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Snailtalk
Keeping You Informed on Informed
July 27, 2016
Karen Bartram
Visibility, that is…
The Postal Service has decided, wisely, to catch their breath before rolling ahead too quickly on Informed Visibility. Originally it was supposed to be rolling out all over the nation by now, but they really didn’t have anything in place except a schedule of when it would be out, which turned out to be, well, a bit optimistic. They pulled those schedules and have since released a new schedule that is still a draft. We’re pretty OK with this. Informed Visibility is the Postal Service’s revamping of the Intelligent Mail Tracing program – the program that provides the tracking data that SnailWorks crafts into adorable reports for you. Informed Visibility (IV) is supposed to add container and handling unit tracking (trays and pallets here on Earth), bundle tracking, and a whole slew of new scan events including: Estimated Delivery Date (EDD), Assumed Delivery Date (ADD), Logical Delivery Event (LDE), and Assumed Routing Global Handling Helix (ARGHH!) We may have made that last one up. All of this data will be housed on a dreamy new platform – IV. IV will also allow for frightening combinations of data distribution from a whole new cast of characters in your (or someone’s) organization. Place your want ads now for these positions:
Company Subscription Manager;
Business Service Administrator (BSA);
IV BSA;
IV BSA Delegate;
Roles & Permissions Manager;
Data Delegation Manager;
Company Address Book Manager;
Data Subscription Manager
Sadly, we are not making any of these up. In most organizations, all of these roles will probably be handled by one sad employee who was late for a meeting, or by no one at all – you’ll let SnailWorks wear all of these hats. Don’t worry – our head is big enough. All of these are really just concepts right now – the Postal Service is struggling to develop an actual system that interconnects all of these roles. Thus, the delay. The first release is scheduled to go into pilot on September 6, 2016, and after a rigorous ten-day pilot, to roll out nationally on September 26, 2016. The first release is mostly administrative, migrating data flows, updating file formats, migrating accounts, and maybe even releasing a users’ guide for all of this stuff. They will tentatively include LDE scan data. This is considerably less exciting that one may believe. More on that another day. Release two is where the real fun begins with bundle tracking, and all of the new job titles listed above. They also begin attempting to report on “Assumed Handling Events” and “Logical Out for Delivery Events.” This release is scheduled to go into pilot on September 26, and roll out on October 17. All of this has been presented to the mailing industry as concepts and schedules. Other than some pretty generic file formats, no actual user guides or screen shots have been released. Ultimately we expect to be able to add some useful capabilities, but much remains to be seen before that can happen. Bottom line – IV implementation is delayed, and is getting more complicated. We will continue to monitor it and update you as new capabilities become available and usable.
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