Table of contents:

General formatting prior to upload

DPG BE specific formatting

DPG NL specific formatting

Normalisation on InfoSum platform

General formatting prior to upload

Value rules

1. No upper cases allowed in the file. All data must be in lower case
2. Spaces may be used only for last names
3. Accented letters are allowed for first / last names: é/ è / ö / ù
4. Special characters are to be removed such as “&”, “/”
5. All empty data or column with missing values should have an empty cell (no data may be entered since e.g. using “blank” or “n.a.” or “-1”, might create a match)

Column name rules

Column names must be respected for the keys to be considered as common between databases:

• fullname_birthdate
• fullname_zipcode
• mobile
• email
• bpost_address

Core keys - formatting guide

DPG BE formatting

DPG Media uses the following composite match keys for Belgium:

• firstname_lastname_birthdate = first name + last name + birth day + birth month + birth year
• firstname_lastname_zip = first name + last name + zipcode
• Address = zipcode of the ‘hoofdgemeente’ + street name + house number 

These three keys result from concatenating the respective fields defined above, with each field separated by an underscore ('_'). All fields will be converted to lowercase for consistency. All fields must contain a non-null value to generate a valid composite key. 
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Note 1: Birthdays and birth months are always formatted with two digits. Birth years are formatted with four digits. For example, 01-02-2022. 

Note 2: Belgium's municipalities are divided into “hoofdgemeenten” (main municipalities) and “deelgemeenten” (sub-municipalities). For this purpose, we use the zip code of the “hoofdgemeente.” The following mapping table shows the difference between “deelgemeenten” and “hoofdgemeenten.” 
We make one exception on this table for “Antwerpen”, for which we convert all zip codes with the municipality name “Antwerpen” to “2000”.

Note 3: Belgian street names are normalised using the Bpost Address Validation API, see Web services > Validatie.

Note 4: House number additions (e.g., letters or apartment numbers) are included in the house number field (e.g., ‘kerkstraat 4a’) 

Keys examples

Firstname_last name_birthdate

Firstname_lastname_zip

Address

Note that for the second record, the zipcode "9308" (deelgemeente) is converted to "9300" (hoofdgemeente). Also note that all fields are converted to lowercase, including the house number addition field.

DPG NL formatting

DPG Media uses the following composite match keys for The Netherlands: ●

• firstname_lastname_birthdate = first name + last name + birth day + birth month + birth year
• firstname_lastname_pc4 = first name + last name + pc4
• Address = pc6 + house number

These three keys result from concatenating the respective fields defined above, with each field separated by an underscore ('_'). All fields will be converted to lowercase for consistency. All fields must contain a non-null value to generate a valid composite key. 

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Note: Birth days and birth months are always formatted to two digits. Birth years are formatted to four digits. E.g., 01-02-2022

Note 2: A PC6 is formatted such that there is no space between the letters and the digits, e.g., 3021AB

Note 3: House number additions (e.g., letters or apartment numbers) are included in the house number field (e.g., ‘kerkstraat 4a’) 

Keys examples

Firstname_last name_birthdate

firstname_lastname_zip 

Address

Normalization on InfoSum platform

When normalizing data on the InfoSum platform, please follow our Normalization how-to documentation. 

Here's an example of what the above keys will look like on the normalization tool: