Deutsche Post Manager Infopost User manual

First name list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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4.4.4.

4.5. Address check

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4.5.1.

Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4.5.2.

Thesaurus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4.5.3.

Statistics

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4.5.4.

4.6. Duplicate search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

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4.6.1.

Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

4.6.2.

4.7. Robinson check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

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4.7.1.

Installation/Update

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4.7.2.

Execution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

4.7.3.

4.8. Nixie check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

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4.8.1.

Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

4.8.2.

Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

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4.9. Adressdialog

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4.9.1.

4.9.2.

Create codes

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4.9.3.

Create export file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Use this menu item to import the addresses which you want to edit in your current project to check them for postal correctness and, where appropriate, to remove any duplicates.

4 Addresses menu

4.1. Import from file

Use this dialog window to select the address file to be used for your project and to start importing the contained data.

Hints regarding data security/data protection

Address data you have imported for a mailing and which can be viewed and edited in the address manage-

ment

(on page 65) will be stored unencrypted and hence unauthorized persons will be able to read them,

even if Infopost-Manager itself cannot be started by unauthorized persons due to its password protection.

Please make sure on your own responsibility that project data is stored securely and, if appropriate, deleted in time.

Select the option Copy file into the project directory after import, if you want to create a copy of the import file. That way you do not have to keep track of the original file and it may safely be deleted.

Infopost-Manager can import various file formats:

• Access files

• dBase files

• Excel files

• text files

Text files can be imported in both variable and fixed width format. If you can choose between fixed or variable format when exporting from another application, you should prefer the ”variable” option.

You can also compile the address data set for the mailshot from various data sources. In order to do so the menu item has to be chosen repeatedly.

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If you want to discard the existing address data, click Reject.

If you want to supplement your already imported addresses with additional records, click Keep. The

existing addresses as well as the unassigned fields (on page 55) will be conserved.

When assigning the field types make sure that the fields of the file to be imported are assigned to the corresponding field type of the existing address database.

During the import, all fields without any assignment will extend the address database by an additional column. The field contents are set empty for all addresses previous to the import.

The various source files of the address database are explicitly displayed in the result area of the main window.

4.1.1

Import options

When importing text files, the text file wizard turns up to assist you with making the correct choices.

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In the first step, the wizard automatically recognizes whether the fields in the text file are separated by characters or a fixed width format is available. Thus, you will not have to select the file type.

Activate the option Line contains field name if this applies to your source file.

The settings defined in the text file wizard for importing ASCII files can be saved to a template at the end of the import procedure (in other words after the field allocation) and reused when importing again.

Infopost-Manager will automatically propose the adequate template for homogeneous files with similar format and field structure.

Importing text files with variable width

If you are going to import files with separators, you have to specify the separators and brackets. If the necessary separator is not listed, activate the option Others and enter the corresponding character.

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You can enter the character for the bracket in the corresponding field or select it from the selection list.

Depending on the defined characters you can immediately see the results in the Preview. Thus, you can directly verify or change your selection prior to starting the import of the whole file.

Importing text files with a fixed width format

If your file is in fixed width format, you have to specify the required column separator by clicking on the ruler. Any separation can be deleted by clicking on it again.

Importing Excel files

Select the correct worksheet or table where you can find the data to be imported.

In addition to that, activate the option First line contains field name if this applies to your source

4 Addresses menu file. The results of your selection can be easily seen in the Preview. Here, the first 100 addresses resp.

lines and the first 50 fields resp. columns are shown.

Importing Access files

If your database is protected by a password you can enter it in this dialog window.

Select the table where the data to be imported are stored.

4.1.2

Automatic analysis

As soon as Infopost-Manager has opened the selected address file, you will be given a table view of all fields available in this file.

4 Addresses menu

When starting to import the addresses, Infopost-Manager analyzes the structure and content of the source file.

In the line below the icon bar, the field names from the source file and the proposed assignments of the analysis are listed.

Each field which is postally relevant has to be assigned correctly. You can see the list of possible assignments offered by Infopost-Manager by clicking on the arrow icon of a field.

Fields in the source file which are not postally relevant (e.g. Dept. or name of household pet) but which you would nevertheless like to use in subsequent printing can also be imported without assignment.

Important

Please note the information on field assignment (on page 233). There you will find an explanation of the

possibilities offered by correct assignment and the consequences thereof.

You should remember those postally irrelevant fields nevertheless. They might become important during the duplicate search when you have to decide whether or not two addresses, which differ in a manner otherwise not evident, are duplicates.

As an alternative to this structural analysis, Infopost-Manager proposes the use of a suitable template (on

page 60) if there is one.

Templates should always be used if you regularly use files with the same format and field structure. If you create a template for ASCII files, settings which were made in the text file wizard when importing ASCII files are also stored here.

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• Assigning fields (on this page)

• Automatic field assignment (on page 57)

• Deactivating whole lines (on page 58)

• Address preview (on page 58)

• Address record preview (on page 59)

• Fields (on page 60)

• Templates (on page 60)

• Country codes (on page 61)

• Options (on page 72)

• Further functions (on page 61)

• Address import: Status report (on page 62)

Assigning fields (Content assignment)

The content assignment dialog window opens by double-clicking the column header (assignment field) or via the contextual menu item Edit field (right mouse click).

4 Addresses menu

In the ”Content” area, the assignment currently given and the suggestions from the automatic content analysis are displayed.

In the ”Import” area you can activate various options for assigning each field:

Use the option Import field to decide whether a field shall be imported for further use or whether it is not required for the coming project. A field which will not be imported is marked with a red cross:

Activating and deactivating of the option Import field can also be done via a keyboard shortcut: Click into the respective column of an arbitrary record and press the F7 key.

Importing fields without assignment gives the respective field only a field name. As the content is not of postal relevance there is no assignment required.

You can use the field later in the project, for instance in mail merge or when distinguishing between duplicates.

Additionally you can use the option Change name of unassigned fields to give a new field name.

This option is not available if you define an assignment.

4 Addresses menu

If Infopost-Manager proposed assignment is missing or incorrect, but you would still like to assign the field, activate the Choose assignment option and select one of the default assignments from the list.

The option Accept suggestion of the field analysis replaces your selection by the automatically recognized assignment (or perhaps by an empty field).

Gender

The application uses this field type for the automatic generation (on page 82) of the correct salutation.

As soon as you select this type Infopost-Manager passes all addresses and reports the different field contents. In the appearing dialog you can now assign the field contents to the favored gender. Infopost-

Manager supports you with this task: He already knows the most popular field contents for genders and submits you with respective proposals.

Use the Assign button resp. directly select in the table the desired gender for each reported field content.

4 Addresses menu

Automatic field assignment

If the automatic field analysis should not lead to those results, which you expected, or if you want to manually assign all fields ab initio, you can reset all field assignments via this menu item.

Please note that this actions can be undone only in a time-consuming way by accepting the suggestion of the field analysis for every single field.

Override the automatic field analysis and assignment for future projects by ticking option Deactivate

automatic field assignment for new projects

in the confirmation dialog. If you do so, field assignments will start from the very beginning but you can intentionally reactivate the automatic field assignment at any time.

Deactivating whole lines

You can deactivate the whole line by clicking on a line number on the left-hand edge; a red cross before the line number and the light-gray font indicate that this complete address record will not be imported.

Another click or pressing the F8 key undoes this effect.

Address preview

Previewing addresses can be done by double-clicking an address or via clicking the Preview button.

You will see the address elements which are part of the address sub-divided into to street address,

P.O. Box address and major recipient address.

An address is only shown in bold if it is complete and postally correct.

The expression <empty> means that there is no content for the field (e.g. P.O. Box or Major recipient address) in the current data record.

The expression <not assigned> indicates that no field has (yet) been assigned to this information.

You can use the navigation arrows in the upper part of the window to move through the various data records or to jump straight to the first or last data record.

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If sufficient data are available the major recipient address is preferred to the P.O. Box address which in turn is preferred to the street address.

Address record preview

You can use the address record preview to see the content of a data record in the fields of your address file where both the field name and its assignment are shown. The Assignment column corresponds to the automatically recognized or manually assigned field type.

You can use the navigation arrows to view your data records individually and thus to verify the correct assignment and name of the fields.

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Fields

You can use this dialog window to view all fields in your address file together with the contained information.

Here you can view the precise assignment (on page 55) and the field names (on page 55) which have

been selected, and you can immediately recognize which fields will be imported.

It is also possible to compare the default field lengths with the current content of your source file.

(Length gives the field length given in Infopost-Manager, while Max. length gives the maximum values reached from your address file).

The ”Address field type by title” column contains the assignment of the respective field which was automatically recognized by the field name analysis of the source file.

The ”Address field type by content” column contains the assignment of the respective field which was automatically recognized by the field content analysis of the source file.

The width of the table columns can be changed by clicking and dragging. By a single click on the column name, an arrow is inserted showing whether a column is sorted in ascending or descending order; a further click undoes this sorting sequence.

This field type assignment can be printed and exported.

Further information on Preview, Print options and Export can be found in chapters Preview and Print

If you export (on page 312) the addresses, you can also export this written out country name using

Template

If address files with the same structure are frequently used it is possible to create an assignment

template

for importing them. When using such templates, the number of fields and the file format

4 Addresses menu should always be identical. This pattern always occurs when you frequently import addresses from a specific application (e.g. an address CD) via a standardized export procedure for editing with

Infopost-Manager.

It is, however, possible to use templates whose structure does not match the format of the address file completely. If you choose to load such a template Infopost-Manager will assign the fields according to the template as far as possible. This allows you for example to load address files whose structure has with respect to the template been extended by additional fields.

If you load such a template please check the field structure Infopost-Manager has constructed. It may e.g.

happen that an unexpected indiscernible field ”displaces” all following fields.

As soon as the first of these uniform files has been analyzed by Infopost-Manager and the field assignment have been manually adjusted where necessary, you should save the current assignment status using the button Save template as. Thus, you will be able to use this assignment scheme for subsequent files with the same structure.

Simply enter a name and some descriptive information on this template. During the next address import the appropriate templates for the source file will be offered automatically. You can also load templates using the button Load template.

The settings coming from a loaded template are always preferred to those from the automatic field analysis.

Country codes

The information contained here allows you to clearly assign various abbreviations or codes to a country.

This is useful for files where the country name is not stored but some other identifiers such as the license plate number or the ISO code. These abbreviations and codes are already integrated into

Infopost-Manager and can be used to determine the actual country name, for instance in mail merges or when exporting the addresses. In mail merge, Infopost-Manager prints the country names in the postally correct way, i.e. as a whole word in capitals in the last line of the address block.

the Additional fields option.

Country codes tab

Use this tab to edit, remove or add descriptors and codes for individual countries. Such changes will be available for all future Infopost-Manager projects.

Add to the existing country abbreviations, where necessary, other abbreviations or country descriptors used in your projects. Thus, Infopost-Manager can convert these to be written in compliance with the postal regulations.

Overview tab

This tab will show a table overview of all the abbreviations and codes which have already been entered.

Further functions

You can right-click to access two further convenient functions for each of the addresses listed in the table which are available to facilitate quick retrieval of a specific data record:

Goto

Enter here the number of the data record in the source file.

Infopost-Manager immediately displays the desired data record.

4 Addresses menu

Find

Use this menu item to find a specific expression or part of a word in the imported files.

Address import: Status report

Clicking the button OK of the field assignment dialog window starts the address import. Now,

Infopost-Manager verifies whether or not the addresses contain sufficient information to be used for posting.

The postally correctness of the addresses is not checked. This has to be done separately after importing

using the address check (on page 90).

The status report can be viewed in the project overview. Its upper part will provide you with useful information on the addresses: You will see the percentage of German and international addresses and how many of the German addresses are used or not used.

The numbers are always adjusted to reflect the current status of the project. If, for instance, you deactivate or delete individual addresses via the address management menu item or during the address check or the duplicate search, the numbers in this status report will change accordingly.

The lower part lists the file name and the file type together with the address quantity after the import.

A second status report appears at the end of the address check; this can be viewed again in the project overview on the main screen under the ”Address check” item. You will then be able to see the status of the address data after the address check.

4.2. Import

Besides the ”normal” file import - also multiple - the activated Professional module offer you additional import capabilities.

Please mind that the different import types may not be mutually combined. However, importing files with the same import type still is possible.

4 Addresses menu

4.2.1

Import from file (only ZIP)

In principle, importing only ZIP works like an ordinary import (on page 49). Infopost-Manager ensures

for the latter that the addresses will be postally correct imported und possibly separates the content of one field to several fields.

Now, you only have to define the field which contains the ZIP because this will be the only information

which is required by the optimization (on page 151). All other fields will be ignored resp. imported

as user defined fields.

The established field analysis (on page 53) normally offers reasonable suggestions.

Since all information besides the ZIP will be imported as user defined fields the look and feel of the

address management

(on page 65) dramatically changes.

Especially you will be no longer able to edit the field contents.

In addition to that Infopost-Manager’s various address quality improving capabilities such as duplicate search, address check etc. are not available.

4.2.2

Import from file (Label format)

In principle, importing a file with label format works like a normal Import (on page 49). The label

format is characterized by ZIPs ”jumping” in the various fields, i.e. for one address contains this field in the third line while the next address offers it in the sixth because e.g. also company1, department and contact person are specified.

Thus, Infopost-Manager is not able to analyze the various columns and, dependent on the results, to propose which field is contained in which column since the contents are varying.

All fields are exactly imported the way they are available in the import file. However, you have to specify which fields contain address relevant information by determining address line 1-10..

4 Addresses menu

Select the first address line and call the command From field x assign address lines 1 to x in the field assignment menu. Typically, address fields are consecutive and thus can be quickly assigned resp. do not have to be assigned one after the other.

During the import Infopost-Manager reads the address lines and stores the found ZIP in the respective

ZIP field (street, P.O. box, major recipient). The address lines are kept untouched.

After the import Infopost-Manager behaves like you would have imported from file (only ZIP) (on the previous page).

4.2.3

Import via ADO

Explanation

ADO means ActiveX Data Objects, i.e. different data objects such as e.g. a SQL database can be chosen as import source.

Using option Build new ADO connection and clicking the Next button you will see the Windows dialog where you can choose and configure the desired ADP connection.

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Alternatively, you can skip this dialog by choosing option Open existing UDL file.

Explanation

UDL means Universal Data Link. A UDL file contains beside the description of the ADO connection all required configuration data (e.g. user and password for a SQL database).

4.2.4

Import via ADO (only ZIP)

the address import that at least a field containing the ZIP will be imported.

Here, the import source is not a file but an ADO connection.

All other methods are virtually identical.

4.2.5

Import via ADO (Label format)

the ZIP in up to ten address lines und stores it in the designated field.

Here, the import source is not a file but an ADO connection.

All other methods are virtually identical.

4.3. Address management

You can use the address management to display an overview of all aspects concerned with the current address file.

This menu item is available as soon as an address file has been imported; however, some of the options can only be activated after the address check and the postage optimization have been carried out.

On the address management’s main screen, all imported fields are shown.

