SimplyPostcode™ - JSON Web Service with Advanced/Word search

Get Full Address using JSON Advanced/Word Search

The JSON Web Service also supports our advanced/word search when used for Internal Use. This allows the user to enter partial address words to find the full address in the Royal Mail Postcode Address file.

The principle, of searching, is very similar to the Full Address Postcode Finder described in section above. Except it has more parameters.

Step 1 Sign up for free 30 day trial

Simply use the "Sign Up for Trial" link at top right of this page to open a trial account. We will then send you a data key, which is used to identify your account, when using the following service.

Step 2 Search for matching data and display

To perform an advanced search, two of the following fields should be filled in with criteria

One or more of the following:

Parameter name	Description
organistaion	Enter most distinctive word of Organisation name. Start of words can be entered by using * For example “StartOfWord*”
buildingornumber	Enter most distinctive word of Building Name or number. Start of words can be entered by using * For example “StartOfWord*”
street	Enter most distinctive word of Street/Road or Avenue Name. Start of words can be entered by using * For example “StartOfWord*”

And one of the following from a selection list:

Parameter name	Description
townorvillage	Town or village name selected from a list
county	County name selected from a list
postarea	Start of Postcode (Outer Postcode) selected from a list

The XML list of TownOrVillage, County, and Postcode Outer can be downloaded from URL:

                           Web Service   
                             
                            https://www.simplylookupadmin.co.uk/XMLService/GetLookups.aspx?datatype=1

This list should be written to a local store, and displayed for user to select from.

Tutorial Video : Show Advanced Search in Action

Note: Only the first 100 lines of advanced search results are returned. In which case the criteria should be refined.

This type of search is only available to “Internal use” type of license

Example

                 Web Service   
                   
                  www.simplylookupadmin.co.uk/JSONservice/JSONSearchForAddress.aspx?datakey=Your 
                    Data Key &organistaion=Tesco&buildingornumber=&street=&townorvillage=&county=Cambridgeshire&pobox=&postarea=

                 Returns json   
                   
                  {

                       "found":"1",

                       "credits_display_text":"Evaluation till 3 Apr 2011",

                       "accountadminpage":"https://www.simplylookupadmin.co.uk/WebAccountLogin.aspx?

                                      
                                  doid=1&coid=3333305462&Pay=yes",

                       "errormessage":"",

                       "maxresults":"99",

                       "recordcount":"2",

                       "records":[

                          {"l":"Tesco Barford Road St. Neots Cambridgeshire PE19 2SA England", 
                                  "id":"31567757_2957290S_F"},

                          {"l":"Tesco 2 Cross Way 
                                  Peterborough Cambridgeshire PE4 6NA England", 
                                  "id":"29530895_1945471S_F"}

                       ]

                                  }

If address returned then found = 1, else found = 0,error in errormessage

errormessage should be displayed if populated

If 100 then you need to refine the search query since this query will return a maximum of 100 lines. In which case you should add a line to the list saying “Gone over limit of 100 lines, please refine search....”. To test this set to organisation=”tesco” and townorvillage=”London”

If used by employee of company (classed as "Internal use")

It is a requirement of the royal mail that if postcode lookup software is used by an employee of a company, then the user must be uniquely identified so we can apply a user count.

Therefore the URL must contain a User ID:

                   Web Service   
                     
                    www.simplylookupadmin.co.uk/JSONservice/JSONSearchForAddress.aspx?datakey=Your 
                      Data Key &organistaion=Tesco&buildingornumber=&street=&townorvillage=&county=Cambridgeshire&pobox=&postarea= 
                        &username=UserID

This will be the datakey beginning with "I"

Section 3.5 of the Terms and Conditions state: "The Customer, when using the Postcode Lookup service via Web Service, must make sure each user is identified by a unique Computer name, in each call to the Web Service if used internally”. In simple language this means that each user must be identified by a unique computer name, in username parameter, if used by a company employee.

Step 3 Get Address record based on record select

When the users selects a record then simply get it using the sames call as in step 3 of the "Full Address" search..

Simply Postcode™