We have a dedicated team of expert professionals who not only provide outstanding technical support, but we help keep you up to date. Staying abreast of the ever-changing rules and regulations, policies and procedures in the mailing and shipping industry is a daunting task at best. We hope you will find this blog filled with pertinent information you can use to run your business more efficiently and profitably. As always, we welcome your feedback and comments.
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Well, it was a long time coming, but the time is, indeed, here. The publication of our 4th white paper – “eDoc and PostalOne! They’re What’s Best for You and the USPS.”
This paper explores the world of electronic documentation (eDoc) and the USPS PostalOne! system. It looks at why the Postal Service is really pushing for mailers to switch to eDoc, what PostalOne! is and how using it benefits you, the 3 ways to particpate in eDoc, the benefits of eDoc and why you should begin implementing eDoc right now. It also discusses the very latest information and instructions for getting started using eDoc and PostalOne! - including the new TEM procedures detailed in the latest eDoc and Full-Service Authorization Guide for Mail.dat.
And – just as with all of our previous white papers - this brand new 21-page paper is available at no cost.
Please click here to access and download this incredible new white paper from the postal experts here at Window Book.
- Wallace Vingelis
Vice President, Business Development & Marketing
617-395-4569
On Friday 12/17/2010, the USPS announced they will be delaying the implementation of the eDoc penalties that could cost mailers additional money should their eDoc not be in full compliance with PostalOne! and Seamless Acceptance standards. Here are the specific items that the USPS planned to be checking for in January:
- Invalid mail preparer/mail owner (“By/For”) information
- Errors in Customer/Supplier Agreements (CSA’s)
- Invalid Mailer IDs
- Invalid Service Type Identifiers
- Non-unique mailpiece, handling unit, or container barcodes
Read below the letter from Steve Kearney of the USPS to the Mailer’s Technical Advisory Committee:
Letter to MTAC from MTAC Co-Chair
Dear MTACers:
We are delaying Full-Service eDoc postage corrections, which we had planned to deploy on January 2, 2011, to give mailers more time to use information from a new report to help correct errors in their electronic documentation.
The new publication — PostalOne!® Full-Service Error report — allows eDoc submitters to review the quality of submissions, identify jobs with errors, and calculate the correct postage. This report also allows the eDoc submitter to request reconciliation of identified errors.
We encourage mailers to take advantage of the reconciliation process and use the feedback to correct Full-Service eDoc issues.
In addition, enhancements to the MicroStrategy Mail Data Quality reports provide detailed information on piece counts and postage amounts for pieces that are not compliant with Full-Service requirements.
Mailers have begun using these two reports — MicroStrategy Mail Data Quality and Full-Service Error — to assess the quality of their eDoc. We are continuing to work through the MTAC 137 group to address mailers’ concerns.
Please be sure to utilize the MicroStrategy Mail Data Quality reports and the PostalOne! Full-Service Error reports. Also, tell us about any issues you have with the PostalOne! help desk, 800-522-9085.
Best regards,
Steve Kearney
MTAC Co-Chair
U.S. Postal Service
Full-Service eDoc Verification and Assessment
The November 2010 PostalOne! release will introduce a process for the evaluation of eDoc for Intelligent Mail Full-Service mailings. The process will evaluate Full-Service eDoc for:
- Invalid Mailer ID
- Invalid Service Type ID
- Incorrect By/For information
- Incorrect Customer/Supplier Agreement (CSA) information
- Non-unique barcodes
On January 2, 2011, these errors will result in the loss of Full-Service discounts. Mailers should use the feedback to correct errors found during Full-Service verification prior to implementation of the Full-Service Discount Removal on January 2, 2011. Additional information can be found on RIBBS in the PostalOne! Release 25.0 release notes.
Full-Service Feedback Webinars:
The next USPS Full-Service Feedback webinar will be broadcast on Thursday, October 28 at 3 p.m. (EDT). This webinar explains the eDoc Verification process and Mail Data Quality reports. Log in information on the Webinars is posted on RIBBS® under Intelligent Mail Latest News.
As always, if you have questions about this information, please feel free to contact me or anyone here at Window Book.
Wallace Vingelis
Director, Postal Industry Practice
Window Book, Inc.
Phone: (617) 395-4569
email: wvingelis@windowbook.com
With the recent publication of our latest white paper - ”Intelligent Mail Full-Service: Critical Steps to Understanding and Implementing” – we want to hear from you.
Take this opportunity to comment, question, disagree – whatever you want – but do it here. Reply to this blog post. Let us know how we did.
Wallace Vingelis
Director, Postal Industry Practice
Window Book, Inc.
Phone: (617) 395-4569
email: wvingelis@windowbook.com
In our ongoing efforts to educate mailers and the postal industry as a whole about critical changes happening with the USPS, we are publishing an informative, 29-page white paper titled, “Intelligent Mail Full-Service: Critical Steps to Understanding and Implementing”.
