August 3, 2009

 

Intelligent Mail^® Services Weekly Update

Intelligent Mail Full-Service Option - we’re ready when you are:  Mailers have begun taking advantage of the Intelligent Mail Full-Service option. There are over 60 mailers testing Full-Service job submissions using Mail.dat 9.1 in the Test Environment for Mailers (TEM). 122 mailer locations have been approved and mailers have begun to produce mail with the Full-Service option and receive the Full-Service ACS information. The Postal Service offers flexible options for the distribution of the Full-Service ACS information. This information can be received by the mail owner or a third party as authorized by the mail owner. This valuable information can be used to update aged addresses to help mailers keep their address lists up to date and increase the ROI of their mailings. Call the PostalOne! Help Desk if you are ready to test Full-Service and take advantage of the address correction options.

 

Guides & Specifications Updates:  We will deploy PostalOne! release 22 on November 15 to support the Intelligent Mail Full-Service pricing incentives that will be effective on November 30. Release 22 also provides improved solutions for copalletization and will allow mailers to provide electronic documentation and retrieve Mailer IDs, Customer Registration IDs, and Full-Service feedback using Mail.XML. We will update the following guides on August 31 to provide you the latest information on this release. 

A Guide to Intelligent Mail for Letters and Flats

User Access to Electronic Mailing Information and Reports Guide

Postal Service Mail.dat Technical Specification

Postal Service Mail.XML Technical Specification

 

Full-Service Intelligent Answers:  We are conducting a series of telecons entitled Full-Service Intelligent Answers. The calls are scheduled from 1:00-2:00 PM EST every Friday beginning July 31. These calls are for customers who are testing in the Test Environment for Mailers (TEM) or for customers who have migrated to using Full-Service in production and have questions or are experiencing issues. If you are currently testing in TEM or have successfully completed the TEM process, but have not received an invitation to the calls, please contact the PostalOne!  Help Desk at 1-800-522-9085. Our first call on July 31 was very successful as mailers exchanged information among themselves and with postal experts to get answers to their questions.

New Barcode Placement Standards for Automation Letters:  Effective August 3, 2009, the Postal Service^™ will be revising Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM^®) 202.5.3 and 507.9.8.1 to implement a more liberal barcode placement standard for mailers printing a barcode in the lower right corner of automation letters, barcoded carrier route letters or Business Reply Mail^® mailpieces.We will revise our standards to increase the upper limit of the allowable vertical placement for a barcode in the lower right corner to 1/2 inch from the bottom of the mailpiece. We will incorporate this revision into the next printed version of the DMM and into the August update of the online DMM available via Postal Explorer^®.

Customer Registration Identification (CRID) Consolidation:  The Postal Service is engaged in an effort to ensure accuracy of Customer Registration Identification assignments. The Postal Service assigns a unique CRID to a company at a location, and this effort will ensure that only one CRID is assigned per company location. As part of the CRID consolidation effort, we will: 

 

1.  Consolidate CRIDs for locations with same and/or similar addresses and assign one “winning” CRID to replace all related CRIDs. 

2.  Replace old CRIDs across the various systems in Full-Service with the winning CRID value. 

3.  Merge records for Business Service Administrators (BSAs). 

 

As a result, your customer numbers (Customer Registration IDs or CRIDs) may change. Business Service Administrators (BSAs) of impacted locations will be notified starting the week of August 10. Users are requested to check their profile in the Business Customer Gateway to ensure the email address listed is current.

Webinar:  Full-Service Benefits:  Full-Service ACS:  The first in a series of Intelligent Mail webinars is scheduled for Friday, August 21 from 2:00-4:00 PM eastern time. The topic will be Full-Service Benefits:  Full-Service ACS. It will describe the address correction information available under the Full-Service option. We will describe the contents of the address correction information, how it is provisioned and the flexible data distribution options available. It will demonstrate how to optimize the use of Service Type Identifiers and Mailer IDs in the Intelligent Mail barcode and how to construct the electronic documentation to derive the greatest value from Full-Service ACS. It will describe how Full-Service ACS is different from the other address correction services and how mailers can use these in conjunction with Full-Service to ease the transition to Full-Service ACS.

TO ATTEND THE WEB CONFERENCE AND JOIN WITH AUDIO (No earlier than 15 minutes prior to the start):

IMPORTANT NOTE: Ports (seats) are limited. Please connect through the following link, then click on the telephone icon in the upper right of the screen to have the system call you back. This method will use only one port. Please do not use the link and dial in separately. That uses two ports.

1)  Browse to: http://meetingplace3.usps.gov/a/f0374f80e6d17ebaf20f9e05d419a371

2)  After the MeetingPlace window is open, click the Phone icon (under the Participant List or in the upper right-hand corner).

3)  Click Connect Me, validate or update your phone number and click Connect Me again.

4)  When the system calls you press 1 to join.

 

To attend with audio only: 

Phone Number:  866-567-8049

Meeting ID:  7383102

Date/Time:  August 21, 2009 at 02:00 PM America/New_York

 

For MeetingPlace problems or issues, please contact the MeetingPlace Help Desk at 1-800-343-1796.

 

Assistance:  Please call the PostalOne!^® Help Desk at 1-800-522-9085 if you have any questions or problems accessing the Business Customer Gateway, your accounts, or submitting electronic documentation. The PostalOne! Help Desk is now accessible from Canada at no charge.