BCC Software to Launch Track N Trace MailDelivery Monitoring Service Option

BCC Software, a BÖWE BELL + HOWELL has set a release date of March 3 for Track
N Trace™, its newest offering. This service option will provide users with comprehensive information and unprecedented specificity regarding the delivery progress of their mailing jobs.

Track N Trace uses the new USPS Intelligent Mail barcode to supply BCC customers with maildelivery monitoring information as part of the USPS OneCode Confirm ™ program. When Track N Trace is activated via a proprietary interface built into BCC’s Mail Manager 2010 presorting and listmanagement software, each mailpiece in the designated job is tagged with a unique identification number stored in the IM™ barcode on the address label.

Those IDs are then logged when the mailpieces are scanned as they move from one postal facility to the next on the path to their eventual delivery destination.

OneCode Confirm sends that scan data to a secure BCC Web site that may be retrieved at any time by Track N Trace subscribers looking for uptodate delivery details for part or all of a job. The scan data, updated on BCC’s servers several times each day, may be accessed in the form of userspecified reports that can be downloaded into a variety of presentationfriendly formats.

Regular use of Track N Trace will help mailers develop a detailed and accurate understanding of delivery patterns in different geographic areas and times of year. In particular, the mailpiece specificity enabled by unique mailpiece IDs gives OneCode

Confirm a powerful advantage over the USPS Confirm ® program, in which PLANET™ barcodes were often used to “seed” a mailing and typically could yield accurate but non-specific delivery information. (BCC’s Confirm service, offered through a thirdparty provider, will remain available to customers until the USPS discontinues use of PLANET barcodes in favor of the Intelligent Mail barcode. That transition is expected to occur in early 2009.)

Intelligent Mail barcode is loaded with potential for mailers, and OneCode Confirm is a significant part of the barcode’s stateoftheart value. BCC’s launch of Track N Trace positions us to continue serving our users with the most uptodate technology, in turn assuring them and their own clients of the best possible mailing outcomes.”
When it launches on March 3, the service option will be available to Mail Manager 2010 users for an introductory price of USD 500, which entitles a subscriber to unlimited use of Track N Trace for the remainder of the 2008 calendar year. (Pricing for 2009 and thereafter will be determined later in 2008.) Also, the USPS OneCode ACS ™ program, which uses similar scanbased reporting technology to transmit move information back to the mailer, is in development to be added to BCC’s Track N Trace later in 2008.