This article was originally posted on our RPG-XML Suite product website.

When your business depends on shipping and mailing, you have a lot riding on the accuracy of your customer-reported address data. Fortunately, many of the biggest names in the shipping industry offer address validation web services, and Krengel Technology’s RPG-XML Suite can help you leverage these services. RXS offers a powerful kit to help your business communicate with web services using both XML and JSON, and our HTTP communication tools make your API implementations easy – all from your IBM i (or iSeries, AS/400) in native RPG.

How can RPG-XML Suite help you with your address validation needs? Here is a short list of web services that would be a breeze to implement with RXS:

FedEx

FedEx is a heavy-hitter in both domestic and international shipping and package handling, and their robust address validation service can help you ensure accuracy when validating addresses in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and many other countries worldwide. FedEx offers their address validation API as a SOAP web service, and this type of XML-based communication is the core of what RPG-XML Suite was built to accomplish. Our tools will help you compose your XML request, handle the HTTP communication with the FedEx API, and parse and return the information you need – all without leaving the comfort of RPG.

USPS

smalluspsThe United States Postal Service maintains an extensive collection of address information – as well they should! The USPS’s database is considered to be the authoritative database for mailing addresses in the United States, and it is used as a component in many other APIs, including UPS’ street-level address validation. In addition to providing their address information database for use in third-party development, USPS offers their address validation tools as an API that accepts an XML request as a URL parameter. RPG-XML Suite can build a formatted XML string for the request parameter, and our XML parsing toolset will make quick work of their response data.

UPS

LOGO_LUPS offers an extensive catalog of address APIs, including state, ZIP, and full street-level address verification, and the RPG-XML Suite toolset can help facilitate each step in the communication process. If UPS services are what you’re after, we’ve also written an entire dedicated communications suite to streamline and simplify your interactions with UPS. Using the UPS Toolkit for i, you will have access to not only the address validation APIs, but all of the services offered by UPS.

Third-Party Software

Are you considering a provider that isn’t listed here? If they offer a web service API, RPG-XML Suite can help you facilitate that communication by providing your development team with a comprehensive toolkit to help you build exactly the solution you need.

Are you looking for something a little more focused and tailor-made for your business? Our development team offers professional services to help you achieve your web service communication needs.

Want more information about how RPG-XML Suite can help your business? Want to find out more about engaging our development team for professional services? Just generally curious about web services? Send us a message at sales@krengeltech.com today!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *