Final Mail.dat specification was published on August 9th and can be found at http://idealliance.org/industry_resources/production_and_supply_chain/mail.dat/mail.dat_11.1
Summary of the changes
- New Fields for Reply Rides Free, Saturation/High-Density Incentive programs from USPS.
- Place to enter Delivery Statistics File Date.
- As of release 26 Jan 2011the Postal Service will not support Priority Mail via Mail.dat.
- Changes in processing and rate category from exigency plan - please see USPS Jan. 2, 2011 Proposed Price for more details on proposed exigency price changes
- Fields to support FSS (please see FRN http://pe.usps.gov/FRN/FSS_Optional_Prep_final.pdf) .
- Support for Air-Freight boxes
Things to note regarding this spec and PostalOne!
- Industry agreed on a Must Catch 30 day prior to exigency and a Must Send 30 days after exigency.
- o Must Catch Date : 02-Dec-2010 and
- o Must Send Date 02-Feb-2011
- The USPS is looking into options, but as things currently stand, PostalOne! will be able to "Catch" a Mail.dat 11-1 on the day of exigency (02-Jan-2011).
- Any changes approved afterthe PRC review will be handled through errata.
