NZ Post PAF update
The new version of the NZ Post PAF was released this week and has already been incorporated into the AddressFinder database. Along with the update, NZ Post has provided a summary of the changes. In addition to providing information on what the immediate changes were it also provides an indication of the larger trends in this area.
Summary of changes
I found the above information interesting — it tells me NZ Post are improving their data in order to be more closely aligned with the canonical address information produced by LINZ. This is excellent as it improves the overall quality of addresses in NZ. As well as telling us about the changes to this update, NZ Post also included some notes to remind us of what the PAF is. I found this refreshingly honest.
The first note they wanted to make clear is that current PAF is a ‘snapshot’. There will be many addresses that are entered into the PAF after its release and these will be valid addresses but not available until the next release. If you have customers who want these new addresses entered into the AddressFinder database, send them to our Address Suggest page. Once they have completed the form, we will check the information, approve it and immediately include it in the system.
The second note I liked was that they made it nice and clear that the PAF only contains postal addresses. As it is not a complete dataset of all addresses in NZ it should not be used to validate physical addresses.
Overall, I thought the update was excellent. As well as the 11k of new addresses, they also provided great supporting information.
Thanks NZ Post. Keep up the good work.