4 Addresses menu

Each column header can be used as sorting criterion by double-clicking it.

Further sorting possibilities are offered if you right-click the column header. You can specify the format to be used via the command Sort:

A second double-click on the column header resp. a second execution of the Sort command inverts the sorting order.

Address management can be called out of mail merge (on page 297), too. You can then use it to

navigate through your mail merge documents.

If address management is called out of mail merge the addresses will be shown in the exact order as they will be printed. Sorting is therefore deactivated.

4.3.1

Address management

Quit the address management via the Close menu item. All changes and amendments are now available in the project.

4.3.2

Edit

Using the various commands in this menu you amend or modify the addresses.

Edit

In addition to the detailed address data, all fields of the selected address are available for being viewed and edited on three tabs.

General tab

Here, the address details of the respective companies or individuals can be changed or added.

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In doing so, you can provide information on the street address, P.O. Box address and the major recipient address.

Convenient search for ZIPs, city and street names

When editing an address (and when pasting and copying, see below) you have convenient searching tools at your disposal for ZIPs, city and street names. If you would like to look for a piece of information or save yourself the trouble of typing in long fields, simply click on the icon located to the right, next to the street, P.O. Box or major recipient address.

You will find details of this in the ZIP Search (on page 213) chapter.

Here, the changed data will be checked for postal correctness. If not, suggestions are made for correction.

You can use the Ignore address option on the General tab to deactivate individual address records.

These addresses can also be checked by the address check if the respective option (on page 92) has been

selected. They are, however, not available for the duplicate search.

The decision whether or not an address is to be ignored can be changed at any time either in this dialog window or via mouse clicking the line number at the left border of the table.

If you change the status of only one address after you have executed the postage optimization, it becomes an invalid optimization and must be relaunched. This also applies to editing postally relevant fields, to adding new addresses and to deleting existing ones.

4 Addresses menu

Module Vario

With activated module Vario you can define variants in this dialog. Details can be found in chapter Vario

(on page 349).

Details tab

The data on this tab refer to the contact person or an individual and their contact data, such as

E-Mail or phone number.

Using the fields Altern. salutation and Altern. ”attn.” you will be able to overrule the automatically generated Form of address for letters resp. Attn. field (e.g. ”Lieber Piet” instead of ”Sehr geehrter

Herr Baus”; q.v. Data fields of category ”Additional address fields” (on page 388)).

Do not use punctuation marks at the end of the salutation. These will be specified in the field properties dialog window during which appears right after inserting this field into a mail merge document.

With Infopost-Manager you can also write to individuals via their company address or e.g. to subtenants without own letterbox. Click the c/o-address check box and the address block will be automatically adapted in mail merge:

Normal Address c/o-address

WECO Pyrotechnische Fabrik GmbH Herr Conrad Appel

Herr Conrad Appel c/o WECO Pyrotechnische Fabrik GmbH

Bogenstraße 54-56

53783 Eitorf

Bogenstraße 54-56

53783 Eitorf

Via the buttons for e-mail and Internet

Internet browser.

you can directly link to an e-mail application or an

4 Addresses menu

Other fields tab

Here you can see all additional fields available in the current address record. These can be changed by double-clicking them.

Insert

By using the Insert menu item or the ”Insert” key you can create a new address. Additional functions

are available which are described above in the chapter Edit (on page 66).

Copy

The selected address serves as source for an additional new address if you use the Copy menu item.

After you have changed particular fields and left the dialog box by clicking on OK, a new address is available to you. The original address is unchanged and still exists. You can use all functions which

are described above in the chapter Edit (on page 66).

Delete

The selected address will be irrecoverably deleted from the database if you use the Delete menu item.

This cannot be undone. If you are unsure whether or not you might still need the address it is better to use the Ignore address function, which you can activate using the Edit menu item in the General tab.

Select all

This command marks all displayed addresses as selected. The result is the same as when typing the

CTRL+A

hot key.

Selected addresses

With this menu item you can change all selected addresses in one step.

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Click and hold the CTRL-key in order to select several addresses. You can mark complete address areas by clicking the first and the last address of this area and keeping the SHIFT-key pressed. All addresses can be selected by pressing the key combination CTRL+A. You can remove single addresses from the selection by clicking them once again while keeping the CTRL-key pressed.

Write to

Using this command you declare all selected addresses as available to be written to.

In case your selection includes one of those addresses which have been ignored by duplicate search (on

page 112) or by address check (on page 90), you will be informed.

Do not write to

Using this command all selected addresses get the status Do not write to and thus are excluded from posting. This status can be undone either per address by clicking on its number or via the menu command Write to (on the current page) for all currently filtered addresses.

Delete

Using this command you delete all addresses currently selected.

Use this menu item carefully because you will possibly remove a large number of addresses irrecoverably from your project.

Multi-Change

The Multi-Change function is available for both filtered and selected addresses. Once chosen a dialog opens where you can define the field to be changed as well as the common field content:

Choose Fixed value, to assign the same fixed value to all entries. Using option Value from field, you can write dynamically generated values into the selected field.

This options allows you to copy a column. With the aid of a combination field (on page 397) you may

also create a column whose entries are dynamically composed of the values of other fields.

Module Vario

By using the Vario module you will be able to quickly and comfortably assign consistent variants. Details

can be found in chapter Vario (on page 349).

Filtered addresses

This menu item can only be chosen if you have selected a filter (on page 75).

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Similar to selected addresses you can set the status of the filtered addresses to Do not write to resp.

Write to

, delete them, or perform multi-changes.

If you use a command of this submenu, selection will be ignored. The chosen command will in any case affect all filtered addresses.

Module Vario

By using the Vario module you will be able to quickly and comfortably assign consistent variants. Details

can be found in chapter Vario (on page 349).

Details

This command provides information on the properties of each individual address.

Address number

The address number refers to the position where the address is saved in the file.

Address useable

This information corresponds to the result of the first check of the addresses during import and shows whether or not the address contains all fields required for dispatch (in particular the ZIP and city).

Ignore address

”Yes” means that the data record has been deactivated in the address check (on page 90), the duplicate

search

(on page 112) or in the dialog window of the address management (on page 66). ”No” means

that the current data record is released for writing to.

Ignored addresses can be identified by an icon at the left border of the table which represents the respective reason for deactivation.

Each address can be separately edited and set active in the dialog window of the address management which open as soon as an address is double-clicked.

The data records can also be activated or ignored by double-clicking the line number of the respective address on the left table side.

Address type used

Up to three types of addresses are available for each data record:

• the street address,

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• the P.O. Box address,

• and the major recipient address.

The used address type is shown in this window and the following rule applies:

Major recipient address is preferred to P.O. Box address which in turn is preferred to street address.

ZIP used

Here you will see the ZIP which is used for this data record.

Category

During postage optimization the items are distributed into categories (e.g. Infopost, remaining items).

After postage optimization has been successfully passed you will see here the address’ item category.

Country (Name)/Country (ISO code)

By using the assignment of the ”Country” field and the country code the respective country name is determined. This is also available for instance in mail merge.

Address source

This information shows the source file from which the address is imported.

4.3.3

Find

Using this command you search for a specific expression or sub-expression in the data. Here, the usual

Find options will be available.

Find again

You can press F3 or Find again to continue searching the database if you still have not found the record you were looking for.

Goto

Enter a specific data record number via the Goto menu item which will be shown immediately.

4.3.4

Extras

Options

You can use the Options button to access a number of settings which are useful for examining the current addresses for particular errors. Depending on the selected options incorrect address records are marked as ”not usable”.

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The settings made here are saved with the respective project and automatically reused for the next projects.

They are only used for German addresses, international addresses are unaffected.

Specifically addresses with the following errors can be rejected:

• address records with blank or weird ”ZIP” field (e.g. special characters or ZIP < 1000)

• address records with non existing ZIP

• address records with an invalid ZIP type, for instance a street ZIP with a P.O. Box address or vice versa.

• address records of ”street address” type with no content in the ”street” field.

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• address records of ”P.O. Box address” type with empty ”P.O. Box” field.

• address record with no content in field Company1 (B2B) or Last Name (B2C)

All these address records are available for processing the project but can only be used if they are

corrected manually in address management (on page 65) or automatically via the address check (on

page 90).

Important

If an address record contains several address types (e.g. street and P.O. Box address) where only one address is incorrect, the address record nevertheless remains useable because only the correct address type will be used.

Only if all existing address types of an address record have been detected as erroneous according to the selected options, it will be marked as ”not usable” unless it is manually or automatically corrected.

Export

Details on the address export from the address management can be found here (on page 322).

Analysis

This menu item offers the following statistical information on your processed addresses:

• Address spread by ZIP (on page 184)

• Address spread by cities (on page 185)

• Spread by provinces (on page 186)

• Spread by Nielsen regions (on page 187)

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• Address spread by routing regions (on page 188)

• Address spread by routing zones (on page 189)

• Address spread by countries (on page 190)

• Map Tool (on page 191)

Filter

This option makes it possible to create a list of addresses from the current database which matches the filter criteria. You can use these filters to, for instance, switch between the categories Infopost and remaining items.

Filters can be selected via the arrow to the right of the button. Dependent on the project status, different filters are available; thus, for instance, filtering for Infopost is only possible after postage

optimization

(on page 151) has been done.

A filter is activated by clicking on one of the options offered in the selection list. By clicking on the button

Filter

you return to the view showing all addresses. In the lower bar of the screen you can see which filter is currently selected.

Filter arguments

Depending on the project type and the associated item categories several filter arguments are available:

User defined

This filter method is especially useful for user defined fields by allowing to set filters on arbitrary fields.

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In area Filter you initially choose a field which shall be used for the filter criterion. The format determines the operators to be provided, i.e. each format comes with a different operator area:

Depending on the format select an operator and the expression resp. value resp. range to be filtered.

The determination of the filter is especially important for numerical and date fields. If the format for such fields has been defined as text you will not be able to use e.g. comparison or from-to operators.

Option Consider case is only available for text filters.

Option Interpret empty fields as is available for numerical and date fields. If it is activated you have to define in the respective field how empty fields shall be handled. Otherwise those fields and thus those addresses may be filtered out. Either specify a value within the filter’s range, if you would like to see the address, or a value outside the filter results. For the latter case, the addresses would be filtered out - but now knowingly.

In area Sorting you can define the order of the addresses to be displayed. First, choose the filed and specify, analog to the filter, the format (text, numerical, date). Finally determine the desired order

(ascending or descending).

Sorting the list 1, 10, 200, 100, 5 in text format brings a totally different result (1, 10, 100, 200, 5) than a numerical sorting (1, 5, 10, 100, 200). The same holds for date fields. For instance when sorting dates in text format 1.12.10 would be sorted prior to 2.1.09.

Category

After optimization you can use this submenu to filter your items according to the different categories such as e.g. Infopost or remaining items.

Other items

This filter lists those addresses which normally could be posted as Infopost only (e.g. unwrapped items or Infopost-Kreativ), but which cannot be posted because the postal regulations are not met.

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Not usable addresses

This filter shows all the address data records which were deactivated during the address check and/or

duplicate search or which were manually deactivated via the Edit (on page 66) button.

Used addresses

This filter shows only those addresses which will be written to.

Not usable addresses

Before optimizing, this filter shows all addresses that are not usable for your mail shot.

National addresses

This filter shows only all German addresses.

International addresses

This filter shows only all non-German addresses.

ZIP range

This filter shows only addresses with dedicated ZIPs or ZIP ranges.

Please note that only those ZIPs are offered which are contained in your project.

Details on how to use the selection methods can be found here (on page 407).

Routing region

This filter shows only addresses with dedicated routing regions or routing region ranges.

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Please note that only those routing regions are offered which are contained in your project.

Details on how to use the selection methods can be found here (on page 407).

Routing zone

This filter shows only addresses with dedicated routing zones or routing zone ranges.

Please note that only those routing zones are offered which are contained in your project.

Details on how to use the selection methods can be found here (on page 407).

Provinces

With this filter you can list your addresses according to specified provinces or Nielsen regions.

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Countries

This filter shows only addresses with dedicated countries.

Please note that only those countries are offered which are contained in your project.

Details on how to use the selection methods can be found here (on page 407).

Import file

By using this powerful filter you can select addresses coming from dedicated source files or manual insertion.

Thus, you can e.g. select an erroneously added data source and delete it completely from the project without discarding the whole project.

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Modules International optimization and Vario

With activated module International optimization you will be able to filter your international items by the categories Infopost and remaining items. If the Vario module is used filtering by variant will be possible.

Details can be found in chapters International optimization (on page 329) and Vario (on page 349).

Cascaded filters

As soon as you select another filter argument although there already is a filter you can specify whether you want to run this argument in addition (corresponds to an AND operation) or it should be executed on the complete address list.

Clicking Yes cascades the filter (multiply if applicable). The executed filter arguments can be seen in the status bar of the dialog:

You can kill a cascaded filter by answering the question about the additional application with No or by choosing the item Cascaded filter of the Filter menu:

Country codes

The Country codes menu item opens the Country codes (on page 61) dialog window, which you can

use to manage the abbreviations used in the current project for stating the country.

Update countries

You can use the Update countries menu item to compare all the address records contained in the current project with the existing templates from the Country codes dialog and, where appropriate, to enter the correct information in the ”Country” field.

This can be helpful especially when the current project contains a country abbreviation which has not yet been used. In this case, add the new abbreviation to the appropriate template using Country codes

(You will find more information on this by following this link (on page 61)) and then clicking on Update

countries.

The newly-inserted abbreviation is automatically replaced by the correct country description.

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Field structure

This command also offers information on the field structure and the structure of the address file for the current project. In addition to the number and content of the fields, information is provided on the maximum field length of all address records.

Here, you can also create New fields, Rename fields, Delete fields or Clear fields.

You will find the respective buttons in the upper area of the dialog.

Please note that system internal fields such as e.g. Company1 or Variant may neither be renamed nor deleted. This is only possible for user defined fields which have been either imported or created manually.

However, instead of deleting an internal field you can clear all contents at one go. The field itself remains existing.

Columns

This menu item makes it possible to determine the order of the displayed columns and to change the width of particular columns. With the tick you determine which columns are to be displayed. Using

Default width the standard width of the marked field can be restored while Default columns restores the standard order of all fields.

By activating the option Save as default for new projects your adjustments will become presettings for new projects.

The column order can also be changed by simply clicking on the column header and dragging it to the desired position.

Reset columns

Choose this menu item in order to reset the column settings to default.

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4.4. Salutation check

The salutation check determines the gender of the recipient by analyzing the first name and, if appropriate, the salutation. Consequently the correct salutation can be derived and the respective field can be filled. Incorrect or missing salutations will be identified and can be corrected.

As soon as you have run the salutation check once the respective menu item will get a submenu where you can directly access the report.

If you do not want to use the salutation check for the current project in general, uncheck this option by right-clicking on the ”Salutation check” item in the project overview area.

You will nevertheless be able to launch the salutation check. This function is only for your information.

4.4.1

Options

In this dialog box you choose how the addresses which have been automatically changed or identified as incorrect shall be treated.

