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DirectoryLookup

Returns a list of up to 200 matching records from the BT OSIS database.

Live Demo

To connect to this service you'll need to use one of these endpoints:

JSON
Open API
SOAP

Description

Searches the BT OSIS database and returns an array of results that match the query. Due to licence restrictions, we can only return the first 200 matching results. Should you get an answer which has exactly 200 results then you would be best advised to narrow your criteria by selecting a more precise location or name.

The search criteria are handled with the following rules:

Name Restrictions

  • The surname can contain a wildcard (asterix *). If you do not specify one then it will not automatically add one.
  • A wildcard on the surname can only be added after 4 characters. (e.g smit*)
  • The Forename and MiddleName do not need to be specified, but if they are specified then they will further filter the results.
  • The Forename and MiddleName will automatically have a wildcard appended if they are just 1 character in length. (e.g. R will search for R*).
  • The Forename and MiddleName can have a manual wildcard added at any point (e.g. Rich*)

Location Restrictions

  • The location restrictions are specified by passing in the name of a locality and/or a (partial) postcode.
  • As a minimum, you must specify either a locality or partial postcode.
  • Any specified locality must be listed in full.
  • Postcodes can be specified as full postcodes or partial postcodes. Partial postcodes automatically have a wildcard appended on them.
  • Partial postcodes understand the hierarchical structure of a postcode. For example, specifying "B" (for Birmingham) does not include "BS" (for Bristol) despite the fact that they share the same first letter. Specifying "CH6" does not include "CH65".
  • You can specify both a postcode AND a locality - the results are AND'd together. For example "CH" and "LONDON" will return no records. "CH" and "CHESTER" will return records within CHESTER with a CH* postcode. It is generally not useful to specify both a postcode and a locality.

Credit Usage

Each request to this method consumes 1 TelephoneDirectory credit.

Parameters

The following parameters can be supplied to this method

username

username

See the available authentication methods. If you are using username & password authentication, specify the username to authenticate as. If you are using API Key authentication and you are not using the JSON, Javascript or ADO APIs, use your API Key here with the prefix apikey-, e.g. apikey-ABCD-1234-EFGH-5678
password

password

If you are using username & password authentication, specify the password to use for authentication. Otherwise leave this blank.
name

name

The name of the person to find a telephone number for. At least the surname must be specified.

postcode

postcode

The full or partial postcode to search in. Either a postcode or a town (or both) must be specified.

town

town

The town to search in.

Advanced Options

The following options can be specified as part of the option parameter. Each option is specified as a key/value pair. The list of available names is shown below, along with a description of the allowable values for that name.

Common Options
Name Description
ApplicationName

ApplicationName

Gives the name of the calling application - used to break down usage by application in the usage reports on the dashboard

Results

This method returns an object containing the following fields:

Status

Status

Indicates whether the method call was successful, or if some error occurred. If the Success field is true, the other results described below can be used to get the results of the method. If Success is false, some error occurred in calling the method, such as the authentication failed or the account is out of credits. The details of the error can be obtained from the ErrorMessage field, and any other results should be ignored
Results

Results

A list of up to 200 matches for the specified query. Each result contains the following fields:

  • TelephoneNumber - the telephone number of the record
  • Name - the name associated with the directory entry. This will typically be a first initial and the surname
  • Address - the address associated with the directory entry.

Live Demo

name

Title

Forename

MiddleName

Surname

postcode
town
options
Name Value
Common Options

Sample Code