Bulk mail sorting

[Jim Hurley]

>---------------------
>
>Message: 5
>Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 15:42:16 -0400
>From: "Dave LeYanna" <dleyanna at rtl.org>
>Subject: RE: Bulk mail sorting
>To: "'How to use Revolution'" <use-revolution at lists.runrev.com>
>Message-ID: <20040803193807.2486F30AC3 at mail.rtl.org>
>Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"
>
>If you are trying to get the best possible rates you need a lot more than
>CR. You also have to have your addresses PAVE  certified and CASS processed.
>Barcodes for labels and tray/sack tags need to be generated. Government
>style reports created, and sorting rules beyond measure. Just take a look at
>the bulk rate section of the Domestic Mail Manual at the USPS site. The USPS
>does provide data bases (at a subscription cost) and the software created
>using the tables needs to be approved by a post office testing procedure.
>It's all very ugly. We plan on attempting it sometime in the future but for
>now we use commercial software. A couple of providers are Melissa Data and
>Datatech Smartsoft.
>
>If you plan to go ahead let me know as we may be able to work together as
>this is a future project for us also...
>
>Dave LeYanna
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: use-revolution-bounces at lists.runrev.com
>[mailto:use-revolution-bounces at lists.runrev.com] On Behalf Of kee nethery
>Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2004 12:41 PM
>To: How to use Revolution
>Subject: Re: Bulk mail sorting
>
>
>On Aug 3, 2004, at 9:23 AM, Jim Hurley wrote:
>
>>  Has anyone worked on creating software to sort mail to achieve US Post
>>  Office bulk rates, in particular sorting by carrier route?
>
>no but the CD the USPS puts out is very easy to parse so if you have the
>data, you can combine with the addresses and then just sort. Should be "a
>simple matter of coding"  :-)  .
>Kee
>

Thanks Dave and Kee,

I have looked at the Post Office regs. They are indeed ugly. Pity. It 
would be trivial to sort a given address list to match the Post 
Office's carrier routes, but the certification is a killer. And I 
can't see what need there is for bar codes. The whole point of the 
sort by carrier route is to avoid the necessity of the PO doing their 
own sort.

Think I'll take your advice Dave and let the mailing houses handle 
it. This annoys me. There is little competition in my neck of the 
woods and they take advantage of the fact. But as my work is gratis, 
as a volunteer, my resources are limited.

Just out of curiosity, where would I order the PO CD?

Jim