You can use the Default button at any time to undo your settings and restore the preset program options.

Set salutation

In this area you determine how Infopost-Manager shall handle the field ”salutation” for male resp.

female recipients. If option also replace existing is activated the field ”salutation” will be always overwritten. The activated option else: delete salutation results in flushing the field ”salutation” if the salutation check does not find any clear result. Possibly existing contents will be deleted.

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Foreign salutations can be simply generated by specifying respective entries for the fields. For instance, enter the value ”Mr.” for male and ”Mrs.” for female. Afterwards, activate options also replace existing.

Right after the salutation check is finished English salutations are available and can be used for the letter

salutation

(on page 390).

Additional settings activate auto-correction

Definable salutations which e.g. are based on a known first name will be automatically set. Conflicts will be ignored and in particular not be shown.

activate user defined first name list

If this option is deactivated Infopost-Manager ignores the user defined first name list (on page 88) and

is not able to add new first names to it. The entries of this list are not contained in Infopost-Manager’s system based first name list. It is normally created during processing incorrect salutations.

do not write to incorrect/not corrigible addresses

All recipients will not be written to whose salutation can not be identified by Infopost-Manager and where the fields ”salutation”, ”gender” and ”first name” are filled with absurd contents. These presettings can be undone for every address separately during processing its incorrect salutation.

hide automatically changed addresses

Automatically changed addresses will not be shown in the results dialog. These addresses can be made

visible by checking the respective option (on page 87).

4.4.2

Statistics

This status contains detailed information on the course of the salutation check and its results. Automatically changed addresses are either released directly for writing to or are displayed for manual correction. The behavior depends on the options (on the previous page) which have been set before starting the salutation check.

All addresses are deemed to be Correct where the field ”salutation” is filled and matches the gender of the first name.

The Automatically complemented line contains information on how often Infopost-Manager had to set the field ”salutation” or ”gender” based on the first name.

4 Addresses menu

The Automatically corrected line shows the number of recipients where Infopost-Manager had to adjust the salutation, e.g. first name is male but field ”salutation” contains Frau.

If option activate auto-correction (on the preceding page) is disabled addresses will not be automatically corrected. Infopost-Manager shows the number of addresses in the Automatically corrigible line which could have been auto-corrected but which have to be manually processed, now.

For Incorrect addresses Infopost-Manager was not able to identify the gender. This can occur if the first name is unknown or if it does not match the specified gender.

4.4.3

Results

The salutation check results show those addresses for which errors or deficiencies were discovered.

They appear as soon as the statistics window has been closed by clicking on OK.

Infopost-Manager lists all data records depending on the settings given in options (on page 82). This

address selection can also be changed later: The Options button provides a selection menu on the

View

tab where every address type can be activated and deactivated.

Navigation buttons

You can use the arrow buttons to change between the different data records or to move directly to the first or last data record.

Quits the salutation check and saves the automatic or manual changes for the current project. Addresses for which the ”Write to address” option is not marked are deactivated in the current project and are therefore not written to. This marking can be undone in the address management using the

Write to address

option.

Leaves the results view of the salutation check without retrieving automatic or manual changes to the address file.

Saves the current project and freezes the working status of the salutation check. At any time, pro-

4 Addresses menu gressing the salutation check can be resumed by re-opening the project. In the meantime, no other changes may be carried out to this project.

View

The data records listed as a result of the salutation check may be displayed in two different ways using the View button:

1. as a table

2. as an address block like on a label

Each address is also accompanied by an icon which provides information on the address status:

Icon Explanation

Addresses with this icon will be used in the further course of your project and will thus be written to. By clicking this icon the respective address will not be written to.

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Addresses with this icon are marked not be written to as soon as the salutation check is finished. By clicking this icon the respective address will be written to without any changes.

Addresses with a green tick comply with the postal regulations and have been automatically or manually corrected resp. changed.

Addresses with a green tick and a yellow question and exclamation mark are correct and have been manually corrected resp. changed.

Addresses with a yellow question and exclamation mark are incorrect but Infopost-Manager has found a suggestion which can be selected.

Addresses with a red bar are incorrect and Infopost-Manager cannot make any suggestion.

If you right-click you will open a context-sensitive menu whose options refer to the currently marked data record:

Save as genderless

clears the field ”salutation” and declares the address as being genderless in field

”gender”. This classification makes sense for companies without contact person or for instance for addresses whose first name field is filled with two first names.

Save as male

sets the value specified in the Options (on page 82) dialog (typically ”Herr”) to the field

”salutation” and declares the address as being male in field ”gender”.

The menu item Save as female works the same way.

Swap first/last name

exchanges the contents of the fields ”first name” and ”last name”.

The gender suggested by Infopost-Manager is emphasized in bold letters.

The menu item Add first name to user list extends the user defined first name list (on page 88) with

this first name.

You can select Edit to open the Edit address (on page 66) dialog window.

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By selecting Write to you can change the status of the marked address record - if this option is checked, the address will be written to; if you uncheck this option, the recycle bin icon appears and this address will not be used.

You can select Original to view the original version of the data record as it was imported (if appropriate, without salutation and/or gender).

Using the menu item Goto you can navigate to a dedicated address number or you can start the address search by choosing Find.

In address block view the original data record number coming from the source file is displayed in the line above the address. Thus, you can relocate the address in question in your source file.

In table view you can get this number by right-clicking and choosing the Original menu item. All imported fields from the source file are displayed including the data record number.

Options

Clicking the Options button opens the View dialog. You can access additional functionalities via another menu by clicking the arrow icon right to the button.

View

You can define here which addresses shall not be shown.

The presettings from the options (on page 83) dialog can be revised in this window and you are able

to redefine whether or not automatically corrected addresses shall be hidden.

Fields

This button is only enabled in table view; you can use it to select additional fields to be shown with each address.

4 Addresses menu

Edit first name list

Use this menu item to edit the user defined first name list (on the following page).

4.4.4

First name list

Infopost-Manager hold a first name list with approximately 120’000 entries. Abbreviated first names

(e.g. Friedr.-Wilh.) are not contained.

If you address list should have a recipient whose first name is unknown or whose first name is e.g.

abbreviated you can add it to the user defined first name list. It is also possible to add first names with genders that differs from Infopost-Manager’s definition. Thus, the results of the salutation check can be respectively influenced.

Add first name

Basically, there are three ways to include a first name to the user defined first name list:

1. Via the contextual menu item Add first name to user list

2. Via the Confirm dialog which appears for unknown first names

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You can overrule the suggested gender with the Change button while Add adds the first name with the proposed gender. The Ignore button ignores this name (it will be no longer shown during this run}. Ignore all not only ignores this but all unknown first names which will be identified during this run.

3. Via the functionality of manually editing the user defined first name list (on the current page)

Edit first name list

Using this menu item you can manually edit the user defined first name list by deleting, changing or adding entries.

The buttons Add and Edit open the Define gender dialog.

Here you can enter resp. change the first name and specify the gender.

Please mind that first names which are contained in the user defined first name list have priority over the system internal first name list. If you e.g. add ”Horst” as new first name and set the gender to ”female” all addresses with this name would be addressed as ”Sehr geehrte Frau xyz”.

Option Add normalized name adds another name to the list - in addition to the first name. Umlauts and e.g. accents will be removed. The normalization result can be seen below this option.

4 Addresses menu

4.5. Address check

The address check verifies and edits your addresses automatically using Deutsche Post AG official data. Obsolete, non-existent or wrongly assigned ZIPs are replaced where possible, and the spelling of cities and streets is checked.

As soon as you have run the address check once the respective menu item will get a submenu where you

can directly access the report. This can be also done at any time via the Quick Clicks (on page 13) of

the overview item address check. If you run the address check once again, e.g. with other options, the recent reports can be read via the submenu report archive.

If you do not want to use the address check for the current project in general, uncheck this option by right-clicking on the ”Address check” item in the project overview area.

You will nevertheless be able to launch the address check. This function is only for your information.

Information on the status of the posting routing data used by Infopost-Manager can be found via the Help:

About

menu in tab Components.

4.5.1

Options

In this dialog box you choose how the addresses which have been automatically identified as incorrect shall be treated.

You can use the Default button at any time to undo your settings and restore the preset program options.

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Edit tab

Automatically corrected addresses

Show address for editing

If you do not want to accept the automatic modifications without control, you can view, check and change the automatically changed addresses where appropriate right after the address check using this option.

Show addresses with changed spelling

This option allows you to view a list of those addresses with changed spelling (e.g. only spelling type of Straße (on the next page) has been changed) at the end of the address check in order to control and verify those changes.

Mark address for writing to

This option simplify the subsequent, manual processing of the found addresses. Activate this option

if you want to write to most of the changed addresses; thus, you only have to deactivate (on page 71)

those single addresses which you do not want to write to.

Keep upper case

By activating this option you make sure that all addresses which are completely spelled in capital letters will not be converted into the normal upper and lower case format. Such rather atypical address lists can be often found when importing data from mainframe computers.

Incorrect addresses

Show address for editing

This option allows you to revise incorrect addresses after the automatic address check; if appropriate, they can be manually changed or by using one of Infopost-Manager’s suggestions.

4 Addresses menu

Mark address for writing to

This option eases the subsequent, manual processing of the found addresses. Activate this option if

you want to write to most of the changed addresses; thus, you only have to deactivate (on page 71)

those single addresses which you do not want to write to.

Unify spelling for ”Straße” in addresses

In case the spelling for the street names differs within your address data you can choose this option to automatically unify that spelling. In the drop-down menu you can specify which spelling of ”Straße” you prefer.

By activating the option Only apply to automatically corrected addresses you make sure that only addresses that have been changed anyway (e.g. due to an automatically corrected ZIP) will be unified.

Thus, you reduce the number of automatic corrections and with that also reduce the duration of the address check, especially when checking large data.

Settings tab

Check

Only check used addresses

With this option addresses which are not released for writing to are excluded from the check. The release can be done manually in the address management dialog, during a previous address check or during the duplicate search (status set to ”ignored”). If this option is unchecked all address records in the current address file will be checked.

4 Addresses menu

Automatically ignore incorrect address types

Theoretically, there can be allocated up to three address types to each address record: the street address, the P.O. Box address and the major recipient address. If single address types are incomplete in an address record but e.g. a useable street address is available, the incorrect P.O. Box and major recipient addresses will be ignored in the address check if this option has been activated.

In the statistics of the address check in the column ”Incorrect address type” no addresses will be listed since they have not been checked.

If you uncheck this option, all address types will be checked for each data record.

Always append city name with official supplement

If this option is checked, all city names will be supplemented with its official supplement. For instance,

06132 Halle

would be changed to 06132 Halle (Saale) while 33790 Halle would be extended to 33790

Halle (Westf.)

Check names of major recipients

When using this option, not only correctness and existence of a major recipient ZIP code will be checked, but also the company name in the field COMPANY1 will be verified during the address check. If the major recipient name stored in the postal routing data is different, the address will be marked as ”incorrect” and suggestions will be given if available.

Automatically correct major recipient names if possible

If this option is checked, the company name in field COMPANY1 of a postal correct major recipient address will be compared with the entry in the postal routing data. If they are different but there are sufficient similarities, the company name coming from the postal routing data will be retrieved.

Search mode

You can define through the search mode settings how precise the address check module shall perform and how many suggestions shall be given. Please take into account that the performance may decrease depending on the chosen mode.

Search intensity

Using the slide control you can adjust the search intensity and thus the suggestions and automatic correction to be found as follows:

1. low

The address check retrieves the first address that is deemed to be automatically corrigible.

Additional suggestions which might also show a high probability of being correct will be ignored in this mode.

2. normal

The normal search intensity extends the search for sound suggestions by checking the complete

ZIP-range of a city. Thus, addresses can be corrected by plausible street names in other ZIPareas of the same city (eventually even of cities with identical names such as Frankfurt am Main and Oder).

3. high

If this mode has been chosen, Infopost-Manager considers the largest possible set of sound ad-

4 Addresses menu dresses for automatic correction or suggests proportionally more addresses for manual correction.

With high search intensity less addresses will be automatically corrected but forwarded to the manual correction. However, theses additional efforts normally cause a superior quality.

Rating tolerance

This slide control informs Infopost-Manager how to judge whether or not two addresses are identical.

Carefully change the position of the slide control because the tolerance has direct impact on the automatic correction capability of Infopost-Manager. Possibly incorrect addresses will be putatively corrected if the rating tolerance has been set to ”similar”. If the tolerance is ”exact”, the address check only corrects few addresses automatically and offers you more addresses for manual correction.

Thesaurus

The Thesaurus is some kind of a look-up table for the address check which can only contain postal correct addresses. By using this valuable tool you can e.g. transfer a street whose name changed over the years to its new name once. All other addresses with the same old street name can then be automatically corrected although this information is not included in the postal routing data. More

details about how to use the Thesaurus can be found here (on page 96).

The following options are available:

1. Activate

If this option is checked you inform the address check to consider the existing Thesaurus. This holds for finding suggestions coming from the Thesaurus as well as for extending it during the

manual address correction (q.v. chapter Thesaurus (on page 96)).

2. Use for automatic correction

If the address check detects a Thesaurus entry for a specific address, this entry will be taken for automatic correction. No further checks of the address will be performed.

Entries

By clicking on this button you are calling the Thesaurus editor (on page 98). You can use it for

activating and deleting single addresses, e.g. by ”hiding” incorrect entries which have been included by mistake.

Extended tab

Normally, Infopost-Manager only automatically corrects addresses if he feels very certain that the correction really is correct. But, depending on the address file he might process the addresses too carefully. On this new tab you can influence Infopost-Manager’s automatic correction behavior and let him automatically correct more results.

4 Addresses menu

First, specify the hit probability. Addresses with hit probabilities with equal or greater values will be automatically corrected by Infopost-Manager.

Both options Ignore second best hit resp. Correction dependent on distance to second best hit will directly affect the results if there is more than one hit.

Using the first option Infopost-Manager corrects the addresses as soon as the probability is equal or greater. Additional hits are not taken into account. This then can be possibly counterproductive if two very similar suggestion are made.

Here, the second option comes into play: Enter a probability distance. Additional hits will be ignored if the address probability plus the distance is less than hit probability. The lower you choose the distance the higher the probability that Infopost-Managers also discards akin correction suggestions and accepts the hit with the highest probability instead.

The entered values will have massive effect on the quality of the automatically corrected addresses. Thus, always verify the address check results if you choose values differing from the default.

You can also modify these values at a later phase of the address check via the Options (on page 109)

menu. You will directly see the consequences in the results area.

Postal routing data tab

This tab gives you information on the status of the postal routing data used by the address check.

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The address check uses the so-called Datafactory which is available in two versions:

The ”small street directory” (Datafactory Postalcode) contains all street and city names of the 218 largest cities in Germany. The ”large street directory” (Datafactory Streetcode) contains all ZIPs, city and street names in Germany.

The Datafactory Postalcode is already included in Infopost-Manager while the Datafactory Streetcode has to be purchased separately. Since cities and communities are continuously developing and the purchase of updates hence becomes useful, it makes sense to take up the quarterly subscription.

