The Software Bureau publishes Open Standards for GeMMA

The Software Bureau has published the Open Standards for its Mailmark eManifest management process, Gemma, in a bid to both improve the Mailmark experience and attract more mailers to the bulk mail solution. According to The Software Bureau: “Mailmark is now the most cost-effective and accountable way for mailers to send bulk mail, however the lack of continuity between application standards has been identified as a barrier. Each Software application can have a different standard or data format, resulting in confusion and unnecessary costs being incurred by mailers having to handle manifest data from different sources.

“By publishing the open standard to GeMMA The Software Bureau provides the industry with a common platform that brings together the different software solutions, meaning all other postal sortation software solutions can become compatible with GeMMA. Prior to the release of the Open Standard The Software Bureau worked with ONEPOST and Communisis to produce standardised outputs.  This is the next logical step.”

The Open Standard is hosted within BitBucket, an open source software hosting facility. Developers can access the project via https://bitbucket.org/thesoftwarebureau/gemmaxsd.

Martin Rides, the MD of The Software Bureau, commented: “For the last few years we have worked closely with Royal Mail and downstream access operators to move the industry as smoothly as possible towards Mailmark. This is the latest way that we believe we can help more bulk mailers make the transition. It’s a common sense solution to a criticism that has been levied against the mail sortation industry and we’re confident that it will vastly improve and reduce the costs associated with Mailmark campaigns.”