The Great Migration Begins
August 29, 2016   Karen Bartram

The Great Migration Begins

Please supply your own herd animal noises…

  It appears that the Postal Service may be ready to begin transitioning to the Informed Visibility (IV) platform in the coming months.  Currently, all USPS mail tracking data is distributed through Intelligent Mail Tracing, while some tray and container data is distributed through PostalOne! (their exclamation mark, not ours.)  Beginning very soon, all tracking data is expected be distributed from the IV platform. We have talked about IV in past issues – this is the latest iteration of their direct mail tracking service. IV will provide a few new data points and some enhanced data flows, but the change is more evolutionary than revolutionary.  In the meantime, however, we need to worry about – insert foreboding music here – data platform migration.  In October the Postal Service will be moving mail tracking scan data to shiny new computers – what was IMb Tracing will become IV.  What could possibly go wrong? Never mind - we don’t want to think about what could go wrong, so we’ll focus on a couple of things our customers may need to be aware of as this event approaches.
  • You may be getting an email from the Postal Service talking about the BSA for your CRID, telling you who is currently assigned as your BSA, asking if you would like to change that assignment, and possibly asking whom you would like to assign as your IV BSA. Or maybe you won’t.  If you have delegated your scan data to us, you really should not see this email.  But we are figuring the Postal Service’s address book looks like our Christmas card list, so we thought it was best to have you and yours on the lookout for confusing emails.  If you receive one, and you are confused about what you need to do, please reach out to us.  We’ll help you navigate it.  (By the way, BSA is not Boy Scouts of America, at least not in this case.  It is your Business Services Administrator, a mythical beast that the Postal Service believes you have administering your “relationship” with the Postal Service.)
  • We will be working with the Postal Service to choose a migration date in October when they will make this transition. NOTE: If you are delegating scan data to SnailWorks, you should not arrange a migration date with USPS if they ask.  You should contact us at SnailWorks, and we’ll get it worked out with them. 
If all goes as planned, all of this should be transparent to you. You will simply continue to enjoy exceptional mail tracking services and be captivated as wonderful product enhancements appear in the coming months, powered by IV data.  As the migration to IV continues, we are advising all of our clients to gird their loins for unexpected service interruptions and challenges.  We don’t expect any interruption, of course, which is why we use the word “unexpected,” but caution is advised.  We use the expression “gird your loins” just because we like to include it in our newsletter at least once a year.  (Who could argue against loin girding?) Subscriber emails are expected to go out as early as this week, and platform migration is scheduled for October of this year. Count on SnailWorks to guide you through a smooth transition.  In a few short months we should all be grazing happily in the fertile new fields of Informed Visibility.

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