You will find the order forms with information on prices, conditions, etc. of the ”small street directory”

(Datafactory Postalcode) in the file (personal use) resp. (supplier) and of the ”large street directory”

(Datafactory Streetcode) in the file .

The data which you need to find ZIPs, city or street names in the address management or the ZIP search can still be updated free of charge on a regular basis on the Internet.

You can update the demo versions of the two street directories by refreshing the postal routing data

employed by the ZIP search (on page 213). The Datafactory required by the address check can be

updated via clicking the homonymic button or via the respective item of the Extras (on page 215)

menu.

Here, you can also activate a demo version of the Datafactory Streetcode or a more current version of

Datafactory Postalcode. Your address will not automatically be corrected but you will get an idea of how many incorrect addresses are found by the address check, how many can be automatically corrected and how many suggestions for correction are available prior to purchasing a street directory.

4.5.2

Thesaurus

The Thesaurus is some kind of a look-up table for the address check which can only contain postal correct addresses. Using this valuable tool you can e.g. transfer a street whose name changed over the years to its new name once. All other addresses with the same old street name can then be automatically corrected although this information is not included in the postal routing data.

Activating the Thesaurus as well as the auto-correction capability has to be done through the address

check options (on page 94). In the options dialog you can also launch the Thesaurus editor (on the

4 Addresses menu next page).

Add Thesaurus entry

Adding a Thesaurus entry can be only done via Editing (on page 105) an address. If you have changed

an incorrect to a postal compliant address you can store the changes as Thesaurus entry by clicking the arrow icon of the OK button and choosing the menu item OK and save in Thesaurus.

All addresses in the address check’s result list which could be corrected by applying this new Thesaurus entry will be assigned a Thesaurus suggestion or will be directly corrected depending on the settings given.

Clicking the OK button accepts the change only once; as soon as a similar incorrect address occurs it still will be shown as being incorrect. Now, you can decide again whether or not the change justifies a Thesaurus entry.

Saving a new entry in the Thesaurus will affect all projects, i.e. current and also future project will benefit from a large Thesaurus likewise and the number of postal incorrect addresses will thus be ”smartly” reduced.

Show and accept Thesaurus suggestions

Thesaurus suggestions will only be shown if option (on page 94) Use for automatic correction was

unchecked. Otherwise, any incorrect address with a corresponding Thesaurus entry would be automatically corrected.

A Thesaurus suggestion only differs from a ”normal” address check suggestion by having the correctness probability set to 100Kommt nicht vor since the entry has been manually and knowingly stored at least once. Additionally and in order to offer a better visual impression, any Thesaurus suggestion will be highlighted by a blue band with the embedded text ”Thesaurus”.

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Accepting a Thesaurus suggestion is similar to accepting a ”normal” address check suggestion (on

page 106).

Thesaurus editor

The Thesaurus strictly contains only postal correct entries. Using the Thesaurus editor you may control the application of the Thesaurus in some way by explicitly activating or deleting an entry for usage. Deleted entries will not be considered later on - neither for automatic corrections nor for the provision of Thesaurus suggestions.

Based on the fact that all Thesaurus entries have to be postal correct it may happen over the years that single Thesaurus entries become postal incorrect. In such cases Infopost-Manager automatically deactivates the respective entries by marking them deleted. Thus, it is permanently guaranteed that there will not be any incorrect addresses created.

You can launch the Thesaurus editor either by clicking the Entries button in the options (on page 94)

window or via choosing the item Thesaurus editor in the results window’s Options menu.

4 Addresses menu

An activated entry is represented by a blue tick , a deleted one by the recycle bin icon .

You can toggle an entry’s status via three ways:

• clicking the icon (recycle bin or blue tick)

• double-clicking the entry

• right-clicking the entry and choosing the respective item from the context sensitive menu

If desired, you can hide disabled entries. Just call the respective item of the contextual menu. Here, you can also physically delete the current Thesaurus.

Please note that undoing this action is not possible; all Thesaurus entries will be lost forever.

4.5.3

Statistics

These statistics appear for the first time after the address check is finished. They may be viewed at any time later on the main screen by using the Address check item in the Overview area.

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This status report contains detailed information on the course of the address check and its results.

Automatically changed addresses are either released directly for writing to or are displayed for manual

correction. The behavior depends on the options (on page 90) which have been set before starting the

address check.

All addresses are deemed to be Postally correct where the required fields (in particular the ZIP code and city) are not empty and compliant with the postal regulations.

The line Corrected manually contains information on how many address data records you have edited manually after the automatic check.

The Corrected automatically line contains information on how many of your address data records were automatically changed by Infopost-Manager during the address check in order to be compliant with the postal regulations.

Addresses are said to be Corrected by Thesaurus if they have been corrected by applying a Thesaurus entry instead of having been become postally compliant via automatic or manual correction.

The information in the Spelling changed line refers to the data records in which the spelling e.g. of the street or the major recipient name was adjusted. Whether and how this happens depends on the

settings given in options (on page 90).

Address data records where several address types are available and where at least one of them does not comply with the postal regulations are listed in the Incorrect address type line.

The quantity and percentage of the addresses where neither an automatic change has been performed nor any suggestion for manual processing could be made are listed in the Postally incorrect line. Here only a manual correction of the addresses is possible; whether they will be already released for writing to right after the address check or only after they were manually corrected depends on the settings

given in options (on page 90).

The status window at the end of the address check provides information in the International addresses line about the ratio of foreign addresses contained in the current address file. These addresses have not been tested in the address check.

The text line below the table show the number and types of addresses which will be displayed in the

results window. Both values depend on the specified options (on page 90).

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4.5.4

Results

The address check results show those addresses for which errors or deficiencies were discovered. They appear as soon as the statistics window has been closed by clicking on OK.

Infopost-Manager lists all data records depending on the settings given in options (on page 90). This

address selection can also be changed later: The Options button provides a selection menu on the

View

tab where every address type can be activated and deactivated.

Depending on the settings, only addresses will be shown

• which are completely incorrect or where particular address types are erroneous;

• where suggestions are available but which could not be corrected automatically;

• where Thesaurus suggestions are available;

• which have been changed automatically;

• which have been changed automatically by using the Thesaurus;

• which may have been changed manually in address management (on page 65);

• whose spelling has been changed;

• or a combination of these groups.

Navigation buttons

You can use the arrow buttons to change between the different data records or to move directly to the first or last data record.

Quits the address check and saves the automatic or manual changes for the current project. Addresses for which the ”Write to address” option is not marked are deactivated in the current project and are therefore not written to. This marking can be undone in the address management using the Write to

address

option.

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Leaves the results view of the address check without retrieving automatic or manual changes to the address file.

Saves the current project and freezes the working status of the address check. At any time, progressing the address check can be resumed by re-opening the project. In the meantime, no other changes may be carried out to this project.

View

The data records listed as a result of the address check may be displayed in two different ways using the View button:

1. as an address block like on a label

2. as a table

Each address is also accompanied by an icon which provides information on the address status:

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Icon Explanation

Addresses with this icon will be used in the further course of your project and will thus be written to. By clicking this icon the respective address will not be written to.

Addresses with this icon are marked not be written to as soon as the address check is finished.

By clicking this icon the respective address will be written to without any changes.

Addresses with a green tick comply with the postal regulations and have been automatically or manually corrected resp. changed.

Addresses with a blue tick have been automatically corrected using a Thesaurus suggestion and are thus postally correct.

Addresses with a yellow question and exclamation mark do not comply with the postal regulations but Infopost-Manager has found suggestions which can be selected.

Addresses with a blue question and exclamation mark do not comply with the postal regulations but there are Thesaurus suggestions in addition to Infopost-Managers address suggestions which can be selected.

Addresses with a red bar do not comply with the postal regulations and Infopost-Manager cannot make any suggestion.

The addresses shown can be viewed quickly in either view by holding the Cursor-Down key. If you want to edit a data record, it can be opened immediately by pressing the Enter key. The Edit address

(on page 66) dialog window appears.

There are also two buttons for each data record which permit the current address to be released or locked for writing to. It is even easier to toggle the status of the address (”Write to address” - ”Do not write to address”) by pressing the spacebar.

If you right-click you will open a context-sensitive menu whose options refer to the currently marked data record:

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You can select Edit to open the Edit address (on page 66) dialog window.

You can select Original to view the original version of the data record as it was imported.

You can select Options to open the Options window (on page 109).

The menu item Fields can only be activated in the address block view; it allows you to include

additional fields

(on page 118) when displaying the addresses.

When choosing Show source the source file of the current address will be displayed. In the table view it will be shown in the status bar at the lower window border while the address block view will be extended by an additional line.

Using the menu item Goto you can navigate to a dedicated address number or you can start the address search by choosing Find.

Depending on the settings made in options (on page 90), the displayed addresses will be marked

differently.

Addresses which you have opened for editing (on the next page) are marked with a magnifier icon.

In address block view the original data record number coming from the source file is displayed in the line above the address. Thus, you can relocate the address in question in your source file.

In table view you can get this number by right-clicking and choosing the Original menu item. All imported fields from the source file are displayed including the data record number.

Action buttons for general changes

Simultaneous changes

to all addresses displayed here can be made with these buttons:

Icon Explanation

Checks the ”Write to address” option for all automatically or manually changed addresses.

Checks the ”Write to address” option for all displayed addresses regardless of which errors were found during address check.

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The ”Write to address” option is unchecked for all addresses shown regardless of whether or not errors were found during address check.

Edit

The current address can be changed by pressing the Enter key or by clicking the Edit button.

The Edit address (on page 66) dialog window will appear.

This dialog window can also be opened by the contextual menu item Edit (right mouse click), the shortcut

CTRL+B

, by double-clicking an address data record or by clicking the icons ”tick”, ”question/exclamation mark” or ”bar”.

This dialog window is arranged into three areas:

• the address field incl. status information

• suggestions offered by Infopost-Manager for optimizing the address

• the selection area

Address field incl. status information

In the edit mask the complete address is shown at the top left; you may see here street, P.O. Box as well as major recipient addresses.

• Address types which can be used are shown in bold (if several useable address types are available the hierarchy is as follows: major recipient address - P.O. Box address - street address);

• unusable address types shown in gray;

• incorrect information are shown in red;

• automatically or manually corrected information appear in blue;

• information missing from a data record are indicated by a red question mark in pointed brackets.

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In the text lines below this address window you will see information on the status of the various address types. Thus, you can see that a street address was automatically corrected or a P.O. Box address ignored because it does not comply with the postal regulations. A brief error description additionally explains this status information.

Suggestions for correcting an address

Depending on the information available in a data record, suggestions are made for correcting the address. Probabilities are given for each suggestion which can be used as a selection aid.

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A suggestion may be accepted by double-clicking it or by using the button Apply.

You can use the button Reset to undo this change.

Selection area

If address check was not able to change an address so that it complies with the postal regulations, the

Write to address

option to the right of the address field is deactivated per default if no other settings

were given in the options (on page 90) menu prior to starting the address check.

You nevertheless can mark a postally incorrect address for writing to by checking the respective option (on this page) to the right of the address. Infopost-Manager even asks whether or not you want to apply this presumable wrong decision to all identical addresses. Such an approach can be taken for instance with street names which are not contained in your postal routing data version (e.g. because it is too old and thus does not ”know” the name), but you are sure that it is postally correct.

If several address types are available for a data record, Infopost-Manager selects one of these types while the others are ignored for this data record. Here the hierarchy is as follows: major recipient

address - P.O. Box address - street address

. The selection which has been made is displayed to the right of the address box.

If, for instance, you would nevertheless prefer to use the P.O. Box address although there is a correct street address this facility can be deactivated manually here.

You can use the button Original to view the originating address content. Here you will also see the original error message.

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Change

If you make changes to your addresses after postage optimization, it has to be executed once again. Even apparently minor changes to your data, such as another postcode, may have a direct impact on the total postage for your items.

You should therefore never make such changes after printing the addresses, forms and lists, or after exporting your addresses since, otherwise, the whole print or export of the addresses would have to be repeated.

The Change button opens an dialog window in which manual changes to the current address can be

made. You will find more information on the options on each of the three tabs here (on page 66).

Every time you change a data record the current address is automatically checked and, if possible, the data record is released for writing to.

Report of address check

All results and changes resulting from automatic and manual address editing are logged by Infopost-

Manager. A report can be viewed at any time during the address check clicking the preview icon; it can also be saved as text, Excel or PDF file or be printed.

Preview

You can use this button to open the report.

You will find more information on the various options of this report preview in the Print Preview (on

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page 404) chapter.

Settings on the structure and content of the report are made using the Options button on the Report (on the next page) tab.

Options

Use this dialog window to make settings for two important address check functions:

View

(on this page) and Report (on the next page)

View tab

Use this tab to set the various options for viewing the results of the address check.

Show incorrect addresses

Use this option to show or hide addresses in the Result view (on page 101) which are not yet useable

although they have been checked. The icon for this address type is the ”red bar”.

Show incorrect addresses with suggestions

This option shows all addresses in the Result view (on page 101) which could not be automatically

corrected by the address check but for which suggestions have been found. The icon for this address type is the ”yellow question/exclamation mark”.

Show incorrect addresses with Thesaurus suggestions

Use this option to show all addresses in the Result view (on page 101) for which Thesaurus entries (on

page 96) are available which have not been automatically applied because option (on page 94) Use for

automatic correction

was unchecked. The icon for this address type is the ”blue question/exclamation mark”.

Show automatically corrected addresses

Use this option to show or hide the addresses which comply with the postal regulations after the

automatic check

in the result view (on page 101). The icon for this address type is the ”green tick”.

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Show Thesaurus corrected addresses

Use this option to show or hide the addresses which will be automatically or manually corrected by

applying a Thesaurus entry (on page 96). The icon for this address type is the ”blue tick”.

Show manually corrected addresses

Use this option to show or hide in the result view (on page 101) the addresses which were manually

changed. The icon for this address type also is the ”green tick” combined with the ”magnifier”.

Show addresses with changed spelling

Use this option to show or hide the addresses in the result view (on page 101) for which the spelling

of the street or major recipient name was changed by Infopost-Manager. The icon for this address type also is the ”green tick”.

Default

By clicking the button Default you can always reset the settings to application default.

Report tab

This tab allows you to select the information which will be listed in the created address check report.

In detail these are the following options:

Show statistics

If you show the statistics of the address check in the report, all relevant address check information

and results (on page 101) will be given.

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Show complete address

If this option is activated, you will see all address types which may be available in a data record regardless of which is selected to be written to.

Released address types are visually emphasized by showing the unmarked address types in italics.

Show Company2 field

This option integrates the Company2 field into the address block in the report. Thus, more information on each data record is listed.

Show original address

You can use this option to integrate the original version of all automatically or manually changed addresses into the report. In this way, you can identify and compare the changes which have been made.

Show error messages

The error messages list the reasons why an address was identified as postally incorrect.

