A Step Towards Delivering The Future

Tuesday, we took another step in our efforts to move toward five-day delivery by filing a request for an advisory opinion from the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC).

Our proposal calls for eliminating Saturday delivery, which will result in a net savings of $3.1 billion annually for the Postal Service. We thank our stakeholders for their extensive input and assistance in the development of this request and look forward to our continuing dialogue.   

You can read about all the key elements of our five-day delivery request at our new website: http://www.usps.com/communications/five-daydelivery. The site is separated into sections for business mailers and households. Each section features the basic facts, planning guides for customers and answers to frequently asked questions.

We will keep you updated on the progress of our proposal through DMM Advisory.

DMM Advisory – Intelligent Mail Update

PostalOne!^® and FAST^®  Outages: PostalOne! Release 24.0.1 and FAST Release 14.1 will be deployed to production environment on Sunday, March 28, 2010. The PostalOne! and FAST Production systems will not be available from 4:00 a.m. through 8:00 a.m. (CST) Sunday, March 28, 2010.

PostalOne! Release 24.0.1 and FAST Release 14.1 will be deployed to the Test Environment for Mailers (TEM) environment on Monday, March 29, 2010. The PostalOne! and FAST Test Environment for Mailers systems will not be available from 4:00 a.m. through 8:00 a.m. (CST) Monday, March 29, 2010.

Final Release Notes are posted on RIBBS^® for PostalOne! Release 24.0, which includes information for Patch Releases 24.0.0.1 and 24.0.0.2.

PostalOne! Release 24.0 Issues:

• Mail.dat^® 08-2 files submitted using the legacy Mail.dat application cannot be updated with the USPS^® Mail.dat client. In order to allow mailers to complete these jobs without resubmitting, we are making a one-time exception to temporarily activate the legacy Mail.dat application. Mailers should not submit any new jobs using the legacy Mail.dat application as this support will be permanently discontinued on April 16, 2010.  
• A change in Release 24.0 to a Mail.dat validation enforcing the Component ID field in the CPT record of the Mail.dat file to be left filled with leading zeros. We are temporarily reverting this validation so that leading zeros are not required until an approach for implementing the validation change is identified and reviewed with the mailing industry.
• Mailers using the USPS Mail.dat client software in batch mode could not process files once they upgraded to release 24.0. Mailers will need to re-enter their user-name and password credentials before being able to run the Release 24.0 USPS Mail.dat client in batch mode. This is a one-time only configuration activity.

 Additional information on these issues can be found on RIBBS under Latest News.

Intelligent Mail Services Update

PostalOne!^® and FAST^® Outage: PostalOne! Release 24.0 will be deployed on Saturday, March 13, 2010. The PostalOne! production system will not be available from 10:00 p.m. CT on Saturday, March 13 through Sunday, March 14, 2010, at 8:00 a.m. CT.

FAST Release 14.0 will be deployed on Sunday, March 14, 2010. FAST production will not be available from 4:00 a.m. CT through 8:00 a.m. CT on Sunday, March 14, 2010. During this period FAST Web Services, FAST online application, and the FAST Customer Supplier Agreement (CSA) module will be unavailable. 

PostalOne! Release 24.0 and FAST Release 14.0 will be deployed to the PostalOne! and FAST Test Environments for Mailers (TEM) respectively on Monday, March 15, 2010. The PostalOne! and FAST TEM environments will not be available from 4:00 a.m. through 12:00 p.m. CT during this deployment.

To learn about the changes in PostalOne!  Release 24.0, refer to the release notes posted on RIBBS® under Intelligent Mail® Services Latest News.

To learn about the changes in FAST Release 14.0, refer to the release notes posted on the FAST Website under Resources.

Guides Update: To support PostalOne! Release 24.0 on March 14, the following guides are updated and available on RIBBS under Intelligent Mail Guides & Technical Specifications:

• A Guide to Intelligent Mail for Letters and Flats
• Test Environment for Mailers (TEM) Checklist and Troubleshooting
• Postal Service Mail.dat® Technical Specification
• Postal Service Mail.XML® Technical Specification

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 accessible from Canada at no charge.

Plant Verified Drop Shipment (PVSD) webinar

The Postal Service™ continues to look at all areas of its business with an eye to becoming more efficient and cost effective. At the same time, our commitment to customer service remains a top priority.

With this commitment in mind, we invite customers to attend Plant Verified Drop Shipment (PVDS) webinars. These webinars, which have been offered over the past few weeks, touch on key steps in accepting drop-ship mailings.

If you have not yet attended a PVDS webinar, we offer the chance to take part in one this Thursday, March 4, beginning at 2:00 p.m. (EST). Join Pritha Mehra, vice president, Business Mail Entry and Payment Technologies, and Vincent DeVito, vice president, Controller, for a discussion on drop-ship mailing processes followed by a question and answer session.

Here’s how to attend the 90-minute webinar:

Audio only: Dial 1-877-512-0764, meeting ID: 7989790

Web conference with audio:

• Go to  http://meetingplace5.usps.gov/join.asp?7989790
• After the MeetingPlace window opens, click the phone icon (under the participant list or in the upper right-hand corner).
• Click connect me and validate your phone number, or update your phone number and click connect me again.
• When the MeetingPlace system calls you on your phone, press #1 to join the webinar.

Contact Pete Allen, manager, Business Customer Relations, at 202-268-2165 or e-mail william.a.allenjr@usps.gov if you have any questions.

DMM Advisory – February

Postal Explorer (pe.usps.com) is your source for up-to-date mailing standards. The Domestic Mail Manual is fully searchable on Postal Explorer and features fly-out menus, cross-reference links, and an extensive subject index. We updated our mailing standards to capture the following changes:

Priority Mail Commercial Plus Cubic Prices
We revised 401.1.3, 401.2.2.1, 402.2.3, 423.3.1, 424.1.1, and 425.2.4 to clarify standards for Priority Mail commercial plus cubic prices that went into effect on January 4, 2010

Move Update Assessment Charges for Automation and Presort First-Class Mail and All Standard Mail Mailings
We revised 233.3.5, 243.3.9, 333.3.5, 343.3.9, 433.3.5, and 443.3.9 to describe the changes and procedures for how Move Update assessment charges are handled.

Treatment of Undeliverable Books and Sound Recordings
We revised 507.1.9 to update the standards for the disposal or treatment of books and sound recordings that are undeliverable-as-addressed (UAA) in their original packaging.

Advertisements for Animals and Sharp Instruments for Use in Animal Fighting Ventures are Nonmailable
We revised 601.9.3.1, 601.11.20, and 601.12.5.7 to align our standards with section 26 (7 U.S.C. 2156) of the Animal Welfare Act as amended by the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008.

Labeling List Changes
We revised Labeling List(s) L001, L002, L005, L007, L009, L011, L201, and L606 to reflect changes in mail processing operations.

Our next scheduled DMM update is March 14.