Migration — Melissa Personator / Address Verify → Acuris

Melissa Data ships two relevant products:

• Address Verify — the cleansing-only API (personator.melissadata.net with &actions=Verify).
• Personator — combined address + name + email + phone enrichment. Address coverage is the same engine; the wrapping API just bundles more checks.

Migration to Acuris covers the address parts; name/email/phone enrichment is out of scope.

Concept mapping

Melissa	Acuris
Personator?actions=Verify	validateAddress
GlobalAddressVerification REST	validateAddress
ExpressEntry (autocomplete) / Lookup	suggestAddress / validateAddress
Geocoder add-on	geocodeAddress (built-in)
ReverseGeocoder	reverseGeocode
&id=<license> query param	X-Acuris-Key header
&format=json	Always JSON
Results field codes (AS01, AS09, …)	accuracy_type + confidence + match_components
Country: ISO-3 (USA, DEU, …) uppercase or full name	ISO-3 lowercase (usa, deu)
MAK (Melissa Address Key)	No equivalent (and not needed)

Before — Melissa Global Address Verification

GET https://address.melissadata.net/v3/WEB/GlobalAddress/doGlobalAddress
    ?id=<license>
    &a1=1 Acuris Way
    &loc=London
    &postal=EC2A 4XX
    &ctry=GBR
    &format=json

Response:

{
  "Version": "5.0.0.7",
  "Records": [{
    "RecordID": "1",
    "Results": "AV24,GS01,AC02",
    "FormattedAddress": "1 Acuris Way;London EC2A 4XX;UNITED KINGDOM",
    "AddressLine1": "1 Acuris Way",
    "Locality": "London",
    "PostalCode": "EC2A 4XX",
    "Country": "United Kingdom",
    "Latitude": "51.5236",
    "Longitude": "-0.0850"
  }]
}

After — Acuris

import { AcurisClient, validateAddress } from "@acuris-geo/av-sdk";

const client = new AcurisClient({ apiKey: process.env.ACURIS_API_KEY });

const r = await validateAddress(client, {
  country: "gbr",
  street:  "1 Acuris Way",
  city:    "London",
  postcode: "EC2A 4XX",
});

// Melissa-shaped output for downstream code that already keys on these
const melissaShape = {
  RecordID: "1",
  Results:  meltdownResultCodes(r),
  FormattedAddress: r.standardized?.formatted_address?.replace(/\n/g, ";") ?? "",
  AddressLine1:     [r.standardized?.house_number, r.standardized?.street].filter(Boolean).join(" "),
  Locality:         r.standardized?.city ?? "",
  PostalCode:       r.standardized?.postcode ?? "",
  Country:          r.standardized?.country?.toUpperCase() ?? "",
  Latitude:         r.lat?.toString() ?? "",
  Longitude:        r.lng?.toString() ?? "",
};

function meltdownResultCodes(r: import("@acuris-geo/av-sdk").ValidationResult): string {
  const codes: string[] = [];
  // AV: address verification
  if (r.accuracy_type === "rooftop" || r.accuracy_type === "parcel") codes.push("AV25");
  else if (r.accuracy_type?.startsWith("street"))                    codes.push("AV24");
  else                                                                codes.push("AV12");
  // GS: geocode status
  if (r.lat != null && r.lng != null) {
    if (r.accuracy_type === "rooftop") codes.push("GS01");
    else                                codes.push("GS02");
  } else                                codes.push("GS05");
  // AC: any change made by verification engine
  if (r.input_corrected) codes.push("AC02");
  return codes.join(",");
}

Result-code translation

Common Melissa codes you’ll see in legacy branching:

Melissa code	Meaning	Acuris condition
AV25	Verified to subpremise / building	accuracy_type in {rooftop, parcel}
AV24	Verified to thoroughfare	accuracy_type in {street_interpolated, street_center}
AV23	Verified to locality	accuracy_type in {locality, locality_centroid}
AV12	No / weak match	accuracy_type === null or confidence < 0.4
GS01	Address-level geocode	lat/lng present and accuracy_type === "rooftop"
GS02	Street-level geocode	lat/lng present and accuracy_type.startsWith("street")
GS05	No geocode	lat == null
AC01	Field standardized	input_corrected === true
AC02	Component corrected	input_corrected === true

If your code branches on the full code list, build the helper above to emit Melissa-shape codes from the Acuris response and keep the downstream branches as-is.

Country normalization

Melissa accepts full names (“United Kingdom”), ISO-2 (“GB”), and ISO-3 uppercase (“GBR”). Acuris requires ISO-3 lowercase only.

const M2A: Record<string, string> = {
  "GBR": "gbr", "USA": "usa", "DEU": "deu", "CAN": "can", "AUS": "aus",
  "FRA": "fra", "ESP": "esp", "ITA": "ita", "JPN": "jpn",
  "United Kingdom": "gbr", "United States": "usa", "Germany": "deu",
  "GB": "gbr", "US": "usa", "DE": "deu",
};
const country = M2A[melissaCountry] ?? melissaCountry.toLowerCase().slice(0, 3);

What you don’t migrate

• MAK (Melissa Address Key) — Acuris does not assign a stable per-address ID. If downstream code stores MAK as a dedupe key, switch to a hash of (country, standardized.formatted_address) or to your own internal address ID.
• Personator’s name / email / phone enrichment — Acuris is address-only. Keep Melissa or another provider for those columns, or drop them.
• CASS-certified output — Melissa’s CASS-certified pipeline is a separate offering. Acuris is rooftop-grade but not CASS-certified; if you need a CASS stamp, this migration alone doesn’t replace it.

This migration recipe is written against Melissa Data’s public docs. Code paths that depend on specific result-code combinations need to be reviewed against your actual mappings before shipping.