GRC Database Information

You can download the fully working version of GRCTools to test it for 30 days. Download GRCTools here and follow the registration procedure described there.

Realistically priced. 

Based on extensive knowledge from industry experts after years of research.

Works for all countries, even those where postal tables are not available.

Improves the effectiveness of validation and de-duplication processes.

Makes your data look good in the eye of the reader.

The software and tables are constantly being updated and improved. 

"GRCTools has made significant improvements to our data manipulation issues.  Instead of someone spending 5 hours to manually sort out some of the data, with GRCTools we can do it in 5 minutes.  As and when new isses occur, the software is quickly updated to meet our needs.  This is an excellent product and does things no other products on the market can do."  Jeremy Lake, Data Team Leader, Informa UK  

"GRCTools is an excellent product ... at the price, it can't be beaten!" Database Marketing Magazine, January 2003 - read the full review here

"I have been using GRCTools extensively for pre-processing our mailing lists prior to sending to address correction. The results have been great! I very satisfied with the results of GRCTools." Robert D. Oden, Database  Marketing Technologies, Inc

An independent test has shown how GRCTools can save money on de-duplication processes.  Read about it here.

ASSIGN country codes.

PARSE postal codes, settlement names, thoroughfare types, post office box information, building numbers, sorting codes, provinces, department strings, building strings, sub-building strings, university strings, forms of address, personal name suffixes, telephone numbers and invalid data strings.

STANDARDISE settlement names, postbox information, thoroughfare types, company types, job titles, department strings, building strings, sub-building strings, university strings, house number format and "and" strings,

FORMAT postal codes

IMPROVE casing, accenting, punctuation use and article placement

ADD language region codes

REMOVE non-numeric characters, punctuation, double spaces, postal code country codes, quotation mark pairs

GRCCountry uses the knowledge embedded within the tables used by GRCTools to attempt to assign a country code for an address record not already coded. Tests have shown that GRCCountry works best for developed countries with postal code systems, and on files which contain well formatted and correctly fielded data. Our tests of this file type have produced between 96 and 100% correct country coding. Tests of files which have a greater number of developing countries, including countries without postal code systems, and with poor data formatting and fielding, have produced results of 82% accuracy.

Split a string at a given point .  

For example, Station House High Street, split after House produces Station House and High Street

Trim leading spaces.

For example, “  Station House, High Street” becomes “Station House, High Street”

Trim final string.

For example, "Station House High Street /", request removal of "/", produces "Station House High Street"

Remove non-numeric characters.

For example, 23.45.67.89 becomes 23456789

Remove punctuation. 

For example, I.C.B. Watford - Bakers Ltd. becomes I C B Watford Bakers Ltd  

Remove double spaces.

For example, John  W.  Smith becomes John W. Smith

Locate and parse postal codes to a new field. Works for all countries with postal codes.

Remove postal code country code (GB-, B-, CH- etc. preceding a postal code).  

For example, GB-TW1 1AA becomes TW1 1AA, B-1000 becomes 1000, CH1017 becomes 1017.

Parse thoroughfare strings (street, rue, via, straße etc.).  

For example, R. de Paris becomes rue | de Paris; Amsterdamstr. becomes Amsterdam | straat.  

Format postal code (add spaces or  hyphens if these arerequired).

For example, in the UK: TW11AA becomes TW1 1AA

Assess postal code validity (in terms of length, disallowed characters etc.)  

Assign language region codes (in multilingual countries) 

Remove quotation mark pairs. For example, “Dun Roamin” becomes Dun Roamin

Add missing apostrophes for French-language strings.

For example, L HUYSMAN D AMIENS becomes L’HUYSMAN D’AMIENS

Make data into upper case, taking account of correct equivalents for accented characters.  

For example, Rue du Récif in France becomes RUE DU RECIF, Kölner Straße in Germany becomes KÖLNER STRASSE

Make data into mixed case, taking account of correct equivalents for accented characters and words which must not start with upper-case letters and other exceptions.  

For example, RUE DE RECIF in France becomes rue de Recif, SCHMIDT GMBH in Germany becomes Schmidt GmbH.

Move articles (the, a , an and local-language equivalents) to the front or back of a company name in a number of formats.

For example, Baker’s Dozen, The or Baker’s Dozen (The) become The Baker’s Dozen;or The Baker’s Dozen becomes Baker’s Dozen, The or Baker’s Dozen (The)

Standardize "and" strings.  

For example, C. and A., C. + A. etc. become C. & A.

Standardize abbreviations and acronyms.