They can be used to identify the problem for each data record which was existing prior to the automatic or manual check, or otherwise why the address still does not comply with the postal regulations after the check.

Do not separate addresses for pagination

By checking this option each address is printed on a report page only if it completely fits to it. If not, its printing would be forwarded to the subsequent page. This option guarantees a relative and mutual independence from the page sequence on the one hand but normally increases the total number of report pages on the other.

Show chosen options

If this option is checked, all selected options (on page 90) for the current run of the address check

will be listed in the report. Additionally, the used postal routing data version is included. Later

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4 Addresses menu conclusions about the address check results can be drawn and serve as a useful tool for result analysis especially for people who have not done the address check personally.

Preview

You can use this button to launch the print preview of the protocol.

You will find more information on the additional options in the Print Preview (on page 404) chapter.

Default

By clicking the Default button you can always reset the settings to application default.

4.6. Duplicate search

This Infopost-Manager function searches the current address file for multiple existing addresses which unnecessarily increase costs and make a bad impression on the recipient.

As soon as you have run the duplicate search once the respective menu item will get a submenu where you

can directly access the report. This can be also done at any time via the Quick Clicks (on page 13) of

the overview item duplicate search. If you start the duplicate search once again, e.g. due to not having been able to process all results from a previous run, the recent reports can be read via the submenu report

archive

The specific procedures of Infopost-Manager recognize not only identical data records but also use phonetic methods and work with fuzzy logic.

There is, however, a basic prerequisite for all duplicates which has to be met: The city must be similar, i.e. the ZIPs of the potential duplicates have to be in the same range of a so-called ”Postort” (postal city).

Therefore the duplicate search will work far better after the address check has been properly executed.

In order to make it clear which duplicate forms may appear in an address file, we have provided an

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Company

Gercke

Gehrke

Gärcke

Gerke

Company

Gbr.

MoBau

Modellbau

Street

Unna 25

Unnaer Str.

23-27

Unnar Str.

P.O.

Box

1200

ZIP

(street)

59174

ZIP (P.O.

Box)

59172

ZIP (major recipient)

59172

City (major recipient)

Kamen

Infopost-Manager facilitates your decision on selecting the addresses which will be written to by offering

you more than the default fields for selection (on page 118).

If you do not want to run the duplicate search for the current project, you can mark this by right-clicking the entry duplicate search in the overview. You can nevertheless launch it. This function is only for informational purposes.

Duplicate search is dimensioned for a maximum of 2 million addresses in the project. It is possible that it will work with more addresses as well. However, this is subject to the individual conditions of both the address data and the available system resources.

4.6.1

Options

You can adjust the duplicate search with the help of the options and thus receive even better results.

You can use the Default button at any time to undo your settings and restore the preset program options.

Search mode tab

You have to determine on this tab in the Settings area which of the three search modes shall be used:

• Regular search: Here, the similarity of the fields ”Company 1”, ”Company 2”, the address fields

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(incl. country) und ”Name” field are checked. Dedicated fields can be incorporated via the options in the regular search (on this page) area.

• Regular search with key field comparison: You can add more fields via the key field settings (on

page 116).

Select those fields which clearly identify the record like e.g. the ”Customer no.” or ID fields.

Thus, you can also include e.g. the department or postal irrelevant fields in the search.

• Only key field comparison: If you selected this mode, you exclusively restrict the search to the chosen key fields. The settings in the Regular search are disabled. The key field comparison will be executed as pure collation (i.e. without fuzzy logic).

The proper settings will be defined on the respective tabs.

In the Import files area you can decide whether you want to create duplicate groups from all addresses or only if the potential duplicates come from different import files. For the latter, activate the correspondent option.

This area is only enabled if more than one address file has been imported.

Regular search tab

Consider contact person with companies

If you have two contact persons for one company in your database both records will be recognized as duplicates. You can avoid this by activating this option. Now the field ”Contact person” will also be taken into account and the fields ”First name” and ”Last name” will be searched. Keep this option deactivated if you want to make sure that every company is only written to once.

Ignore addresses without contact person

If a company address is stored several times in your database, with and without contact person, the duplicate search will collect all such records in one duplicate group. Activate this check box if you want to use all records (with and without contact person) in your mailing.

Find subsidiaries in same city

If you want to look for subsidiaries in the same city, those data records where the addresses differ within the same city but where the names are similar are also shown as duplicates (e.g. with subsidiaries of a bank in Berlin or Munich).

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Company 1 Company 2 Street

Deutsche Post AG Center-Filiale Köln 1 Breite Str. 6-26

Deutsche Post AG Center-Filiale Köln

Venloer Str.

241-245

Geibelstr. 29-31

Lyoner Passage 14

ZIP City

50667 Köln

50823 Köln

50931 Köln

50765 Köln

Consider field ”Company 3”

The duplicate search takes also permutations of the fields ”Company 1” and ”Company 2” into account as illustrated in the following example:

Company 1 Company 2

form + stil Möbelfabriken KG Fritz Lehmenkühl

Fritz Lehmenkühl form + stil Möbelfabriken KG

Using this option, the field ”Company 3” will also be considered. Please note that search performance will decrease.

Company 1 Company 2

form + stil Möbelfabriken KG Fritz Lehmenkühl

Fritz Lehmenkühl

Company 3

form + stil Möbelfabriken KG

Compare company and name fields

It often occurs that company and name fields are e.g. swapped or that a sole trader is collected as company and as individual.

Company 1 Company 2 Firstname Lastname

Peter Gündels

Rechtsanwalt Peter Gündels

This option will help you detecting those cases; Infopost-Manager will compare all permutations.

Consider first name with home addresses

By default, only last name and address are taken into account by the search, i.e. every household will only be written to once.

First name

Heike

Peter

Last name Street

Kurz

ZIP City

Eupener Str. 19 52066 Aachen

If you activated this option, every family member will be considered and will not be detected as duplicate.

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Show similar address as duplicate

If two individuals possess the same address, i.e. live in the same building, they will be regarded as duplicates if this option is checked. The same holds for companies; however, companies and individuals with similar address will not be shown as duplicates.

Make sure that this option will not be used if your address file contains high-rises or industry parks where all companies have similar addresses. Otherwise, all records will be shown in one duplicate group.

This option will be automatically deactivated if you reduce search intensity.

Slider ”Match accuracy”

By using this slider you can define the degree which has to be met if two field contents shall be treated as similar and thus lead to a duplicate. Especially last names or company names are often written incorrectly (typos or similar). The slider’s default position (middle) normally is sufficient. If you want to detect more similar spellings, push the slider to the left.

If you receive a lot of pseudo duplicates, push it to the right to ”close”.

Slider ”Search intensity”

If the address database is relatively large (20,000 addresses and more) or if the addresses are only spread over a few routing regions, it is recommended to reduce the search intensity. A lower intensity causes the duplicate search to mutually compare fewer addresses because fewer parameters will be taken into account. Thus, it is possible that there remain some duplicates undetected.

Key field comparison tab

Key fields

Using this dropdown menu you can select the fields by activating the respective check boxes.

Ignore empty key fields

If this option is activated, empty key fields will not be taken into account. For instance, if the key field

”Customer no.” is empty for lots of records, the duplicate search detects those records as duplicates.

Checking the option avoids such an unwanted behavior.

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Consider case

By default, e.g. ”eBay”, ”ebay”, ”Ebay” or ”EBAY” will be similarly treated and thus will be shown in one duplicate group. Activate this option if you do not want the duplicate search to show duplicates which differ in case.

4.6.2

Results

The found duplicates are shown combined in groups. Thus, you can immediately decide whether or not they are really similar, and if yes, which of the listed addresses should be written to. You can use the navigation arrows to browse these groups.

By right-clicking an address, you will either edit it, release or lock it for writing to. You can also do this by single-clicking the icon (an envelope which means that the address should be written to, the recycle bin which means that the address will not be used or by double-clicking the respective address.

Views

The results of the duplicate search can be shown in two different views:

Address block view

The address block view has similarities with an address label.

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An envelope next to the address indicates that this address will be written to. By single-clicking the envelope or by double-clicking on the addresses you can change the duplicate status to ”not released for writing to”.

This marking can also be undone outside the duplicate search in the address management (on page 66)

using the option Ignore address.

Add additional fields

By default, only the address fields are shown for any record. You can use the button Fields to show more fields which makes it easier to distinguish between potential duplicates.

The fields which can be selected depend on the options which you have selected during field assignment

prior to importing the addresses (on page 49); only those fields which you transferred from your source

file are available to you here.

If your address file contains only individual addresses, the fields which are available for selection change

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- the fields Company 1 to Company 3 will no longer be shown.

You can use the button All to select all listed fields. The button None deactivates all fields while the

Standard

button resets the selection to the default Infopost-Manager settings.

The activated option Show data source name shows the source file’s path and name for each duplicate address .

Table view

In this view all record fields are listed and the duplicates are tiled in the table columns. Thus, more information is available than in the ”address block” view, which can be used for comparing the different duplicate group entries.

An ”envelope” over an address means that this address should be written to. By single-clicking the envelope you can change the duplicate status to ”not released for writing to”.

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Group overview

In this view all duplicate groups are listed one below the other without showing the dedicated duplicates. The columns ”Common company name” (with individual addresses: ”Common name”) and

”Common city” list the information which are identical or very similar for all addresses within the duplicate group.

The corresponding content of the first address from the respective duplicate group is shown:

If the corresponding text is ”completely written” this means that precisely this text is similar in all addresses.

If the corresponding text is ”written in brackets” this means that the duplicates were recognized due to phonetic similarity (e.g. Smiths Cosmetics and Smythes Cosmetics).

A word ending with ”...” is similar for all addresses in the duplicate group up to the last shown character. Only the endings or continuations are different.

In the ”Addresses” column the potential duplicate number is listed; the ”Marked” column gives information on how many of these addresses are actually to be written to.

In the ”Duplicate markings edited” column, all data records are marked whose status was changed

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4 Addresses menu during duplicate search - either manually or by using a selection button valid for all entries.

The ”Duplicate group viewed in detail” column clarifies which of the groups have already been opened without changes necessarily having been made.

The ”Indicates ambiguous markings” column is marked if one of the selection buttons Mark address

with most data

or Mark by date field was activated previously but Infopost-Manager was unable to make a clear decision. These groups must be processed manually if only one or only selected addresses are to be written to.

The ”Match accuracy” column shows how well discarded addresses match kept ones. Smaller values may indicate pseudo duplicates.

If one of the listed groups is selected, it can be opened by clicking on the button Group overview. Now, the contained duplicates can be edited. You can use the same button to change from this view back to the view showing the duplicate groups.

Selection button for all duplicate groups

Icon Explanation

Use this button to automatically mark only this address record for writing to with the most data.

Prioritize your address data sources to allow for the address with the highest priority to be selected automatically; more detailed information can be found below (on the next page).

Activate a record for writing to based on a date (oldest, youngest); more detailed information can be found below (on this page).

Use this button to mark all records for writing to.

Use this button to lock all records; none of the addresses will be marked for writing to.

To mark only the first record of each group, you have to use this button.

By using this button, you mark only the last record.

Use this button to filter the table by match accuracy or edited and not-edited addresses, respectively.

Important

If you select the Group overview option, the six selection buttons no longer apply only to the current duplicate group but to all groups simultaneously. This can fasten the decision which address is to be written to.

Please note, however, that by using this function decisions already taken regarding individual duplicates will be overruled.

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Activating a record based on a date

Marking a record based on a date is more complex the way that you can define the behavior in a preceding dialog.

When using this option it is mandatory that your address list contains at least one date field which also had to be imported.

Select the field containing the date to be considered via the dropdown menu Date field and specify one of the supported formats via Date format.

If desired, you can advice Infopost-Manager how to handle empty or invalid field contents with the options Set missing date as and Set invalid date as.

In area Write to address you finally decide whether you want to write to the address with the youngest or the oldest date. The selected options for invalid or missing dates are surely taken into account.

Once you clicked the button it will be extended by an arrow. You will be able to change the settings anytime using this arrow.

Prioritization of data sources

If you for example bought or leased foreign addresses, you have to synchronize them with your own addresses. With activated module Professional, in duplicate search you will find a button which you can specify the priority of the data source.

with

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With duplicate groups containing addresses from different address sources only that address will be marked which originates from the source file with the highest priority. The priorities in the list view are descending, i.e. the topmost file has highest, and the bottommost has lowest priority.

If duplicates originate from one single address source, you can determine using the options in If

duplicate group from one address source

which record shall be marked.

The option Only apply to ambiguous groups can only be checked if at least one duplicate group is unambiguous. When using this option Infopost-Manager offers you the capability of handling these special groups in a sophisticated way, for instance by choosing other options like ’Select first address’.

After confirming the chosen options are only applied to these groups.

Once you clicked the button it will be extended by an arrow. You will be able to change the settings anytime using this arrow.

Chosen options

By clicking the button you open a window which shows the chosen options for the current duplicate search.

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Control buttons

Exits the duplicate search and accepts the selection made for the current project. Addresses for which the ”Write to address” option is not checked will be marked in the current project as inactive and will not be written to. This marking can be undone in the address management by choosing ”Use address”.

Exits the result view of the duplicate search without retrieving the automatic or manual changes to the address file.

Stops editing the project and saves the current state of processing. You can recommence work on the duplicate search as soon as the project is reopened. In the meantime, no changes can be made to this project.

Edit

This button opens a dialog window where you can make changes to the selected record.

You will find more information on the options on the three tabs by following this link (on page 66).

Report

The results of the duplicate search are stored in a report which will be shown via clicking the button

Preview

. By clicking the other buttons you can print this report or export it as text file.

You will find more information on the additional options of the Report preview in the Print Preview

(on page 404) chapter.

In addition to the duplicate search results the record numbers for the respective addresses in its source file will be listed as well as an indication of whether or not the address will be written to.

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4.7. Robinson check

By using the Robinson check Infopost-Manager Professional you can check your address against the

Robinson list. Thus, all matched addresses are sorted out prior to optimization.

In order to start the Robinson check you need the Robinson file for Infopost-Manager which can be purchased at DDV - the German direct marketing association. Use the form for ordering.

Further details can be found on the Internet at http://www.ddv-robinsonliste.de

The DDV Code of Conduct requires all DDV members to check their address databases against the Robinson list.

As soon as you have run the Robinson check once the respective menu item will get a submenu where you can directly access the report.

4.7.1

Installation/Update

If you start the Robinson check for the very first time Infopost-Manager Professional prompts you to install the Robinson file which contains the Robinson list data.

Click on Install and choose the path for this file. After the confirmation the file will be installed.

As the Robinson list is revised on a regular basis regularly you can also update the installed Robinson file.

Go to tab Update in the Robinson check window and press the Update button.

If you install the demo version of the Robinson list you will only see the Select addresses (on the next page) dialog. Any viewing or adopting results will not be possible. The demo Robinson list can be freely downloaded from the Internet at www.infopost-manager.de

4.7.2

Execution

On tab settings specify against which of the given sector(s) you would like to check your address file:

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In the Settings area you define the method for the check. You can use the preset default method or choose between a quick check and a more intensive, but slower one.