The Postal Team here at Window Book believes that in this white paper you’ll discover:
- What’s going on in the Postal industry
- The differences between the Full-Service and Basic options
- What Full-Service will do for you (It’s not just about the discounts!)
- The 3 ways to participate in the USPS PostalOne! System
- What steps you need to take, and in which order, to get going with IM Full-Service
- And much, much more!
Click here to download your free copy of Intelligent Mail Full-Service: Critical Steps to Understanding and Implementing.
Wallace Vingelis
Director, Postal Industry Practice
Window Book, Inc.
Phone: (617) 395-4569
email: wvingelis@windowbook.com
There was a meeting of the MTAC 135 Workgroup today to discuss the feedback from USPS Engineering on the D&R (Dispatch & Routing) tags. (rewind a few weeks –> mailers had requested some additional white space be allocated on the D&R tags to allow them some room for “mailer information” – Engineering’s first response was “no – we don’t see a business reason for it” – the industry said “it’s not YOUR business need – it’s OURS” -> fast forward to now) Engineering now says they can accommodate either a longer or wider tag, but the industry has to make a decision on which because it can’t support both. When that decision is made by the industry, Engineering will work on and publish specs detailing where the mailer info white-space is. (btw, rumor has it than an internal USPS mock-up document showed the mailer info at the bottom of the tag)
The USPS will first contact the tag and print vendors to see what they can support (longer or wider or either) – then they will survey the mailers. More info to follow as it becomes available.
A meeting attendee asked if the USPS will change THEIR stock to accommodate the new sized tags (when in use) to fully cover the mailer’s tag if there is the need for an “overlay”.
The USPS responded that they will need to look into how to accomodate this – just as the industry will – and they will let us know.
Wallace Vingelis
Director, Postal Industry Practice
Window Book, Inc.
Phone: (617) 395-4569
email: wvingelis@windowbook.com
If you need assistance with the USPS FAST system, you can submit your issue via email to FAST@usps.com. Or, depending on the date, you can call one of the two numbers below:
- Prior to August 30, 2010 – call 1-800-522-9085
- After August 30, 2010 – call 1-877-569-6614
** If you are having any problems with your Customer/Supplier Agreements (CSAs) – you must log these issues with the FAST Help Desk via one of the methods listed above. **
Wallace Vingelis
Director, Postal Industry Practice
Window Book, Inc.
Phone: (617) 395-4569
email: wvingelis@windowbook.com
This group was formed by the Mailers Technical Advisory Group (MTAC) to discuss and work through any FAST-related issues that were tabled and passed to it by MTAC 122 – as well as new issues that have come up since the announcement of this group forming. The first meeting was held this past week on Wednesday afternoon. If you are interested in joing this User Group, please contact the Industry Co-Chair Michelle Billman of ALG Worldwide Logistics at mbillman@algworldwide.com.
Here are a few highlights from that initial meeting:
There is a “patch release” (14.3.0) coming out on August 15 (FAST is trying to follow the overall PostalOne! release schedule.) Here is some helpful info from the latest DMM Advisory:
*** FAST Release 14.3.0 and Scheduled Outages (August 15-16, 2010): FAST® Release 14.3.0 will deploy to the production environment on Sunday, August 15, 2010. Updated release notes for FAST 14.3.0 are available on RIBBS>Site Index A-Z>FAST/Surface Visibility>Important Links>FAST Release Notes. The FAST production system will not be available from 4 a.m. through 8 a.m. (CDT) on Sunday, August 15, 2010.
FAST Release 14.3.0 will deploy to the Test Environment for Mailers (TEM) on Monday, August 16, 2010. The FAST TEM system will not be available from 8 a.m. through 12 Noon (CDT) on Monday, August 16, 2010. ***
The pre-release notes available on RIBBS were updated to include information about the new Help Desk set up for FAST. The industry seems a bit hesitant (I’m being nice here) about how helpful this will be. They are concerned that if they have a truck full of mail at the dock that is not being accepted, they will more than likely still have to go through their current escalation routine to get the mail accepted as opposed to just calling the Help Desk for resolution. The USPS says those calls will route to a Manager on Duty at that facility. The problem there is that the normal escalation process inside the facility already includes contacting that manager, so that Help Desk routing could end up with a mailer saying “Hello Manager John – I need to complain about Manager John I was just talking to.” (Could be a touchy situation!)
Last discussion item was about the open issues handed off from MTAC 122 and how to open new issues moving forward. It was decided to table that until next meeting when Ed Wanta (USPS) would be on the call.
