Deleting addresses entered as NO ADDRESS

Cassidy Mazurek

Hi all – we have several thousand records in the database with an address entered as NO ADDRESS. For some, this is the only “address”. For others, they actually have a complete address (often a business address) but the NO ADDRESS entry is marked as primary. This is causing predictable problems with exporting contact info and duplicate detection.

I'm thinking of using the method detailed in this KB article to delete any address containing NO ADDRESS. To me it's useless (non)data, but I'm wondering if anyone here can think of potential problems or reasons to keep that info. Also, if I delete the preferred address, will the other automatically be marked as preferred or are there steps I need to take to change that?

JoAnn Strommen

@Cassidy Mazurek You can not delete an address that is marked as preferred as an address is required, even if it is blank (no data entered) in the database. Address type is a system wide required field.
So, no, it will not automatically mark other address as preferred. That could create a different mess.
I'm not aware of any way around that.

Alex Wong

@Cassidy Mazurek
Sounds like a big clean up project, but it is doable. You can follow the steps below and see how far you can go:

• constituent query criteria on “all address” > “address lines” contains “no address”
  • this will condition on any constituent with any address where address line has “no address” in it
• start another constituent query, and use query option to “include” records from the first query above
  • you want to do this 2nd query b/c you want to output ALL address of the constituent in question, not JUST the address that have “no address”
• output constituent id, address import id, preferred flag, address type, address lines
• do some excel manipulations (some formula that's good to use here is “COUNTIF” “COUNTIFS”)
  • if constituent has a Preferred address that has “no address" as address line
    • find another address for the same constituent you want to make as the preferred address and update the preferred flag to “Yes" (you will want to make sure this address line is BEFORE the one with “no address” as address line that is currently set as preferred
    • update preferred flag to “No" and change the address type to a address type that you have created for deleting (i.e. "Address Type for Deletion)
  • if constituent has non-preferred address that has “no address” as address line
    • just update the address type to address type for deletion
• once you are done with the excel work, import to make changes
• then delete the address with the address type that's ready for deletion