To begin with the check click the Start button.

4.7.3

Results

After the check is completed you will see statistics that display the number of checked addresses.

Furthermore you can see the respective number of exact, akin, similar or likely equal addresses.

You can then define the degree of conformity that decides which addresses will be sorted out prior to optimization:

To specify this use the slider in the Select addresses area. Each vertical line on the scale matches one of the options mentioned above.

In the lower right corner you can directly see how many addresses would not be written to with the chosen option.

After having confirmed your settings by clicking the OK button the results will be shown in the

Results

window.

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The detected Match accuracy degree will be shown in a separate column.

In principle the presentation of the results is similar to the duplicate search (on page 117). The main

difference is that there are no duplicate groups but simple address tuples.

The table view is comparable to the duplicate search as well.

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For each shown address you can decide whether or not it shall be written to. You already preset this decision by selecting the necessary match accuracy degree in the previous dialog. You can call this window once again and specify another match accuracy degree via clicking the button.

4.8. Nixie check

This function of Infopost-Manager checks the current project’s address database against a so called nixie file which e.g. contains your insolvent customers.

In the Addresses area you locate the nixie file which you want to check your addresses against.

In order to do that click the

button. You are directed to the familiar Import (on page 49) dialog

where you can also assign the fields and even apply Import (on page 60) templates.

Right after the import the Volume of the nixie file will be shown.

As soon as you have run the nixie check once the respective menu item will get a submenu where you can directly access the report.

4.8.1

Options

You can adjust the nixie check with the help of the options and thus receive even better results.

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The settings are similar to those of the duplicate search (on page 113).

4.8.2

Results

After the check is completed you will see statistics that display the number of checked addresses.

Furthermore you can see the respective number of exact, akin, similar or likely equal addresses.

You can then define the degree of conformity that decides which addresses will be sorted out prior to optimization:

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To specify this use the slider in the Select addresses area. Each vertical line on the scale matches one of the options mentioned above.

In the lower right corner you can directly see how many addresses would not be written to with the chosen option.

After having confirmed your settings by clicking the OK button the results will be shown in the

Results

window.

The detected Match accuracy degree will be shown in a separate column.

In principle the presentation of the results is similar to the duplicate search (on page 117). The main

difference is that there are no duplicate groups but simple address tuples.

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The table view is comparable to the duplicate search as well.

4.9. Adressdialog

Infopost-Manager supports Adressdialog, Deutsche Post’s Crossmedia-Service.

Using Adressdialog a fraud resistant code will be created which can be integrated into your mailshot.

The recipient can use this code to access a personalized Internet web page. For instance, he can see here tailored order forms, update his address information, participate in a survey or send some requests to you. Adressdialog simplifies resp. totally replaces your manual response acquisition. Additional information on this service can be found in the Internet at www.adressdialog.de

The unique code, which Infopost-Manager creates, can be integrated in a mail merge document (on

page 396) later on and thus become accessible to the recipient.

You will have to export the codes via the menu item Export Adressdialog (on page 135) and to transfer

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As soon as the Adressdialog codes have been assigned the menu item Adressdialog will get a submenu where additional action can be taken.

4.9.1

Settings

Infopost-Manager will use a wizard to lead you through the different options for Adressdialog.

In general, you can use the buttons Next and Back to toggle between the steps of the wizard.

Clicking the button Finished in the respective last step will complete the configuration of Adressdialog.

In the Preview you can see in every step how typical codes or PURLs will look like depending on your settings.

Additionally, the probability is calculated of a code being correctly guessed resp. of how many attempts will be needed in average to get a single correct code using brute force methods.

You can set the address volume in field Assumed number of addresses to a value other than the current project size. This might be useful for simulating the consequences for a later code creation.

Rules for the code length

The higher the security level the longer the code will be.

The smaller the character class the longer the code will be.

The larger the address volume the longer the code will be.

Adressdialog configuration

In order to use Adressdialog, you have to activate the check box Adressdialog activated.

First, you have to decide how the user has to log in at the Adressdialog service (either via the created, unique code or via the combination of user name and password) resp. how the user shall be directed to the personalized web site (via PURL or via the combination of PURL and password).

PURLs (Personal URLs) are used to create personalized web addresses (e.g.

http:www.domain.deMax.Mustermann).

You can define which fields shall be used to create the

PURL in the next step (on the next page). It is convenient to display PURLs as QR-Codes (on page 291)

and print them on your address labels or mail merge document.

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If you are going to use the Adressdialog service in your web site for which your customers and prospects already have access data for protected areas it is surely reasonable to allow those users to authenticate with their known data.

In those cases, choose option Login via ”User name” and ”Password” and select a database field in the respective dropdown menu which contains the user name.

Field selection for PURL

This step will only be displayed if you have chosen PURL or PURL and Password as encoding method.

In the Fields for PURL area you can specify which fields are used for the dynamic part of the PURL.

You can extend or reduce the list using the buttons Add and Remove. The order can be changed by drag’n’drop of a field to its desired position or by using the buttons Up and Down.

Options for PURL

This step will only be displayed if you have chosen PURL or PURL and Password as encoding method.

Here you can normalize PURLs and define the behavior when conflicts arise.

There are different areas to define possible separators between the fields, to regulate the use of

upper/lower case

and to set the maximal length of a PURL.

In the important area Conflict resolution you can determine how to create unambiguous PURLs out of ambiguous ones. Ambiguities result if the content of the dynamic part is the same for more than one PURL. This happens for example if multiple recipients have the same name. You can decide whether Infopost-Manager enumerates the dynamic part in ascending order or whether it appends a unique random number.

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Create Code/Password

This step will only be displayed if you have chosen Code, User name and Password or PURL and

Password

as encoding method. Depending on whether you want to create a code or a password the labels in this dialog differ. In the following only codes will be considered for convenience. However, the same rules and consequences apply for passwords.

In this area you define the structure of the code to be created or you select a database field which contains the code to be used (option Use Code from database field).

If you have chosen option Create Code you can set the security level using the throttle: The higher the security level shall be the more characters will have to be used for the creation of the codes. You may also add a fixed prefix.

This can be useful to add new addresses to an existing Adressdialog project. Even if a number of codes of this project has been transferred to the server already, a prefix can ensure that all newly generated codes will differ from the old ones.

With activated option Use only the following character classes you can define the characters which will be contained in the code in favor of the code’s readability (but in disfavor of the code security):

• Capital letters A to Z will be used.

• Small letters a to z will be used.

• Digits 0 to 9 will be used.

• Hide similar characters disables confusable characters (such as small L and digit 1 or capital

O and digit 0) from code creation. Thus, the danger of a code being misinterpreted will be reduced.

Choose option Use user defined character class if you want to determine the characters to be used for the code creation. For that purpose you have to enter at least nine different characters. The more characters you assign to the character class the less characters are used for the code creation - with sustained security.

Using this option, manually mind that confusable characters (e.g. capital S and digit 5) will not be used.

This will minimize the risk of a code being faulty entered by the user.

If you choose option Use Code from database field you can define the specific codes outside of Infopost-

Manager. For it, select the database field which contains the code to be used.

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Infopost-Manager verifies during the code assignment whether or not a login is really unique. If not, e.g.

because a code coming from the database appears more than once or the combination of user name and password is used manifold, Infopost-Manager cancels the assignment process. Since Infopost-Manager does not know neither the used character class nor the used characters for the code, the security level of the code cannot be calculated and thus cannot be shown.

Do select the manual code assignment with extreme caution and make sure that the codes are fairly secure, e.g. against lexical checks.

4.9.2

Create codes

Using menu item Create codes you will assign new codes to all addresses resp. create the corresponding

PURLs.

This might especially make sense if the initial question for the code assignment has been answered with

or if codes, user name and/or password are read from fields whose contents have been changed.

Either way, Infopost-Manager takes care during the code assignment that each login remains unique.

After code creation there are further fields specific for Adresssdialog available in Export (on page 396).

4.9.3

Create export file

This menu item prepares the transfer of the codes for Adressdialog

In the dialog window Create Adressdialog export file you can add additional fields to the export file which already contains default fields. Adressdialog will have direct access to all exported fields. For example, you can predefine the content of fields to be processed in the Internet later on.

First, select the target directory and, if appropriate, another file name in field Output file.

Click the Add button in order to include additional fields. If you want to delete fields from the selection, mark them with the mouse and click the Remove button.

Clicking OK starts the export process.

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Please note that Adressdialog has different upper limits for the field lengths. For instance, the field

Company1 may contain maximum 100 characters. If a field exceeds the designated maximum, you will receive a warning. You can now decide whether you want to truncate the problematical field accordingly or to cancel the process.

As soon as the process is finished, you can call Adressdialog’s Internet web page in order to upload the export file to the server:

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5. Preparation menu

5.1. Item properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

5.1.1.

Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

5.1.2.

Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

5.1.3.

Franking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

5.1.4.

Remaining item tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

5.2. Production properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

5.2.1.

Infopost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

5.3. Dispatch properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

5.4. Postage optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

5.5. Payment method properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

5.5.1.

Payment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

5.5.2.

Prepayment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

5.6. Partial postings

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

5.7. Order management

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

5.7.1.

Data exchange via Webservice

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

5.7.2.

Manual data exchange via file transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

5.7.3.

Cancel order

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

5.7.4.

Request status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

5.7.5.

Open in AM.portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

You can use this menu to provide all required information on the items themselves, on production in trays or bundles, and, where appropriate, on pallets. In addition, this is where you choose how you would like Deutsche Post to invoice your projects. After all the settings have been specified, finally the postage optimization will be executed which calculates the minimum total charge.

Another feature of Infopost-Manager enables you to initiate the data transfer for your current project.

If you have questions concerning this topic, please contact the IT CSP hotline (+49 6151 908-8000)

(Mo-Fr 8am-5pm).

Modules International optimization, Vario and Job splitting

With activated module International optimization you will get another menu item Dispatch properties which will be used to define the dispatch of international items. By using the Vario module you can also specify the required variants. Additionally, the production and the dispatch of your mailshot can be distributed to several suppliers via the Job splitting module. Details can be found in chapter International

optimization

(on page 334), Vario (on page 350) and Job splitting (on page 362).

5.1. Item properties

All required information on the dimensions, the content and the franking for the items is entered in this dialog box. In the lower part of the window information on the charges due for the categories

Infopost

and remaining items are always available.

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Infopost-Manager automatically classifies the items into the categories Infopost and remaining items during postage optimization and always provides the optimal spread with the cheapest charges.

It is important that the items for these categories have to be produced separately and posted with a separate posting list for Infopost. Remaining items are posted as normal letters franked with stamps or by machine.

Modules International optimization and Vario

If the International optimization module is activated the national and international charges will be shown in a clear table. By using the Vario module this table is extended by the respective variants as long as

VarioPlus is used. On new tabs, you can define the franking type for international items or define the

required variants. Details can be found in chapters International optimization (on page 330) and Vario (on

page 351).

5.1.1

Dimensions

This tab manages all the information on the format and weight of the items in the current project.

Infopost-Manager offers several standard formats for the item dimensions in a dropdown menu. If the dimensions of your item do not correspond to one of these formats, they can also be entered manually.

Precise information is needed for length and width; when specifying the thickness you can select one of the given ranges or your can enter it <exactly>. The chosen selection is illustrated in the Preview area.

With activated module Professional items can be declared as not machine-ready. You will need this option e.g. if you like to post standard items which do not meet the requirements for automation. In those cases the items will be treated as Kompakt items which have less restrictions.

The weight of the items must be defined between 1 and 2,000 g. You will see in the lower status bar

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5 Preparation menu of the current window that the charge is adjusted immediately when a weight change is made. It is vital to state the precise weight accurately by 1 g in order to guarantee the correct calculation of the minimum charge.

Please note that the item weight can vary by up to 5Kommt nicht vor due to printing dyes, adhesives, paper clips, air humidity etc. With items weighing more than 20 g, this could cause a change in both the charge and the product (Standard, Kompakt, Groß or Maxi). if you have any doubts regarding the weight, let your acceptance office confirm it.

Supplementary changes to the item properties will mandatorily mean that postage must be optimized again. Therefore, you should rather not change these settings once you have printed the addresses, forms and lists, or exported your address data from Infopost-Manager, because the address sorting, and thus the total postage charge, may change - even due to a slight change in the database or in the item properties.

This would mean that you would have to print and export the addresses, forms and lists again.

5.1.2

Type

On this tab you can specify the content type of your items. Brief explanations help to select the right option.

You will find details on postal regulations in the product brochures which can be read via the Help

- Brochures

(on page 231) menu item or from a Deutsche Post AG Direct Marketing Center or by

contacting the Hotline (Phone: +49 180 5 334460 (14 ct per minute or part thereof from a German landline; or a maximum of 42 ct per minute or part thereof from the German mobile phone network)).

In particular with remaining items which cannot be sent as Infopost, it is worthwhile declaring the content type because book items or merchandizes can be sent cheaper than normal letter items.

Unwrapped items

can only be posted as Infopost. Thus, the category remaining items does not apply in such mailshots.

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Hint for unwrapped items

If you want to send less than 4,000 unwrapped items, you should test various settings. Basically, the following applies:

The more widely spread your addresses are across Germany, the more likely it is that additional extra items and a low minimum number of items per bundle is profitable, making it feasible to send as many items as possible as unwrapped items. Infopost-Manager calculates how you can use extra items in order to send as many items as possible as unwrapped items.

5.1.3

Franking

Infopost items can be franked by a variety of types. In the right part of the window you will see the current preview of the various franking types.

Brief explanatory texts below the Preview explain each franking type; further information on the postal regulations can be found in the product brochures which can be read via the Help - Brochures

(on page 231) menu item or from a Deutsche Post AG Direct Marketing Center or by contacting the

Hotline (Phone: +49 180 5 334460 (14 ct per minute or part thereof from a German landline; or a maximum of 42 ct per minute or part thereof from the German mobile phone network)).

If you have selected franking mark (ZL) you can define the start number to be used for beginning the enumeration of the various items:

Franking marks can be printed easily on the envelopes in mail merge mode.

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Remaining items

cannot be balanced with franking mark, but must be franked e.g. by machine or with a stamp.

If you want to use Premiumadress (on page 278) in your mailshot, activate the correspondent check

box. Infopost-Manager now informs you if the Premiumadress relevant information are not completely available in mail merge or export.

You can activate the check box GOGREEN if you want to attend the environment programme of Deutsche Post. Once activated, Infopost-Manager makes the corresponding position frame (on

page 283) available for mail merge. Further details can be found on the

Internet .

5.1.4

Remaining item tab

Franking type

In this area you can specify the franking type for remaining items. This is especially useful when choosing a franking type for Infopost items that is not allowed for remaining items.

Postage

Using option Set postage individually, you can let Infopost-Manager calculate the total postage with a specific individual postage per item for remaining items.

5.2. Production properties

Production includes putting the printed and packed items in trays or bundles, and where appropriate, combining the trays on pallets. The settings made here will have an impact on potential production rebates.

