Experience.FellowshipOne.com

So should I assume that if I did get my data exported and 'cleaned', FT would not import and I would simply use as a mail-merge spreadsheet?

Steve

I only suggest you first talk with FT about submitting an upload of addresses in their standard format.  I expect they will say OK and be clear that you have the responsibility for keeping the integrity of the data in the spreadsheet.  I would recommend that you have a counting method for validating your data before and after ZIP+4 actions and that you random sample 20 addresses to be sure that data has not moved rows or columns.

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Dan

It appears as though people are overlooking a very important piece of this USPS new regulation.  The new process is not just about CASS certification and making sure its a clean address with the 4 digit zip extension and route info recorded. What USPS is requiring is that all addresses must go through a (NCOA) National Change Of Address program that not only verifies that the address format is compliant but that the PERSON you have linked to that address is the actual person living at the address.

So, you want to make sure that if you are exporting your addresses out of Fellowship into a program that its not just CASS certifying them otherwise you are still only doing half of what is required. You have to make sure that the program you are using is actually verifying that the person you show lives at that address is the actual resident of that address. Mail getting returned isn't always about an address being wrong, more then likely it has to do with the person no longer living there, that is what USPS is wanting us to update.

Since Fellowship did not offer any sort of application to accomodate bulk mailings we have continued to use the mailroom program from our old DB system. I use Shelby Mailroom and they have a program called MOVE Agent which uses the NCOA Link. So its updating 24/7 with the post office. However, it's an extra module that we just had to buy yesterday and you buy credits, 1 credit is used for every address run through the MOVE Agent, even if the name/address does NOT have to get updated, you still use that credit. So, this is definately costing us money.

The biggest bummer is that because Fellowship does not incorporate all of this into its program we will all be left having to take on an extra expense using another program. Although they have incorprated the new way of entering addresses so that we get that 4 digit zip that in itself is not enough.

I would still like to see F1 incorporate a module that would accomodate all the USPS regulations and allow us to process bulk mails from within Fellowship.

Right now we have no choice but to run reports and then export them into our Shelby Mailroom. However, the new issue I see with these new regulations is that what happends when we export 10,000 records for a mailing (which I am doing in less then 2 weeks) we run these addresses through our Shelby MOVE Agent and get 1,000 records that the program updates. So, we now have to go into Fellowship and update those 1,000 records. My other big concern is because Fellowship data is in no way linked to the update programs we will all have to switch to, there will be nothing in Fellowship on someones record to identify that the address has been updated within the last 95 days.

I truly seeing this being not only costly but frustrating because we will have to manually update in Fellowship addresses that get corrected using the new programs and there is no way of identifying what has or hasn't been updated within 95 days. Unless of course I am totally missing something here. I just don't see any way around this since Fellowship is not linked to an update program, we have no choice but to export all our data every time we want to do a mailing.

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Kim Ludwick
Database Manager
Champions Centre
"One Church, Two Locations"
Tacoma/Bellevue, WA

CurtisHarris:

On November 23^rd the USPS will be implementing a change in how they discount bulk mail.  While Fellowship Technologies does not provide CASS or PAVE (bulk mail) solutions, we do have some customers who have created a good work around that will no longer be successful after this change.  With this post, we will attempt to clarify the impact of this change and the functional intent of Fellowship Technologies moving forward.  This does not impact anyone outside of the US.

In simple terms, CASS is a validation that your addresses are clean and well formatted easing the burden on the USPS; this is how they are able to offer a small discount.

Also in simple terms, PAVE will bundle your mail down to the actual postal carrier’s load, taking the burden of this sorting off the post office; this will result in a substantial discount and includes significant savings.

CASS is a pre-requisite to PAVE as a way to validate the accuracy of the bundles.  The post office will waive this requirement if you are willing to print “Return Service Requested” on every letter which will kick back those that are undeliverable and in turn charge the customer the full postal rate.  Essentially this is an insurance policy allowing you to vouch for the address accuracy.

As mentioned before, we currently don’t offer either of these solutions; however, the ingenuity of our customer base has managed to find a good work around.  Many of our reports that result in a list of addresses have been given a “sort by zip code” option, allowing our customers to manually find the postal code breaks, bundle them appropriately, mark “Return Service Requested” and submit them as PAVE reducing their postal rate as much as 75%.  Excellent!

On November 23^rd the USPS has modified their bulk mailing program to require that all zips include the optional +4 digits a CASS listing provides to qualify.  If even one letter in the batch does not have the +4 extension, the entire batch will be delivered, but the bill will be adjusted to the full postal rate.

Understandably, we have heard quite a few people identify concern as they approach a typically large mailing season (Christmas followed by contribution statements).  We have put our heads together to help our customers and have come up with the following course of action.

·         Building a CASS solution will be a priority project for 2009

·         A temporary stop gap solution will:

o   Clean all zip codes nightly to include the +4

o   Create a new report using a people list that allows you to sort by zip and move those without the +4 to the back of the pack

o   Users will run the reports they currently run, save the results as a people list and follow that by running the new report in the previous bullet

o   Because people lists are being used, any process that can create a people list will benefit from this change

o   The timing is unclear, but we do understand the urgency

Thank you for your patience, we will keep you notified as progress is made.

-ACE Team

This will definately be a step forward, however, everyone will still have to export their data into some sort of NCOA National Change Of Address before doing their mailings. I use Shelby Mailroom and we received info on this new regulation and what I am reading basically states that you have to submit proof (I assume it will be some sort of postal report) with every bulk mailing that shows you have ran all the addresses you are mailing to through a NCOA program within the last 95 days. So, although they want all the addresses CASS certified more importantly they want to know that the names linked to the addresses have been verified and those people actually live at the residence.

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Kim Ludwick
Database Manager
Champions Centre
"One Church, Two Locations"
Tacoma/Bellevue, WA

Thank you for your quick response to this and for this info.  I only hope that FT becomes more proactive on mailing issues such as this.  USPS regulations affect all of us, not just businesses.

Thanks again,

Katie Smith, Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church

Thank you for your quick response to this and for this info.  I only hope that FT becomes more proactive on mailing issues such as this.  USPS regulations affect all of us, not just businesses.

Thanks again,

Katie Smith, Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church

The report to use is the A2500E Export to Zip+4.  With this export you can submit your data to a third party to have it scrubbed.  To have this updated address data re-imported into Fellowship One you need to submit the same A2500E Export to Zip+4 report with all the revised columns filled in with both updated address data and address data that has not changed as support ticket.

This is much more complicated than I thought it would be. I thought being an Enterprise client the address cleansing program we currently have would address the USPS requirements. I'm disappointed in FT since I discussed this with developers at the May conference and I was under the impression a fix would be in place.

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Sarah Damour
Fellowship One Champion
Cherry Hills Community Church
Highlands Ranch, CO
303.791.4100
www.chcc.org

Has anything been done by FT to address this issue?  Just wanted to check before I did my next export via A2500E, then scrub and re-import.

Thanks,
Steve