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How Do I Upload My List of Addresses?

December 28, 2009 by qualified-address

In order to upload a list of addresses, first you need to have a free account with us. Once you have an account, follow the steps below to upload a list of addresses to be scrubbed.

1. Login to your account. Navigate to QualifiedAddress.com, and login to your account. If you don’t have an an account with us, you can create one here. Once logged in, you will be directed to the “Account Overview” page, where you can manage your account, view your purchases, and get started on scrubbing your address lists.

login 

2. Manage your account. Under the caption “Account Services”, click the “Manage” button. This will enable you to upload your address lists for scrubbing.

manage scrubbing

 

3. Upload Address List Menu. Click the “Upload New List’” button under the title “List Scrubbing Services.”

upload a list

 

4. Select your file. From the “Upload Address List” menu under the first step, click the Browse button to select the file you wish to upload. After the file is uploaded, click “Next”.

*Note: If the file to be processed is a Microsoft Excel file, it must be in Excel 97-2003 file format in order to be uploaded and processed.*

choose file to upload

 

5. Select file type. A list of file types will appear. Select from the list the type of file you have uploaded, and fill in the bubble. Then, click “Next”.

specify file type

 

6. Select your sheet. A list will appear, titled “Sheet Name,” containing sheet names of data. From this list, select the sheet containing your address data, and fill in the bubble. Under the caption “First Row Data,” check the box marked “First row contains column names” if the first row of your sheet contains the names of the columns.

specify file properties

 

7. Check your list. After your file is uploaded, verify that the information appears to be correct. If the data does not look right, then click “Previous” and verify that your settings in Step 2 and Step 3 are correct. Click “Next” when the information appears correct.

preview file

 

8. Name your fields. In this step, you tell us which columns contain which kind of data. Under “My Fields”, click “Name” (or the first of your fields listed). This field should now be inside a gray-shaded box. In this case, our column “Name” contains the full name of each addressee, so we scroll down to and click “Full Name” under “Field Definitions.” “Name” and “Full Name” will now be linked with a gray line and a gray box surrounding them. You can remove any match at anytime by clicking the red “X” in between fields. Do this for each of our five columns. Match each of them with the proper field definition. For examples, look at the images below. After all the fields have been matched, click “Next” to continue.

matching street

field matching city

field matching state

field matching zip

*IMPORTANT NOTE: Any data that you do not map to a field definition in this step will not be imported to your account. If there is data you would like to remain in this record, but does not have an official category, map it to “Other.”*                 

9. Verify information. You are now given the opportunity to verify that the information you have entered thus far, is correct. If you see something that needs to be changed, simply click the “Previous” button to edit your settings. When everything looks correct, click the “Add List to Account” button to save your list.

add list to account verify

 

10. Submit list for scrubbing. Your list is now saved and available in your account, but it still needs to be submitted for processing. To do this, select the bubble next to the service you wish to use to process your list (located under the “Services” column on the page). In our tutorial, we have chosen the “Qualified Address Certified Scrubbing”; you can see the the bubble next to it is filled in. The “Submit>>” button on the bottom right should now be green, indicating you have sufficient credits. Click on it to move to the next step.

*Note: If you do not have sufficient credits to process your list, then click the green “Proceed to Checkout>>” button. You’ll have the chance to buy more credits as you check out.*

list processing services

 

11. Wait, then download. After your list has been submitted for processing, you will receive an email when your list is available in your account for download. As a convenience to you, an estimate of when your list will be done processing is given. This is found next to “Estimated Completion Time” on the screen.

There are also two links under the title “Estimated Completion Time” which are good sources for you —”List Details” and “List Management”. List Management allows you to see all of your address lists, review job history, or submit a new job for processing. List Details provides the status of the job, job history, Qualified Address Scrubbing Statistics, Delivery Point Validation Statistics, and CASS Summary Report Contact Information.

When you receive the confirmation email, you may download your scrubbed list. To do this, click the green “Download>>” button, located in the bottom, right corner of the page.

list details

 

12. Save. When the file download box comes up, click “Save” to save your scrubbed file to your computer.

file download

*Note: Because the folder is a Compressed (zipped) folder, you must extract all the files contained in the folder in order to use them.*

 

After the files have been extracted, they are ready to use! The file we used as an example is an Excel file, so we can open it by double-clicking on the file name. You will also notice that included in the extracted folder is a “readme.pdf” file. This file helps you know what to do with your new, scrubbed address list by defining what each individual column is and what it is used for.

Visit QualifiedAddress.com today, and start uploading your mailing lists!