As we hurtle along towards 2011 and increased postage prices due to the USPS exigency filing, IDEAlliance formally published the Mail.dat 11-1 specification for the industry’s review. This new specification is designed to take into account new items being requested by the industry and the USPS for better communications amongst ourselves and with the USPS via PostalOne! Although, truth be told, it’s more the latter than the former. With the publishing of the final spec, there are a few things/dates people need to know:
- All reviews must be complete and comments turned in by Friday, 08/06/10. Due to the compressed schedule for publishing this spec requested by the USPS, there is only 1 week to dig into and review this new spec.
- The “must-catch” date is 12/02/10 – This is the date software that receives and reads Mail.dat files (like Window Book’s DAT-MAIL or the USPS PostalOne! system) must be ready to receive (catch) files formatted using the 11-1 spec.
- The “must-send” date is 02/02/11 – This is the date software that creates Mail.dat files must be able to produce files formatted using the 11-1 spec.
- Expected date of exigency price increase is 01/02/11 – These 3 dates create a 60-day window between catch and send dates for Mail.dat with the price increase date right in the middle.
- When reviewing the new spec, it’s easier to start at the back! Find the section in the back that details the changes to the spec between 11.1.0.0 and 9.1.0.3 (page 154) and use that to guide you through your review.
- Pay attention to the new “air box” scenario described on page 150. These are containers that mailers are being required to use even though the USPS doesn’t have many technical details about them.
For those of you just getting familiar with Mail.dat (and Mail.XML), Window Book will be presenting a Mail.dat/Mail.XML Webinar on Tuesday, 08/10/10 at 3:00 pm EDT. Interested parties can register at http://www.windowbook.com/WindowBookWebinars.aspx.
Wallace Vingelis
Director, Postal Industry Practice
Window Book, Inc.
Phone: (617) 395-4569
Fax: (617) 395-5969
email: wvingelis@windowbook.com
URL: www.windowbook.com
As we’ve discussed previously in this blog, the red round date stamp from the United States Postal Service® (USPS®), which mailers have used for years as proof of mailing, is no longer available for electronically submitted postage statements. The USPS recently announced that the red round date stamp will also be discontinued for hard copy statements, effective March 15, 2010. This change will be effective for postal facilities that are equipped with PostalOne! Facilities without access to PostalOne! will continue to round stamp hard copy postage statements.
In lieu of the red round stamp, the USPS is asking mailers to obtain their receipts using the Business Customer Gateway to access PostalOne! Upon request, mailers may also obtain a hard copy receipt (Form 3607) from the USPS. The 3607 form, currently called the Weighing and Dispatch Certificate, will be reformatted and renamed in March to Mailing Transaction Receipt, Form 3607-R.
The mail verification and acceptance processes will not change, only the transaction receipt process. The acceptance clerk will verify the mailing as usual; however they will no longer complete the “USPS Only” section of the postage statements. In the past, the clerk would record the results of the verification process and manually apply the red round date stamp in this area. In the future, the clerks will enter this verification information into PostalOne! The wording on the postage statement form will change from “USPS Use Only” to “USPS Use Only—To Be Completed at Non-PostalOne! sites ONLY.” PostalOne! is the system of record and can be accessed to view postage statement details and print hard copies, if needed.
The Postal Service will modify the DMM® (Domestic Mail Manual) language regarding the return of a duplicate postage statement to the mailer, differentiating between PostalOne! and non-PostalOne! sites.
Here are the key changes:
- If not submitting postage statements electronically, the customer must provide an original postage statement with the mailing.
- Acceptance personnel will no longer complete the “USPS Use Only” section of hard copy postage statements for offices that enter postage statements into the PostalOne! system.
- Acceptance personnel will no longer complete and return a “duplicate” postage statement (as defined in sections 244.4.1, 334.4.1, of the DMM).
- Acceptance personnel will no longer round-date stamp hard copy postage statements.
- Acceptance personnel will retain the original copy of the postage statement and attach the USPS Form 3607 (Statement of Mailing/Weighing and Dispatch Certificate)* to it on file, as prescribed by the Administrative Support Manual.
- Upon a customer’s request, the acceptance personnel will print the USPS Form 3607 and provide it to the customer along with any duplicate copies of postage statements provided.
- The only acceptable means of proof of postage payment for mailings will be an electronic version of a finalized postage statement, or the USPS Form 3607, generated from the Postal Service’s PostalOne! system.
*In the March 15 upgrade to the PostalOne! system, PS Form 3607 will be replaced with PS Form 3607-R (Mailing Transaction Receipt).
Mailers may obtain more information regarding electronic postage statements by referencing the User Access to Electronic Mailing Information and Reports Guide: Business Customer Gateway Information, On-line Services, and Full-Service Tools. In this document, Appendix B, Access to Hard Copy Postage Statements, provides information on how to access the Business Customer Gateway and retrieve postage statements.
For more information about the Business Customer Gateway and how to access it, visit ribbs.usps.gov.
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