Today's Postal Bulletin is here. There is just one DMM revision (Elimination of Certain Quick Service Guides) and that one doesn't affect Presort. There are also Labeling List changes published in this issue - these are the changes on the new schedule. They take effect 1 April 2013 but _must_ be used by 30 April 2013 - no more 75 day crossover window! So once we can get all the data needed for our directories and get them released, you should download and use them.
The "new" schedule that I refer to above plans for quarterly updates of Labeling List data, so the published schedule says there will be another update taking effect 1 July (use by 31 July, because the April directories will no longer be valid after that), and so forth. You can find that schedule along with schedules for Mail Direction and City State file updates as part of the USPS's Intelligent Mail info here.
There's a big "however" here, though: The published schedule says quarterly updates for Labeling Lists; _however_, because of the large number of facility changes anticipated in the coming months there is discussion of making monthly updates available. Further detail is not yet available as to whether this would potentially change the expiration dates of labeling lists (which would require software updates to alert users of the shorter expiration times) or if it would just mean there would be a larger number of potentially valid directories in use at once. I suspect this is being discussed at the National Postal Forum (NPF) going on this week.
Apologies for missing the PB last time, the 7 March 2013 edition. I will just note here that there were several DMM revisions, including:
- an item clarifying how 5-digit scheme and 3-digit scheme sorts are to be done compared to 5-digit and 3-digit (somewhat mysterious to me as Presort has done essentially what is described since before I started working on Presort - 1997)
- New price eligibility for 5DG containers deposited at FSS facilities
- Clarification of standards related to IMpb use
- A listing of coming promotions and incentives for First-Class and Standard Mail
My brief takes on these:
- No issues for Presort with scheme sorts, it just says (for example) to do the 5-digit scheme sort PRIOR TO the 5-digit sort, even if all the mail in the scheme is to a single 5-digit area
- In what appears to be an effort to get more mail to FSS machines that were procured based on mail volume estimates from a decade or more ago and are probably underutilized at this point, mailers may get DSCF discounts on 5DG containers entered at FSS facilities (if you're interested in separating your mail and making an extra drop for that purpose, please do let us know)
- The Intelligent Mail parcel barcode standards previously said that the ZIP4 was required for all records in the new shipping manifest file unless the destination delivery address was used instead; now the language says the delivery address info is the "recommended" data to use but the ZIP4 is acceptable
- You should look at the list of incentives to see if any are of interest
I'll be back in a couple weeks with notes on the next PB.
