Answers.Body: <p>There's an extension that provides this functionality called "<a href="https://civicrm.org/extensions/civicrm-region-lookup" rel="nofollow">CiviCRM Region Lookup</a>".  It says it only works through CiviCRM 4.4; I'm not sure if anyone's tested it with a newer version, it might just work.</p>
  
  <p>Note that it's not an easy process to set up for the very first time - but it's easier than writing custom code to handle this from scratch.  You may have follow-up questions, but that link should get you pointed in the right direction!</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2016-02-27T22:05:34.817Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2016-02-27T22:05:34.817Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Jon G - Megaphone Tech
Body: <p>My organisation (and others I presume) would find it useful to populate a set of custom fields based upon a contact's postal code.</p>
  
  <p>The dataset is the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD), which provides demographic information by postal code area. The data is available as a CSV file: <a href="http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/SIMD/SIMDPostcodeLookup" rel="nofollow">http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/SIMD/SIMDPostcodeLookup</a></p>
  
  <p>What would be the best way of implementing this?</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-04-26T11:33:31.800Z
Comments.Text: Have you had any progress with this? It's something we're interested in but haven't had a chance to explore, and it would be great to pool resources if possible!
Comments.UserDisplayName: liblogger
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-09-15T10:01:04.533Z
Comments.Text: Not yet sorry! It's been fairly low-priority for us, but if we get the funding to go ahead with it, I'll be happy to share.
Comments.UserDisplayName: termdark
Tags: <custom-fields>
Title: Is it possible to populate a set of custom fields with data from a postcode dataset?
ThreadText: # Is it possible to populate a set of custom fields with data from a postcode dataset?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2016-02-27)
  
  My organisation (and others I presume) would find it useful to populate a set of custom fields based upon a contact's postal code.
  
  The dataset is the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD), which provides demographic information by postal code area. The data is available as a CSV file: <http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/SIMD/SIMDPostcodeLookup>
  
  What would be the best way of implementing this?
  
  **Tags:** custom-fields
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: Have you had any progress with this? It's something we're interested in but haven't had a chance to explore, and it would be great to pool resources if possible!  
  > **username_0**: Not yet sorry! It's been fairly low-priority for us, but if we get the funding to go ahead with it, I'll be happy to share.  
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_2 on 2016-02-27. Score: 1
  
  There's an extension that provides this functionality called "[CiviCRM Region Lookup](https://civicrm.org/extensions/civicrm-region-lookup)". It says it only works through CiviCRM 4.4; I'm not sure if anyone's tested it with a newer version, it might just work.
  
  Note that it's not an easy process to set up for the very first time - but it's easier than writing custom code to handle this from scratch. You may have follow-up questions, but that link should get you pointed in the right direction!
  
  
  ---
  
  