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The Production guideline (on page 308) explains in detail how to deal with trays and pallets. You can

provide this guideline to the production staff in order to help them process the items of your projects.

Modules International optimization and Vario

If the International optimization module is activated you will be able define the sorting and a deviant production type for international items on a new tab. By activating the Vario module you can specify the variants’ production properties and the production method (single vs. multi-flow) on an additional new

tab. Details can be found in chapters International optimization (on page 333) and Vario (on page 356).

5.2.1

Infopost

Set the production properties of the current ”Infopost”-project on the different tabs.

5.2.1.1

General

The items of your mailshot campaign must be placed into trays or combined in bundles sorted by

ZIPs. Here you can provide the following further information on this:

Tray/Bundle production

As an alternative to trays, Groß and Maxi items may also be combined in bundles. The further options and the project’s behavior depend on the chosen production type, e.g. the second tab may be

named Trays (on the following page) or Bundles (on page 145). The choice of option also affects the

appearance of the Pallets (on page 146) tab.

Bundle production is only selectable for Groß and Maxi items resp. for Infopost-Kreativ. Otherwise, the productions properties automatically indicates Produce trays.

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Pallet production

Pallet production may have a considerable impact on the total charge by providing considerable rebates if at least 4,000 items are available. Pallets must be produced as soon as the total net weight of Infopost items exceeds 0.5 tons - the check boy will be automatically checked in those cases.

If you want to benefit from potential pallet rebates and therefore to produce pallets although the total weight of your items is less than 0.5 tons, activate the options Produce pallets and Produce pallets

even if weight under 0.5 t

on the Pallets tab.

Partial postings

If you want to use partial postings (on page 155) with your project, Germany pallets or Germany trays

respectively bundles must not be contained. Activate the check box in order to urge Infopost-Manager to consider this restriction.

Routing district optimization

If at least 50 recipients of your items are within the routing district of your acceptance office at which you will post your mailshot, they will be regarded as Infopost; the charge for these items will be reduced, if appropriate. If you do not meet the minimum quantity, extra items may be required.

There is no reason for not using routing district optimization, in particular when you post fewer than

4,000 items.

If routing district optimization (on page 220) is activated you must enter the ZIP of the posting office

where you post the items.

Module Vario

With activated module Vario you can also specify the production method. Details can be found in chapter

Vario

(on page 356).

5.2.1.2

Trays

Please ensure during production that all items within the trays are similarly arranged. The address block on the items have to face the tray label and the items have to be inserted upside-down if you are using trays of size 1.

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Tray production properties

5 Preparation menu

Infopost-Manager proposes the assumed correct tray type. Groß and Maxi items should only be posted in size 2 trays.

The appropriate information on the maximum filling amount for trays is dependent on the provided item settings, in particular weight and thickness. Since the Infopost-Manager does not know anything about the item’s flexibility or compactability, you should specify this value as precise as possible here in order to simplify the production and to benefit from further production rebates.

This value for half-full is very important for posting your items in trays, because e.g. rebates can only be granted for the production of ZIP trays if they are accepted by Deutsche Post as being half-full or if the respective minimum weight is kept.

You can obtain more information on the half filling amount from the Deutsche Post Hotline (+49 180 5

334460 (14 ct per minute or part thereof from a German landline; or a maximum of 42 ct per minute or part thereof from the German mobile phone network) or from a Direct Marketing Center close to you.

You should provide information on the half filling amount as precise as possible because Infopost-

Manager is unaware of the flexibility or compactability of the items and thus cannot conclude the item’s exact volume.

Number of trays

Checking the option Minimize postage (higher production complexity) lets Infopost-Manager produce as much as possible routing region respectively ZIP trays (for Groß and Max items). Thus, you need more trays and production complexity increases.

Option Minimize production complexity (no production rebates) produces only so-called Germany

trays

. All items in these trays are sorted by ZIPs. Routing region or zone trays will not be produced and thus no production rebates can be granted. With this option you will produce as less as possible trays and production complexity is minimal.

The last option Produce trays dependent on number of items directly affects the number of trays to be produced:

If the granted rebates do not amortize the production efforts which have to be spent for producing

144

5 Preparation menu more trays (e.g. additional labor, stock or transportation costs) until a dedicated item number is reached, you can enter here the required values. The item numbers for RR and ZIP trays can be chosen mutually different, if desired, or you can decide not to produce ZIP trays at all. Either way the chosen option means that you are aware of loosing rebates unless a tray can be filled with the defined item quantity.

5.2.1.3

Bundles

If you have selected bundle production on the tab General, the tab Bundles appears instead of the tab Trays.

Ensure during production that all bundles are closely tied and that all address blocks are similarly arranged. Loose cording may result in bundles falling apart.

Bundle production properties

Here you specify the maximum number of items per bundle. Deutsche Post recommends a maximal bundle weight of 10 kg.

Number of bundles

Checking the option Minimize postage (higher production complexity) lets Infopost-Manager produce as much as possible routing region respectively ZIP bundles. Thus, you have to produce more bundles and production complexity increases.

Option Minimize production complexity (less production rebates) particularly produces routing region and maybe some Germany bundles, but no ZIP bundles. With this option you will produce less bundles and production complexity decreases, but you also waive potential rebates.

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The last option Produce bundles dependent on number of items directly affects the number of bundles to be produced:

If the granted rebates do not amortize the production efforts which have to be spent for producing more bundles (e.g. additional labor, stock or transportation costs) until a dedicated item number is reached, you can enter here the required values. The item numbers for RR and ZIP bundles can be chosen mutually different, if desired, or you can decide not to produce ZIP bundles at all. Either way the chosen option means that you are aware of loosing rebates unless a bundle can be filled with the defined item quantity.

Order

The option Optimize production sequence for small bundles enables you to fill a pallet or pallet target ordered by bundle size in order to increase pallet stability. Another use case are different settings for a strapping machine. Smaller bundles have to be tightened up with less force to avoid folding.

Select this option and specify how many items a bundle can contain to still be treated as small bundle.

With the drop down box you can specify whether you would like to have those bundles lying below or on top and whether you would like to produce them pallet spanning, per pallet, per pallet target, or per variant. Consequently, the order of the produced bundles will be adjusted (see bundle list (on

page 165)).

5.2.1.4

Pallets

As soon as the total net weight exceeds 0.5 tons, trays or bundles have to be combined on Euro pallets. When producing pallets ensure that the transportation locks (bundles and trays) are suitable for multiple cargo handling processes. The maximal pallet height (incl. pallet) may be 1.8 m. Pallets may consist only of one item type - either bundles or trays.

Pallet production properties

Activate the check box Also produce if less than 0.5 tons if you want to benefit from possible pallet rebates by producing pallets although this is not required because the total weight does not exceed

0.5 tons.

If you want to stack your produced pallets, check Produce stackable pallets. Infopost-Manager now

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5 Preparation menu decides how the various items (stored in trays) will have to be distributed on the various pallets, each but the last being stackable. Infopost-Manager also takes the reduced maximal weight for stackable pallets of 600 kg in to account.

Enter the Pallet net weight in the respective field. The default value 22 kg holds for Euro pallets.

In the field Maximal pallet gross weight you can predefine the maximum weight of your pallets including all trays/bundles. Using this option your pallets will never outweigh the value you set here.

If you have for example a pallet rack of limited carrying capacity, this option enables you to produce only pallets that can be carried by your rack.

Production properties for trays

This area is only visible if you produce trays (on page 143). Otherwise, you will see here the production

properties for bundles.

You can specify here the maximal tray number per pallet. Ensure that the pallets’ gross weight does not exceed 700 kg (respectively. 600 kg for stackable pallets).

If appropriate, adapt the defaults for Trays per layer.

Production properties for bundles

This area is only visible if you produce bundles (on page 145). Otherwise you will see here the

production properties for trays.

You can specify here the maximal bundle number per pallet. Ensure that the pallets’ gross weight does not exceed 700 kg.

Number of pallets

Checking the option Minimize postage (higher production complexity) urges Infopost-Manager to produce as much as possible routing region respectively. routing zone pallets. Thus, you have to produce more pallets and production complexity increases.

When using the option Minimize production complexity (no production rebates) you are aware of loosing rebates which might have been granted for optimized pallet production. This might be useful, for instance, if the transportation costs for an increased pallet number exceeds the granted rebates.

With this option checked, trays or bundles will be distributed on as fewer pallets as possible.

The last option Produce pallets dependent on production rebates directly affects the number of pallets to be produced:

Based on the stock and transportation costs, you can easily determine the costs for an additional pallet. Enter this value as rebate threshold. Infopost-Manager only produces new routing region respectively routing zone pallets if the resulting postage discounts are higher than the production costs.

You will find detailed information on the postal regulations regarding pallet production through the

product brochures which can be read via the Help - Brochures (on page 231) menu item and from a

Deutsche Post AG Direct Marketing Center.

5.2.1.5

Delivery

This tab is only visible if option Transfer order data to Deutsche Post (on page 45) is activated in the

project properties.

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Specify here when and whether you want to post the items of your project by yourself or you want them to be picked up.

For the former click the button and select the acceptance office where you will post you mailshot.

Otherwise enter the address where Deutsche Post shall pick up your mail shot.

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Select the option palett storage if you want to make use of this service. Please note that the retrieval date has to be after the delivery date.

If you use the pick-up and delivery service ”Hin+Weg” be sure that option Posting is selected in this dialog. Otherwise your items might be collected twice: First via ”Hin+Weg” and second via ”pallet announcement”.

5.3. Dispatch properties

In this dialog window you define the properties for the dispatch of national items.

Normally there are two kinds of dispatch available: The options Allow dispatch as ”Infopost” and

Allow dispatch as ”remaining item”

are enabled per default.

The option Allow extra items to reach higher bulk discounts is activated by default. It causes Infopost-

Manager to calculate more items than are actually existing, in case this will reduce the total postage

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5 Preparation menu due to a higher bulk discount. Deactivate this option to prevent those pseudo-items to be created.

This can be necessary if you want to process the data created by Infopost-Manager externally and will thereby merge different address sets.

If you are Infopost-Koop customer you can advice Infopost-Manager to automatically pay extra items during optimization in order to reach 100,000 items if the mailshot volume should be too low. Just activate the appropriate check box.

Infopost-Manager automatically classifies the items into the categories Infopost and remaining items during postage optimization and always provides the optimal spread with the cheapest charges.

Deactivate option Allow dispatch as ”remaining item” in order to post even small mailshots as Infopost.

You will save the efforts for franking the remaining items but have to pay more because Infopost-Manager will calculate extra items until a dispatch as Infopost will become possible.

The properties set here can also be predefined as default for future projects. To do so set them once under Extras - Options on the tab Settings in the section Apply dispatch properties to all new projects (on

page 219).

Individual Katalog dispatch

If your mailshot complies to the requirements of Individual Katalog dispatch, which means that the items are classified as ”Katalog”and their format is ”Groß- or Maxi item” with wrapping, there will be an additional option Allow dispatch as ”Individual Katalog dispatch” available.

”Individual Katalog dispatch” is only allowed for catalogs that are send by Infopost. It is only meant for single catalogs which have returned before or which have been reordered and don’t comply to the minimum quantity needed for Infopost items. These items can only be delivered to major acceptance offices.

When producing as Individual Katalog dispatch specific production lists are available in the Results

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menu

under the option Individual Katalog dispatch (on page 173). In addition Infopost-Manager’s

mail merge

(on page 238) will be extended to a corresponding address category.

International optimization module

The activated module International optimization will enable you to dispatch international products like

”International letters at kilo rate” either. Furthermore you can define the way international items should

be shipped. Details can be found in chapter International optimization (on page 334).

5.4. Postage optimization

Based on the given information, Infopost-Manager distributes all items within a few seconds into the categories Infopost and remaining items and produces the required sorting order of the addresses for

production

(on page 141).

At the same time, Infopost-Manager calculates the minimum total charges which result from any possible extra items (see example below), from the item distribution into the three categories and from additional production rebates.

An example shall clarify the advantage of using extra items:

A very small mailshot consists of 45 items. Since, however, the regulations of Deutsche Post AG for

Infopost require at least 50 items, you would have to pay the letter mail charge for every item. But if you add five virtual ”extra items”, you will only pay the reduced charge for Infopost. Since the letter mail charge is about twice as much as the Infopost postage, 50 Infopost items are considerably more favourable than 45 letter mail items.

You can see the values calculated in the project overview on the main screen.

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The message Information give you possible explanations about the result of the optimization.

The optimization results are shown in the posting list (on page 176) and the project statistics (on

page 180).

Optimization may be run several times, for instance in order to test various combinations of item and production properties.

If, however, you have taken further steps using the result of optimization (e.g. in mail merge or printing or exporting the addresses), you should never make changes which would require re-optimization. Otherwise, all print-outs (addresses, forms and lists) would have to be done again.

Module International optimization

With activated module International optimization the international charges will be shown on separate

tabs. Details can be found in chapter International optimization (on page 337).

5.5. Payment method properties

Deutsche Post AG offers a variety of ways to pay the due charges. Special agreements with Deutsche

Post AG are required for some payment methods.

A bank account has to be defined in any case in order to allow Deutsche Post AG to refund unnecessarily paid charges. The hotline, which you can reach on phone +49 180 5 334460 (14 ct per minute or part thereof from a German landline; or a maximum of 42 ct per minute or part thereof from the German mobile phone network) or a Direct Marketing Center close to you will be glad to answer your questions about the various payment methods.

5.5.1

Payment

On this tab you define how you intend to pay the remaining postage.

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Remaining postages are e.g. the postage costs if using the franking mark, the value added tax for

Infopost etc. The latter also incur if you frank your items by yourself, e.g. via FRANKIT.

Depending on the franking type you can also pay the remaining postage in advance by stamping them on

the list

(on the next page).

You can activate the pretax deduction permission by clicking the corresponding check box. These settings are important for Infopost-Manager as they decide the postage optimization runs with pretax or after tax values.

Typically all users have a pretax deduction permission if they are not

• private end users

• part of the public authorities (federation, provinces or communes)

• small business owners who are not charged with any value added tax

If you process a project as a lettershop on behalf of a customer you must at this point define the payer

(resp. the buyer for ”DHL Infopost” projects) and his payment type.

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If you choose option deviant payer you can select an address from your customer index, which is neither sender nor mailer, by clicking the button.

You can define the presets for the payer and his default payment type per customer resp. sender in the

customer index

(on page 199), Thus, you only have to define deviations from these presettings on a project

by project basis.

5.5.2

Prepayment

On this tab the postage is shown which is already paid by direct franking.

Additionally, you can specify here if you would like to stamp the remaining postage on the posting list. In order to do so activate the check box Remaining postage stamped on list.

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Entering variable values for the general stamping is only possible for the franking types canceling by sender,

Plusbrief and Frankierservice (PWz).

Stamping remaining postage is only possible for the franking types franking mark and FRANKIT.

5.6. Partial postings

Usually, and especially, with smaller Infopost projects, all items of a project are posted in one job.

