Keeping Up with Intelligent Mail Issues
Whether you are deep into your Intelligent Mail (IM) integration or have not yet started, the United States Postal Service® (USPS®) offers a variety of methods to keep up-to-date with what is happening in the world of Intelligent Mail. A lot of mail service providers and software vendors also offer newsletters and broadcast emails to help their clients stay informed.
One Billion Mail Pieces Served
The USPS recently issued a
press release announcing the 1 billionth piece of IM
mail processed. This milestone was reached on December 4, 2009. Since the implementation of
Intelligent Mail in May 2009, there have been 109 commercial
mailers taking advantage of
Intelligent Mail, submitting 11,000 postage statements electronically.
Test Environment for Mailers (TEM)
If you are in the process of completing your TEM testing to become eligible to submit
Intelligent Mail, you should have received an invitation to participate in weekly teleconferences, where issues with TEM testing are reported and discussed. Even if you are not yet participating in TEM testing, you can access the most recent
TEM telecom minutes on the USPS (
RIBBS) web site. We strongly encourage any
mailers who have not yet entered the
TEM testing environment to do so, and when you do, it will be helpful to read through these weekly minutes so that you will be prepared for some of the issues.
PostalOne!®
The USPS posts the current listing of
PostalOne!
critical issues on the RIBBS web site. This information can be very helpful regardless of whether you participate in IM or not. If you use PostalOne! to process mailings, this issue list can be very beneficial. Also of great benefit are the PostalOne!
Release Notes, which include information about previous and upcoming releases to the PostalOne! software.
Mailers Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC)
There are also a variety of
MTAC workgroups that meet or have telecons on a regular basis. Many of these workgroups involve
Intelligent Mail. If you are interested in the minutes of these meetings, or would like to participate in a workgroup, you should contact one of the industry associations that are represented on the MTAC committee. Many of these industry associations also provide
Intelligent Mail updates to members on a regular basis.