For example, A B C D becomes A.B.C.D.; A.B. C. becomes A.B.C.; or A.B.C.D. becomes A B C D; A B. C becomes A B C

Standardize company legal types and other indicators (Ltd, SA, BV etc.).  

For example, Société de la Cité S.A. becomes Ste. de la Cité SA; Burnleys Bank Limited becomes Burnleys Bank Ltd

Standardize department strings (Dept, Division, Afd. etc.).  

For example, Library Acquisitions Dept. becomes Library Acquisitions Department; Afd. Inkoop becomes Afdeling Inkoop

Parse the contents of fields containing only department information 

Locate, parse and standardize post office box strings and numbers.  

For example: PB 17, Ooststraat 21 in the Netherlands will be split into two fields:  Postbus 17 and Ooststraat 21.

Standardize thoroughfare strings (street, rue, via, straße etc.) - works for over 350000 thoroughfare strings!  

For example, R. de Paris in France becomes rue de Paris; Kölner Str. in Germany becomes Kölner Straße etc.

Move/parse building numbers to the correct end of an address, or parse them to a new field.  

For example, 27 Wilhelmstrasse becomes Wilhelmstrasse 27 in Germany; rue d’Amiens 27 becomes 27, rue d’Amiens in France.

Parse building number suffix to a new field.  

For example, 27-29 becomes 27 and –29; 1d, 7th floor becomes 1 and d, 7th floor.

Parse the contents of fields containing only building information 

Parse sub-building information to a new field.  

For example, Room 17, Station House becomes Room 17 and Station House

Add or remove commas after/before house numbers

Standardise house number and letter format.

For example, 1 A London Road becomes 1A London Road; or 1A London Road  becomes 1 A London Road

Parse and standardise the sorting code found after a postal town name (cédex etc.).  

For example, Lille Cedex 2 becomes Lille and Cédex 2.

Parse place names to a new field, correcting/standardising them at the same time. Works for over 60 million postal code/settlement name combinations.  

For example, 16 High Street, Lodnon becomes 16 High Street and London 

Standardize place names (Munich to München, Turin to Torino etc.) Works for over 60 million postal code/settlement name combinations.

Parse and/or assign provinces and/or regions.  

For example, Milano (MILANO) becomes Milano and MI and the region name Lombardia is assigned.

Parse university strings  

Parse personal name middle name(s)/initial(s) 

Parse and standardize personal name forms of address (Mr, Dr, Mme etc.).  

For example, Mister Smith becomes Mr and Smith; Mons. Dupont becomes M. and Dupont.

Parse personal name attention prefixes (Attn:, c/o etc.)

Parse personal name suffixes (Ph.D., OBE etc.).

Standardize job titles.

For example,  C.E.O. becomes Chief Executive Officer; Mging Dir. becomes Managing Director  

Remove accents and replace them with their correct non-accented equivalents.  

For example, in Germany Köln becomes Koeln.

Burst telephone numbers into their component parts

Move invalid field entries (such as --, NONE, N/A etc.)

This

can become this using GRCTools

A B C GMBH

17, BERLINER STRASSE

COLOGNE 34123

A.B.C. GmbH

Berliner Straße 17

34123 KÖLN

G A MASCI SPA

27 V V EMMANUAL II

00120 ROME

G.A. Masci SpA

via V. Emmanual II 27

00120 ROMA RO

G.r. rhind

POB 15213

nl-1001me  Amsterdam

G.R. Rhind

Postbus 15213

1001 ME  AMSTERDAM

Robert Du Pont

AV.DE PARIS, 23

75005 Paris

Robert DU PONT

23, avenue de Paris 

75005 PARIS

The batch version manual can be downloaded here. The COM DLL manual can be downloaded here. The GRCCountry manual can be downloaded here.

Download a PowerPoint presentation showing how GRCTools improves data here.

For technical details, speed test results and screen shots, please check this page. 

Read a review of GRCTools from  Database Marketing Magazine, January 2003 here

Review how an independent test has shown how GRCTools saves money on de-duplication processes here.

If you would like to see how GRCTools can help you if you have one of the problems outlined below, read the Acrobat file which shows you:

You can download the fully working version of GRCTools to test it for 30 days. Download GRCTools here and follow the registration procedure described there.

Bond Consulting Associates Ltd, Weston-Super-Mare, UK

Cognitum Database Marketing Services, UK

EuroDirect Database Marketing Ltd, Leeds, UK 

LRI Consulting, Atlanta, GA, USA

Omar SpA, Bitritto, Italy