Custom Export Fields

[Former Member]

Creating custom export fields – concatenate export fields to form your own custom fields.

Customers export their data to various formats. A feature available within Postalsoft Business Edition is the ability to export custom fields. That means you can create your own data fields in the exported file by concatenating more than 1 field. This is helpful if you want to store a snapshot of your data before performing an Address Correction, Presort or Match operation.

Customers might want to add individual data items to form more human readable fields. Instead of manipulating their data manually, this custom export field feature is useful.

An example would be a case where a customer wants to keep track of their Intelligent Mail barcode.

The Intelligent Mail barcode is made up of the following fields:

1. Barcode ID
2. Service Type ID
3. Mailer ID (9 digits or 6 digits)
4. Serial Number (6 digits or 9 digits)
5. ZIP code (either 5-digit, 9-digit ZIP+4  or 11-digit delivery point code)

So, if they have all of these fields, or even the first 4 listed above, they can form their own IM Barcode. However, this barcode might not be totally accurate for the type of mailing they want to perform.

The Barcode ID is “00” by default, unless you are sure of the type of mailing you are doing. The options for Barcode ID depending on the mailing type follow:

00 - Default / No OEL Information

10 - Carrier Route (CR), Enhanced Carrier Route (ECR), and FIRM

20 - 5-Digit/Scheme

30 - 3-Digit/Scheme

40 - Area Distribution Center (ADC)

50 - Mixed Area Distribution Center (MADC), Origin Mixed ADC (OMX)

Customers can then form their own IM Barcode by using the custom export feature in Desktop Mailer/Business Edition.

Directions to create a custom export field:

1. Within Desktop Mailer/Business Edition, Click File|Export
2. Choose any format you like (although it is easier to export to a text file and import that into excel when data/text columns are involved)
3. Choose from among non-deleted records, presorted records or presorted container labels etc.
4. Create a new custom field and add the fields that make up an Intelligent Mail Barcode.
5. Add a new field to the “Export fields” list, as a destination field to hold the custom data.
6. Finish the Export task.

Now the customer has a data file, with their original IM barcode (with the original information before any Presorting/Address Correction operation is performed). When Presorting/Address Correction is done, depending on what type of mailing one has, the Barcode ID, Service Type ID and the ZIP code might change. So if you choose to have a “Presort posting field” for IM barcode, it might be different from your original information. This could help customers compare their data before and after performing operations such as Presort or Address Correction.