The Versium REACH APIs support hashed data inputs. Below is a description of the type of hashed data supported and best practices for customers that whish to use this type of data.
Supported Hashing Methods
The Versium REACH APIs currently support the following Hashing methods:
- MD5 (UPPER, lower, NaturalCase)
- SHA1 (UPPER, lower, NaturalCase)
- SHA256 (UPPER, lower, NaturalCase)
Input Fields that support Hashing Methods
Versium REACH APIs supports and accepts ONLY the following fields as hashed inputs:
- First Name
- Last Name
- Address
- City
- State
- Postal Code
- Business Name
- Phone Number - Note: phone number should have all non-numerics removed ("I.e. '123-456-7890' or '(123) 456-7890' should be converted to '1234567890' before hashing for best results)
- Email Address - natural case is not well supported for email address.
How to submit Hashed Input Data
To use this feature, simply hash the fields noted above and upload is in the API query as one normally would. The Versium REACH APIs will take care of the rest.
Example of a Contact Append API where a SHA256 phone number is given as input:
https://api.versium.com/v2/contact?output[]=email&output[]=address&phone=3c95277da5fd0da6a1a44ee3fdf56d20af6c6d242695a40e18e6e90dc3c5872c
Best Practices
As a general rule, the best way is to hash the data before it is used with Versium REACH APIs.
Here below is the suggested items to check and sequence to follow when hashing data:
- (1) remove all leading and trailing whitespace
- (2) remove all non-alphanumeric characters (except spaces)
- (3) transform to lowercase all uppercase letters
- (4) hash field.
API call with fields hashed differently (mixed hashed input data)
Versium REACH APIs will accept different types of hash in the same API call.
For example, the First Name may be provided in SHA256, the Last Name in SHA1 and Email in MD5.