Address Validation in Dynamics 365 Business Central's Dynamic Ship module is a critical feature that ensures the accuracy of addresses before shipments are dispatched. This process helps in reducing delivery errors, saving costs associated with misdirected shipments, and improving overall customer satisfaction. Let’s explore how Address Validation works within Dynamic Ship and provide a practical example to illustrate its use.
Setting Up Address Validation
To utilize Address Validation, particularly with a provider like EasyPost, follow these steps:
1. Freight Integration Providers Setup: Initially, ensure you have selected a freight integration provider that supports address validation. For now, EasyPost is known to offer this feature. This setup is critical to enabling the Address Validation feature.
2. Configure Address Validation Countries: On the Address Validation Countries page, specify the countries that the integrator can validate. A blank entry in the country code field signifies the ability to validate addresses in any country.
3. Dynamic Ship Setup for Address Validation: In the Dynamic Ship Setup page, you're required to adjust several settings to tailor address validation to your needs:
- Manual and Automated Address Validation Behavior
- Validation triggers (e.g., Get Label, Freight Quote, Sales Order release)
- Address Update Acceptance Behavior
- Address Validation Automated Corrections preferences
These settings allow you to control when address validation occurs and how the system responds to validation results or errors.
Address Update Acceptance Behavior Options
You have several options for how the system handles address validation corrections:
- Never Update: No corrections are applied, and any validation failures are shown to the user.
- Prompt: The system prompts the user whether to update the order address with the suggested corrections.
- Update Order: Corrections are automatically applied to the order without altering the address source.
- Update Order and Source: The order and the address source (e.g., Customer Card, Ship-to Address) are both updated automatically.
Example Scenario: Sales Order Address Validation
Imagine a company is preparing to ship a customer order. The customer has provided an address that seems incomplete, and the company wishes to ensure accuracy to avoid shipping delays or returns.
Steps Taken
1. Sales Order Creation: A sales order is created for the customer with the provided address details.
2. Address Validation Triggered: Upon releasing the sales order, the address validation is automatically triggered due to the Dynamic Ship setup. The system uses EasyPost to validate the address.
3. Validation Results: The address validation identifies that the postal code is missing and suggests the correct postal code along with standardizing the street address abbreviation.
4. Address Update Acceptance:
- If the company has set the Address Update Acceptance Behavior to "Prompt," the user handling the sales order would be asked whether to update the address based on the validation results.
- Choosing to update the order and source would correct the sales order address and the customer's ship-to address in the system.
5. Finalization: After updating the address, the sales order is ready for further processing, significantly reducing the risk of shipping errors.
Additional Information
Address validation activities and outcomes, whether updates or failures, are logged for review. This logging provides valuable insights into common errors and can be used to improve data quality over time.
By integrating address validation into the shipping process, businesses can significantly enhance their operational efficiency and customer service quality.
