph.

Resources and Questions:

Should you have questions about NCOA, please contact the OSIS Help Desk via email at *OCSS.OSISQ&A. As for how you can do your part to maximize effectiveness of NCOA (and assist in creating savings for the agency), please continue to exercise due diligence in checking validity of addresses and making needed updates promptly.