June 26, 2009

Intelligent Mail^® Services Weekly Update

Intelligent Mail^® Symposiums - Mailers interested in tapping into the power of the mail to reach customers — and optimizing their operations — once again can take advantage of an Intelligent Mail® University series hosted by the National Postal Forum. The next two symposiums will be offered July 9 in Columbus, OH, and July 16 in Fort Worth, TX.

Click here for further information, registration deadlines, and to enroll for either symposium.

Full-Service and Electronic Documentation Testing - We have posted an updated Intelligent Mail Full-Service & Electronic Documentation Checklist on our RIBBS™ Website. It has been revised to offer greater clarity around participation in the electronic documentation (eDoc) and the Intelligent Mail Basic and Full-Service options. The checklist describes the test process for mailers who are new to electronic postage and documentation. The test scenarios are required in order to utilize electronic documentation or progress into the Intelligent Mail Full-Service option. In our Test Environment for Mailers (TEM), mailers may test Mail.dat 8-2 files for eDoc or Mail.dat 9-1 files to participate in eDoc and/or the Full-Service option. We encourage mailers to practice in the TEM, which offers access to a file validator that checks the validity of Mail.dat files and records error messages. Mailers will see file warnings and be able fix errors before beginning the actual test validations with the USPS^® Help Desk.

Several mailers have successfully participated in the TEM process and are poised to implement the Intelligent Mail Full-Service option.

Reminder – Mailers using the Full-Service Intelligent Mail option will receive address correction at no charge (Full-Service ACS™). This address correction information is provisioned via downloadable reports or via an electronic exchange method using Mail.XML. The specifications for the downloadable reports are available in the User Access to Electronic Mailing Information and Reports Guide and the specifications for the electronic exchange format using Mail.XML are available in the Postal Service Mail.XML Technical Specification.

PostalOne! Patch Release 20.1 (July 19) – Previously we reported issues with the dowloadable Full-Service address correction reports that are provisioned as part of Full Service. We will address these issues in the July 19 software upgrade. The functionality supported in this upgrade is explained in PostalOne! Version 20.1 Pre-Release Notes on RIBBS, under “Intelligent Mail Services,” then “Guides”. The User Access to Electronic Mailing Information and Reports Guide demonstrates the Full-Service address correction data elements that are provided by the software today

as illustrated in Appendix A and has been updated to reflect how the data elements will be provisioned in the July 19 patch as illustrated in Appendix B.

PostalOne! Patch Release 21 (August 16) – We will deploy a software upgrade for Full-Service on August 16 in PostalOne! Release 21. This release will address functionality for Multi-Line Optical Character Reader (MLOCR) mailers. In addition to allowing postage statements for multiple payment methods and adding flexibility in updating electronic documentation information for trays and containers, this release will correct issues with postage statements and electronic documentation generation for MLOCR mailers.

Centralized Postage Payment (CPP) Periodical mailers have requested a modification in the timing of the provisioning of the Full-Service ACS information. We will address this request in this release where CPP Periodical mailers will start receiving the address correction information once the postage statement is in the "Finalized Pending Payment" state.

The release notes for this patch will be posted on RIBBS by July 3.

PostalOne! Release 22 (November 15) – 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. On RIBBS we updated the Postal Service Mail.XML Technical Specification to reflect the Mail.XML electronic documentation and messaging solutions we will support in the release.

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.