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GB Portal Web Service Migration to Loqate's Address Capture

  1. Purpose of this guide
  2. What is GB Web Portal Service?
  3. What is Loqate's address verification?
  4. Your current integration
  5. Packages
  6. GB Web Portal and Loqate differences
  7. Further reading

Purpose of this guide

The purpose of this guide is to assist you with migrating from the GB Web Portal Web Service to Loqate's address verification.

What is GB Web Portal Web Service?

The GB Web Portal Web Service comprises a number of packages accessed via Web Services e.g. address validation, mobile, email Validation. These are typically accessed via the following endpoints:

https://webportal.gb.co.uk/GBPortalWS/GBPortalWS_8a.asmx


https://webportal.gb.co.uk/GBPortalWS/GBPortalWSDirect.asmx

What is Loqate's address verification?

Loqate’s address verification tool is the flagship web service solution of GBG for validating and verifying addresses at the point of capture. The web service uses real-time address lookups against a comprehensive dataset that is updated regularly in the cloud, eliminating the need for internal maintenance and supervision of a production server.

Your current integration

The GB Portal API is accessed via SOAP XML calls to the service, and XML responses are returned. This is typically via server side Java or C#. Migrating to Loqate's address verification will provide more options, both client- and server-side. See the API documentation for more information:

Packages

You'll find this guide useful if you are using the following packages:

  • WS-AcceleratorAddress
  • WS-AcceleratorDataValidation

Please contact your Account Manager if you are using any of the below packages:

  • WS-AcceleratorNames
  • WS-AddressBasePremiumBusiness
  • WS-AcceleratorAddressPMD
  • WS-AcceleratorTelephone

This migration will also give you the opportunity to revisit data requirements, including available data sets such as Multiple Residence, Not Yet Built and AddressBase, plus a variety of validation services.

How do I find out what package I'm using?

The package name is passed as part of the request for Pinpoint, Find and List as the field labelled szPackageName

What are the differences between the GB Portal and Loqate's address verification services?

API calls

When using GB Portal you need to deploy SOAP XML requests. Loqate Capture is significantly more flexible and permits a variety of integration options such as SOAP XML and REST JSON, but can also be deployed client-side e.g. via JavaScript.

We recommend reading the API documentation for full details.

 

Searching

With Loqate, a user will be presented with suggestions as they type into an input field. This presents the user with real-time suggestions that get more accurate as more characters are entered into the input.

The following is a list of the GB Portal requests you'll likely be using, and the equivalent Loqate request.

GB Portal Loqate
Pinpoint - requires a postcode and a premise
Example request differences		 Find - searches on a range of address parts; followed by Retrieve to get fully formatted address details
Find - typically used where a postcode is unknown (e.g. GB Group plc, Chester)
Example request differences		 Find - as above
CreateAuthenticatesSession - where the direct service isn't used No Loqate equivalent
List – More commonly used for Data Validation services No Loqate equivalent
Info – To establish version information No Loqate equivalent

 

Pinpoint differences

A typical GB Portal request:

<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:gbp="http://webportal.gb.co.uk/GBPortal">
    <soap:Header/>
    <soap:Body>
        <gbp:Pinpoint>
            <!--Optional:-->
            <gbp:szPackageName>WS-AcceleratorAddress</gbp:szPackageName>
            <!--Optional:-->
            <gbp:szUserName>USERNAME</gbp:szUserName>
            <!--Optional:-->
            <gbp:szPassword>*********</gbp:szPassword>
            <!--Optional:-->
            <gbp:szPostcode>CH4 9GB</gbp:szPostcode>
            <!--Optional:-->
            <gbp:szPremise></gbp:szPremise>
            <!--Optional:-->
            <gbp:szAddressFormat>Three address lines, town, county and postcode</gbp:szAddressFormat>
            <!--Optional:-->
            <gbp:szRelatedTypes>?</gbp:szRelatedTypes>
            <gbp:nOffset>0</gbp:nOffset>
            <gbp:nMaxReturns>200</gbp:nMaxReturns>
        </gbp:Pinpoint>
    </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

A typical Loqate request:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="https://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
    <soap:Body>
        <Find xmlns="https://api.addressy.com/">
            <Key>AA11-AA11-AA11-AA11</Key>
            <Text>CH4 9GB</Text>
            <IsMiddleware>True</IsMiddleware>
            <Container>GB|RM|ENG|3DA-WR5</Container>
            <Origin>52.182,-2.222</Origin>
            <Countries>GB,US,CA</Countries>
            <Limit>10</Limit>
            <Language />
        </Find>
    </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

 

Find differences

A typical GB Poral request:

<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:gbp="http://webportal.gb.co.uk/GBPortal">
    <soap:Header/>
    <soap:Body>
        <gbp:Find>
            <!--Optional:-->
            <gbp:szPackageName>WS-AcceleratorAddress</gbp:szPackageName>
            <!--Optional:-->
            <gbp:szUserName>USERNAME</gbp:szUserName>
            <!--Optional:-->
            <gbp:szPassword>*********</gbp:szPassword>
            <gbp:structSearchCriteria>
            <!--Optional:-->
            <gbp:Text>?</gbp:Text>
            <!--Optional:-->
            <gbp:Items>
            <!--Zero or more repetitions:-->
            <gbp:AcceleratorItem>
            <!--Optional:-->
            <gbp:Key>ORGN</gbp:Key>
            <gbp:Value>GB Group plc</gbp:Value>
            <gbp:Key>TOWN</gbp:Key>
            <gbp:Value>Chester</gbp:Value>
            </gbp:AcceleratorItem>
            </gbp:Items>
            </gbp:structSearchCriteria>
            <!--Optional:-->
            <gbp:szAddressFormat>Five address lines and postcode</gbp:szAddressFormat>
            <!--Optional:-->
            <gbp:szRelatedTypes>?</gbp:szRelatedTypes>
            <!--Optional:-->
            <gbp:szAddressLevel>PREMISE</gbp:szAddressLevel>
            <gbp:nOffset>0</gbp:nOffset>
            <gbp:nMaxReturns>1000</gbp:nMaxReturns>
        </gbp:Find>
    </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

A typical Loqate request

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="https://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
    <soap:Body> <Find xmlns="https://api.addressy.com/">
        <Key>AA11-AA11-AA11-AA11</Key>
        <Text>CH4 9GB</Text>
        <IsMiddleware>True</IsMiddleware>
        <Container>GB|RM|ENG|3DA-WR5</Container>
        <Origin>52.182,-2.222</Origin>
        <Countries>GB,US,CA</Countries>
        <Limit>10</Limit>
        <Language />
    </Find> </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

Further reading

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