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How Do I Start My Free Trial of CASS-Certified Scrubbing?

December 17, 2009 by qualified-address

For your convenience as a costumer to be able to test out our products, each of our scrubbing services come with a free trial of 25 scrubbed addresses.

This tutorial shows you how to take advantage of the free trial  of CASS-Certified Scrubbing.

1. Visit the website. Go to QualifiedAddress.com, and navigate to the CASS-Certified Scrubbing page.
home to cass

2. Start trial. Near the top, right corner of the CASS-Certified Scrubbing page, is a link labeled “Start a free trial >.” Click on it.start a trial link 

3. Login/Create a customer account. Clicking on the free trial button will direct you to the Login page. If you do not already have an account with us, create one now—remember, it’s completely FREE! To create a new account, click on “Create a free account”, highlighted in green. Enter your information in the correct boxes. Create a password and click the “Create Account” button.

login page
 
4. Manage your account. Once you have created an account (or logged on to your existing account), you will be directed to the “Account Overview” page where you can manage your account, view your purchases, and get started on scrubbing your address lists. Clicking on the “Manage” button, located under the caption “Account Services” will enable you to upload your address lists for scrubbing.
manage scrubbing

 

5. Upload your list. Click on the “Upload New List” button, and follow the instructions to have your list scrubbed in minutes!upload a list

 

*For more help in uploading your list, visit our post titled “How Do I Upload My List of Addresses?”*

Take advantage of this free trial by visiting QualifiedAddress.com today!

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How To Print Barcodes (In Microsoft Word 2007)

December 10, 2009 by qualified-address

Printing barcodes for mailing envelopes speeds up delivery time and—if done correctly—reduces postage prices. How is this done? In this tutorial, we at Qualified Address will show you how to print barcodes using Microsoft Word 2007.

We’ll use the same public information used in our blog post “How Do I Comply With Privacy Laws?” so we have real address data in the tutorial. The data has been scrubbed with our CASS-Certified Scrubbing and is saved in Microsoft Excel, so we’ll see a couple screenshots showing where the data came from. We’ll be using a feature called “Mail Merge” which will coordinate data from our list in Excel with the envelopes in Microsoft Word.

*Before you begin, you will need the POSTNET barcode font, which is used in printing the barcodes. As a courtesy to visitors and customers, you may download the POSTNET font for FREE. Once you have downloaded POSTNET to your computer, you will need to install the font. On Windows-based computers, this is typically done by right-clicking on the downloaded file icon and clicking the install option*

Printing Barcodes

1. Begin setup. Open Microsoft Word 2007. Click the “Mailings” tab on the toolbar. From the “Start Mail Merge” list, select “Envelopes.”

image

 

2. Setup the document. When the “Envelopes Options” window opens, choose your envelope size from the dropdown menu. In this tutorial, we choose Size 10, which is the standard envelope size. Click OK, and the template of your document should look like an envelope. Enter the return address in the top-left corner of the document (unless your envelopes are already self-addressed).

 envelope options with dropdown

  

3. Choose list. Click “Select Recipients” from the top toolbar, and select “Use Existing List” from the dropdown. Find the Excel file that contains the list of addresses you need, and click “Open.”

start mail merge dropdown

 

4. Choose your workbook. Microsoft Word will open the “Select Table” window so you can choose which workbook in Excel you wish to use. Here, ours is named “Sheet1”. Make sure the checkbox at the bottom labeled “First row of data contains column headers” is checked before clicking “OK.” select table window

 

5. Create template.

a) Click anywhere on the bottom half of the envelope with the cursor, and a box outlined by dotted blue lines should appear with the blinking cursor inside it. On the toolbar, click on “Insert Merge Field.” The dropdown list will show all of the fields contained in your Excel file. The fields you will need for a barcode are: QA_Firmname, QA_DeliveryLine1, QA_City, QA_State, QA_FullZIPCode, and QA_Barcode. Essentially what you are doing in this step is creating a template with a barcode for the delivery addresses.

insert merge fields

 

b) Select QA_Firmname, from the dropdown list. It should now be displayed inside the blue box with two less than/greater than symbols on either side. (<>)

qa-firmname

 

c) Choose the rest of the fields we need, and put them in the correct address format.

*Notice below that we’ve added a comma and a space in between “QA_City” and “QA_State” and also in between “QA_State” and “QA_FullZIPCode. Also,to maintain space between the address and the barcode, we’ve added a full blank line between “QA_Barcode” and the other fields. Word will not automatically add a space between the fields in your document, so you must do this yourself.

template envelope

 

6. Change to barcode font. Highlight the field “QA_Barcode” and go to the “Home” tab on the toolbar.From the font dropdown box, scroll down to the USPS Bar Code font and click it, choose the barcode font.

