In recent years, the process for commercial mail acceptance, payment, and entry has become entirely automated by a complex web of interrelated Postal Service data systems.
Generally, the mail producer uploads data describing the content, preparation, and postage payment for a mailing and the Postal Service processes this to confirm payment and authorize entry of the mail. Meanwhile, the mail producer and/or its logistics company schedules the deposit of the mailing through another USPS software platform.
All of these systems, and many others working in the background, are supposed to provide a “seamless” process that reduces the time and workload for both the mailer and the Postal Service. That may be true if they’re all working as designed and communicating properly.
Design vs reality
Many of the key systems are relatively old – PostalOne being a product of the 1990s, for example – and have been kept operating by successive updates and modifications. The same is true for other systems like Seamless Acceptance Service Performance and Facility Access and Shipment Tracking, the former serving to advise entry facilities that postage for a mailing has been paid, the latter to schedule the physical deposit of a shipment.
As these and others are subject to periodic maintenance and updates, one might assume there’s a process to ensure fixes don’t upset anything else, such as the interface and data exchange with another system. However, recent experience by many high-volume commercial mailers suggests than the periodic updates are being installed without essential confirmation that connectivity and data flow are operating properly. An example would be recent incidents in which the mail producer uploads the necessary data, and is told the mail was accepted and postage withdrawn from their account, only to learn that the entry facility has rejected the mailing because, when dock employees scanned the placards on the mailing, the system told them that postage hasn’t been paid.
The immediate cause of the situation was traced to a communication failure between the payment system – PostalOne – and SASP, the system that informs the entry facility scanners. Beyond that, dock personnel who are supposed to contact the FAST Help Desk when an apparently unpaid shipment arrives failed to follow that process – the driver was simply turned away.
On other occasions, mailers couldn’t upload or download documents, or PostalOne wasn’t “finalizing” mailings, or users would be locked out of their accounts.
In most instances, field and HQ specialists resolved the issues as they arose, but such constant intervention isn’t an acceptable alternative to remedying the root causes, and efforts to draw high-level attention to the problem have not been met with success.
Observations
Regardless of the specifics, the underlying problem seems to be a general failure of the USPS parties responsible for these systems to ensure that when an update is made somewhere that it doesn’t disrupt something else. Given the separate functional responsibilities for the many interconnected systems, the problems being encountered suggest both a lack of coordination and the absence of an overall performance monitoring process.
The Postal Service is constantly deploying new software systems for a wide range of purposes, and new Application Programming Interfaces are the latest trend. While innovation is good, mail producers would remind IT executives that keeping existing systems working correctly should not get less attention than the newest shiny thing in the drawer. In the circumstances noted above, mailers experience added work and logistics costs and the USPS is seeing delayed payment and delayed mail entry, all because of a basic communication failure between two essential systems. As one industry professional put it, “the USPS cash register is broken, and no-one seems to be fixing it.”