Postode lookup software

[Spacecadet]

I'm looking around for some postcode lookup software - i.e. enter a postcode and it gives you the address(es) associated with that postcode.
Needs to run on windows server 2005
Needs to be open so it can be invisibly integrated with another application, either through COM, SOAP or similar.

I've googled and found a couple but if anyone has any recommendations i'll be very interested.

Ta!

 

[Ardesco]

I'm looking around for some postcode lookup software - i.e. enter a postcode and it gives you the address(es) associated with that postcode.
Needs to run on windows server 2005
Needs to be open so it can be invisibly integrated with another application, either through COM, SOAP or similar.

I've googled and found a couple but if anyone has any recommendations i'll be very interested.

Ta!

Make sure you don't force a valid postcode when you do implement it. New builds can be without a postcode for the first few months of their life and if you insist on a valid postcode people in new builds that have not been allocated postcodes yet will have problems. (Seen this before, something that most people don't take into account)

 

[TheFaQQer]

Quick Address Search is the market leader, IIRC.

But VERY expensive.

 

[Spacecadet]

Make sure you don't force a valid postcode when you do implement it. New builds can be without a postcode for the first few months of their life and if you insist on a valid postcode people in new builds that have not been allocated postcodes yet will have problems. (Seen this before, something that most people don't take into account)

Whooahhh way to technical... i'm just advising them what to use, its up to the programmers as to how its used
But good point... i'll make sure i mention it to the dev manager

 

[Spacecadet]

Quick Address Search is the market leader, IIRC.

But VERY expensive.

Reliability and accurate data a lot more important than price at this stage. So thanks for that one, looks like a decent product

 

[basshead]

Quick Address Search is the market leader, IIRC.

But VERY expensive.

Using QAS here. Works ok.

Also got hold of the AddressPoint layer from Ordnance survey which has all addresses in the UK and their easting/northing, so we're eventually gonna replace QAS with a search based on that.

 

[Sockpuppet]

www.postcodeanywhere.com

Used them a few times for various stuff that I've done. They do have SOAP scrips examples and also ones for vba, php, perl etc on the site.

Doesn't matter too much where you get it from as its all from the same source (Royal Mail).

 

[DimPrawn]

SOAP webservice

SOAP webservice

http://services.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/

I use a pay as you go service. You buy lookup credits and each call uses up a credit.

Simple, reliable and from .NET, easy peasy integration (via SOAP).

 

[PRC1964]

The best version of it comes from the post office: http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/jump2?mediaId=400085&catId=400084

They still take a while to update it though and it can have errors in it, but if the errors are here, they will also be in all the other versions re-sold by other companies.

 

[gadgetman]

On a similar theme to the one mentioned earlier, we moved into our new build last April and it took months to get the postcode recognised.

Very frustrating when you are presented with a web form that won't let you input the address manually.

Thankfully most databases seem to have been updated but I still came across one yesterday that didn't recognise the postcode and that's almost a year later. I guess the cheaper systems are updated less frequently.