*Don’t worry if you can no longer see “QA_Barcode”—it will be visible in the next step. (Barcodes only display numbers, not letters.)

font change

 

7. Preview your barcodes. To preview the final document including the barcode, click the “Mailings” tab on the toolbar. Click “Preview Results” near the right side of the toolbar to see it with the barcode.

preview results

 

If you have done everything correctly, your envelope should like the one below. Make sure the barcode is displayed as the POSTNET Barcode on each envelope, like the one in our example. You can cycle through, viewing a few of your addresses, by clicking the arrow buttons to the right of “Preview Results” as seen in the previous image.

preview results envelope

 

8. Print barcodes to envelopes. Click “Finish & Merge” on the toolbar. Three options are given for finishing the merge: “Edit Individual Documents,” “Print Documents,” and “Send Email Messages.” Choosing “Edit Individual Documents” allows you to make other changes to each  individual envelope. “Print Documents” allows you to print off all the envelopes, ready to be mailed, with barcode already added. “Send Email Messages” allows you to email the documents in attachment, HTML, or plain text formats.

finish and merge 

 

Here is an example of what the finished product would look like with the barcode:

final envelopepp

 

We at Qualified Address are committed to reducing your mailing costs with our address scrubbing services. Make the provident choice today by visiting QualifiedAddress.com to see which of our services can help you and your business cut those expensive mailing costs!

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5-Minute Turnaround, 24/7

December 8, 2009 by qualified-address

The web-based, CASS-Certified scrubbing and verification services offered by Qualified Address are clearly time-savers. The advantage in using these leading technologies is clear—address lists are processed in mere minutes versus days or weeks.

Because our model of business is “Software as a Service” (SaaS), we are able to provide powerful, on-demand address solutions without requiring customers to install software on their computers. All of Qualified Address services are web-based. This also means that our services can be accessed at any time, in any location, from any type of computer—Mac, PC, or Linux—all without time-consuming delays of shipping physical software. This eliminates the risks of lost CDs, corrupted program downloads, failing hard drives, and computer viruses or crashes, because all of the address data is handled via the web. You simply send us the address list, and we scrub and send it back to you, all within minutes.

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How Do I Comply With Privacy Laws?

December 7, 2009 by qualified-address

One question you may be facing in deciding whether to get an address scrubbing tool is whether you can certify/verify data without giving away Private Customer Data. The answer is yes.

Your compliance with privacy laws is very important to us. No need to send us Private Customer Data—we only need addresses. When we obtain the addresses on your list, they are without names because names are irrelevant to us. We simply scrub the addresses, and send them back to you, where you can link them back with the rest of your customers’ information.

In this tutorial for submitting lists to be processed, we will use Microsoft Excel to show how this is possible. For demonstration purposes, we have compiled a list which uses public information—the addresses of the ten McDonald’s locations closest to the ZIP Code 90210—attached to ten random, made-up names.

3 Steps for Submitting a List

1. Copy the information. Open the list you want to submit, and select the columns that contain the street, city, state, and zip-code data. In the example, notice that columns “B” through “E” are selected while column “A”, which contains private customer data (names), is left alone. Copy the data by right-clicking and choosing copy, or by pressing CTRL + C on your keyboard.

finalcustomerinput

2. Create a scrub-ready Excel file. Open a new spreadsheet in Excel. Paste the data you have just copied into the new spreadsheet (to do this, right-click and select paste, or press CTRL + V). Notice that the data remains in the order it originated.

The following image shows how the data should look when you send it out. Notice thee are no names!

nonamedata

3. Save and send. Save the new Excel file, and send a copy to us for scrubbing.
*Note: Using a G-Mail or Yahoo! email account (vs. a corporate email account) to send us the file will ensure anonymity.*

After receiving your list, we will run it through our system, and return it scrubbed and ready to go. The list we return is in the same order that you submitted it, but it has been corrected, standardized, etc.

scrubbed 

To attach the scrubbed data back to your original list, select and copy the new data (cells A1 through D11).
Then, open the original file (with the corresponding names) and re-attach (copy and paste) the scrubbed list into the columns. You now have a clean address list! Notice that the data is still in the same order.

finaloverlay

The standardized list of addresses comes with many columns of information pertaining to barcodes and postal discounts, which will appear in further columns, but the rows should remain the same.

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