With projects involving more than 4,000 items, however, you can also post your Infopost in parts on different days. Staggering large mail shots can for instance save time and stock space and may relieve a Call Center which is responsible for acquiring responses.

Partial postings may not contain any Germany pallets, Germany trays resp. Germany bundles. Activate

the option Produce partial posting compliant during specifying the production properties (on page 141).

If you produce and post items of a project over several days, Deutsche Post regards the partial postings as one joint posting if the daily postings are implemented in self-contained ascending or descending routing zone blocks. At least 4,000 items must be posted in the first partial posting, however.

The items which you would like to combine as partial postings must be determined by you. This is only possible after the postage costs have been successfully optimized.

Once you have launched the menu item Preparation - partial postings, you will see in the lower area of the dialog box that initially no item is allocated to a partial posting. The number of trays and the weight is shown for your information.

You can define the first partial posting by using the Add button.

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General tab

Here, you can redefine the delivery values which you specified in the production properties (on page 147)

for each partial posting.

Date

Here you can set delivery date and time for the handover of this partial posting to the Deutsche Post

AG. The data can differ from the data you have defined in the production properties (on page 147)

before.

Delivery

The delivery place respective the acceptance office can be set here individually or independently of the various partial postings.

Choose the option use global delivery place to determine, that you will post the items at the delivery

place you have already defined in the production properties (on page 147).

The option Pallets being picked up by Deutsche Post AG destines the pallets to be picked up at the producing supplier by the Deutsche Post AG at the specified point of time.

Use the option Pallets posted at Deutsche Post AG acceptance office to determine a separate acceptance

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5 Preparation menu office for the current partial posting. This office can vary from the global one. You can click the button

Select acceptance office

to get a list from which you can choose the corresponding office.

Description

In this area you can set a designation for the current partial posting. You can choose between an automatic description, consisting of date, name of the supplier, partial posting number and a manual description.

Click the OK to go to the Content tab.

Content tab

A partial posting is composed of the items belonging to a particular tray, bundle respectively. pallet targets, i.e. routing zones respectively. regions have to be posted jointly and in ascending order. If you activate the option Show available entries only, you will see only those targets which have not yet been allocated to another partial posting.

Tick the targets which you would like to send simultaneously in a partial posting. Please note that the first partial posting must total at least 4,000 items. In the summary table you will be able to see in each case the status of the current partial posting, of the partial postings which have already been defined, and of the items which have not been allocated yet as well as the totals and the average

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5 Preparation menu values. With each tick, this summary changes.

The partial posting management lists all partial postings defined so far in a well arranged table.

You can now define more partial postings and change or delete existing ones. It is important that there are no items left at the end of a project which are not allocated to any partial posting.

Please note that you must print a separate posting list for each partial posting and submit it to Deutsche

Post.

5.7. Order management

This menu item is only visible if you decided to exchange your project data with Deutsche Post via order management and activated an option other than No data exchange in the application options

(on page 225). With it, you start the transfer of the project data to Deutsche Post’s data exchange

server or have the opportunity to cancel an order which has been already transferred.

Dependent on the chosen transfer type the way of interaction with Deutsche Post’s data exchange server differs.

5.7.1

Data exchange via Webservice

Before starting the file transfer the current project status will be shown.

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In principle there are three different status: The first notification and a project modification which makes a new transfer of the project data necessary. In both cases the reason for the transfer will be shown. The third status alternative is the simple case that the project status is up-to-date meaning that no data have to be transferred.

Clicking the Next button starts the real transfer.

If appropriate, you will be prompted for user and password before this dialog.

The entered values can be permanently stored by activating option Save password. Any time, you can

reset these values in the application options (on page 226).

Normally, the successful transfer of the project data to the data exchange server is acknowledged with a respective message:

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In case of an error the reason for the failure will be shown.

As soon as you corrected the displayed error just start the data exchange once again.

5.7.2

Manual data exchange via file transfer

Before starting the file transfer the current project status will be shown and you have the opportunity to determine storage location for the exchange file to be transferred.

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5 Preparation menu shown. The third status alternative is the simple case that the project status is up-to-date meaning that no data have to be transferred.

Clicking the Next button creates the exchange file in the chose directory which you manually have to send to Deutsche Post afterwards. Information on possible transmission methods can be received from IT Customer Support Post (IT CSP) via hotline: +49 6151 908-8000 or via e-mail: [email protected]

In the second dialog you can input the response file.

You will receive the response file from Deutsche Post as result of the manual transfer of the exchange file.

It contains for example information on whether it has been accepted or there have occurred errors.

Activating option The data have been successfully transferred and accepted by Deutsche Post skips the input of the response file.

Deliberately use this option because there can occur irreparable deviations between your local project data and those on Deutsche Post’s exchange server. If, for instance, your exchange file has not been accepted by Deutsche Post’s data exchange server, for what reasons so ever, and thus the project has not been created, Infopost-Manager assumes that everything is alright and from now on creates only change files which will be rejected from the exchange server due to a missing adequate project.

Here, you can pause the project until you receive the response file e.g. in order to continue processing other projects. Infopost-Manager close the project when clicking the Pause button and immediately jumps exactly to this position as soon as the project is reopened.

Normally, the successful transfer of the project data to the data exchange server is acknowledged with a respective message:

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In case of an error the reason for the failure will be shown.

As soon as you corrected the displayed error just start the data exchange once again.

5.7.3

Cancel order

Call this submenu item if you intend to completely delete the already transferred project data from

Deutsche Post’s data exchange server.

Changing the sender necessitates for example the cancellation of an order.

If required you can created a new order any time by starting the data exchange once again.

5.7.4

Request status

When you open a project which was created by an order on the data exchange server (on page 26)

of Deutsche Post, its status will be requested. That is to say, Infopost-Manager compares the local project data with those on the exchange server.

You can also initiate this process using this menu item. The order status will be shown in a separate

window, as in Request details (on page 22).

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Overview tab

This tab shows a tabular overview over the process transferred to Deutsche Post AG. It contains categories of the posting as well as the order number assigned by Deutsche Post AG and its transfer status.

In the Transfer status area you can see whether the project requires another data exchange. This may be the case if relevant data has been altered.

Details tab

This tab shows all relevant data of the order, e.g. your order number or that of Deutsche Post. You may select a specific category from the drop down menu.

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5.7.5

Open in AM.portal

This menu item starts your web browser and opens the current project on the respective page of the data exchange portal (AM.portal).

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6. Results menu

6.1. Tray/Bundle list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

6.2. Tray target/Bundle target list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

6.3. Pallet list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

6.4. Pallet target list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

6.5. Individual Katalog dispatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

6.6. Routing labels

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

6.7. Posting lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

6.8. Production and posting documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

6.9. Mail merge (IPM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

6.10. Mail merge (Word) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

6.11. Address export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

You can use this menu to print the lists, labels and forms required for production and posting and to start mail merge and address export procedures.

This menu provides you with additional lists besides the necessary posting list which are helpful when packing the items into trays or bundles.

If you make changes to your addresses or to the item, production or payment method properties after having printed these lists and the tray or bundle labels, you must print all forms again, because any minor alteration to one of these areas may have a major impact on the sequence of sorting, on postage optimization, on the posting list, and on mail merge or address export.

Modules International optimization, Vario and Job splitting

With activated module International optimization you will be able to access the international production lists via a new menu item. If appropriate, the activated Vario module extends the production lists and the routing labels by the information about the produced variant. Comparable to this the Job splitting module provides extended production lists, routing labels as well as posting lists for every single job. Details can

be found in chapters International optimization (on page 340), Vario (on page 350) and Job splitting (on

page 361).

6.1. Tray/Bundle list

The tray resp. bundle list is created by Infopost-Manager as an internal utility for preparing the posting of Infopost items. It is not required for posting the mailshot.

This list helps to ensure the correct item spread across trays or bundles - the so-called production of the current project.

You will find more information on this in the Production guidelines (on page 308) chapter.

Remaining items do neither have to be sorted nor put into trays and are treated like ”normal” letters.

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The tray resp. bundle list can be printed or exported.

Further information on Preview, Print options and Export can be found in chapters Preview und Print

Change the column width by navigating the mouse to the right column border until the mouse arrow changes to . Now drag the column to the desired width.

By right-clicking the column header you can change the Column layout and Optimize column width

page 405) in order to see the target numbers of the trays resp. bundles in the table.

Depending on your decision to produce trays or bundles, you will find here either the tray list or the bundle list.

The structure and the presentation of the table is similar for both tray or bundle production. Each value refers to the required tray or bundle.

The table is sub-divided into two areas:

• Tray/Bundle

• Tray target/Bundle target

In the lower status bar you can read the total number of the respective production lot which is required after optimization based on the given information on the various preparation menu items.

Tray/Bundle

The first area contains information about the trays/bundles:

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Columns Explanation

No.

All trays resp. bundles are serially and individually numbered.

Items This column shows the number of items for the respective tray/bundle.

Net

Gross

The net weight represents the mere weight of all items.

The gross weight sums up the net weight plus tray and pallet weights.

Below the table the totals of the different columns can be found.

Tray target/Bundle target

Trays can contain items with a similar ZIP or for a routing region (first two digits of the ZIP) or they can be packed as Germany tray.

ZIP trays resp. bundles with similar ZIPs are combined by Infopost-Manager to one tray/bundle target. The same holds for routing region trays or bundles. Germany trays/bundles also represent a target (0-9).

Tray/Bundle targets are enumerated by Infopost-Manager. If appropriate, change the column layout (on

The Type indicates the sorting criterion (ZIP, RR or Germany) which has to be considered when filling the items into trays or bundles.

The Marking will be printed on the tray/bundle label. Depending on the tray/bundle type, this is the ZIP, the routing region or ”0-9” for Germany tray resp. bundles.

Producing Germany trays means that the items have to be filled into the trays sorted by ZIP in ascending order.

Bundles

, however, have to be target clean, i.e. they may only contain items with the same ZIP or routing region.

• The first two lines of the image above show ZIP trays with the same target. Here, the marking of the tray is the 5-digit ZIP.

• There is only one ZIP tray for the target 99976.

• The next trays are routing region trays (Type RR) for the targets 67, 68 and 69, i.e. for each target there is only one tray.

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• The last line shows a Germany tray - the tray label will get the marking 0-9.

Pallet

When pallets should be produced the tray/bundle list will additionally contain the columns pallet and pallet target:

If you defined Partial postings (on page 155) you can filter the table accordingly. Each partial posting

can be selected via a dropdown menu, which is located in the menu bar. In addition to that, you can also browse through the various partial posting lists via the arrow buttons.

If more than one pallet have to be produced, they will be enumerated in order to help you in always keeping the overview. The number informs you on the respective tray’s/bundle’s pallet location.

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Pallet target

Similar to a tray/bundle target, a pallet target contains all pallets for the same routing zone (RZ

= first digit of the ZIP) or routing region (RR = first two digits of the ZIP). Germany pallets also represent a target. All pallet targets are enumerated by Infopost-Manager. If appropriate, show the

pallet target number in the table via changing the column layout (on page 405).

In the ”pallet target” area you can see

• which tray/bundle has to be packed on which pallet type (RZ, RR or Germany pallet) and

• the pallet’s marking.

6.2. Tray target/Bundle target list

This list is for controlling purposes during production as well as for retrieving items (on pallets) for

dedicated tray or bundle targets (on page 167). It shows the tray respectively. bundle data for targets

in a compressed format.

The above table shows e.g. for routing region 22 (target no. 3) that 12 trays with total 2119 items are available. The item number can e.g. counterchecked with your address management tool.

You can also use this table to retrieve items e.g. of a dedicated routing region from the pallets based on the pallet numbers.

Underneath the table, the totals of the columns net, gross, trays and items can be found once again.

In the lower status bar you can read the total number of tray/bundle targets, which was calculated during the optimization based on the given information on the various preparation menu items.

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If you defined Partial postings (on page 155) you can filter the table accordingly. Each partial posting

can be selected via a dropdown menu, which is located in the menu bar. In addition to that, you can also browse through the various partial posting lists via the arrow buttons.

6.3. Pallet list

The pallet list is not required for posting the mails hot but serves as an internal aid provided by

Infopost-Manager for producing pallets.

If you defined Partial postings (on page 155) you can filter the table accordingly. Each partial posting

can be selected via a dropdown menu, which is located in the menu bar. In addition to that, you can also browse through the various partial posting lists via the arrow buttons.

Table

The pallet list is sub-divided into three areas:

• Pallet

• Quantity

• Pallet target

In the lower status bar you can read the total number of pallets, which was calculated during the optimization based on the given information on the various preparation menu items.

Pallet

Here, all pallets to be produced, are shown each having a unique, sequential number.

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The net weight only sums up all item weights for a complete pallet while gross weight is the net weight plus the weights for trays and the pallets themselves.

More detailed information on pallet production can be found in chapter Production guidelines (on

page 308).

Quantity

This area shows, how many trays respectively. bundles containing how many items have to be packed on the pallet.

Pallet target

A pallet target comprises all pallets for the same routing zone (RZ = first digit of the ZIP) or routing region (RR = first two digits of the ZIP). Germany pallets also represent a pallet target.

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The Type indicates the pallet target type (RZ, RR or Germany).

The Marking will be printed on the pallet label. This is in particular important, if the marking of the different labels will be done manually.

6.4. Pallet target list

Similar to the tray/bundle target list, the pallet target list is for controlling purposes during production. It groups all pallets to the same targets of type routing zone, routing region or German.

From the table you can derive

• the pallet target Type (RZ, RR or Germany),

• the resulting Marking for the pallet label,

• the respective Net and Gross weight and

• the Number of Pallets, Trays or Bundles and Items for the pallet target.

In the lower status bar you can read the total number of pallet targets, which was calculated during the optimization based on the given information on the various preparation menu items.

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If you defined Partial postings (on page 155) you can filter the table accordingly. Each partial posting

can be selected via a dropdown menu, which is located in the menu bar. In addition to that, you can also browse through the various partial posting lists via the arrow buttons.

6.5. Individual Katalog dispatch

When producing items as Individual Katalog dispatch, in the Results menu specific production lists become available under the option Individual Katalog dispatch. These lists are similar to the ones you know from Infopost items.

The following lists are available:

• Tray/Bundle list (on page 165)

• Tray target/Bundle target list (on page 169)

• Pallet list (on page 170)

• Pallet target list (on the previous page)

• Routing labels (on this page)

6.6. Routing labels

Via the Routing label menu item you go to the area where you can administrate your tray and bundle

routing labels

. Use theses labels to mark the trays and bundles.

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Tray routing label

Infopost-Manager handles the marking of the tray routing labels; after printing, you only have to affix

them to the trays according to the entries of the tray list (on page 165).

Bundle routing label

Infopost-Manager handles the marking of the bundle routing labels; after printing, you only have to

affix them to the bundles according to the entries of the bundle list (on page 165).

Other than print the tray routing labels you can specify the format here. Decide whether you want to print one label on DIN A5 pages, two labels on DIN A4 pages or four labels on DIN A3 pages.

Bundle labels for ZIP bundles are not required according to the postal regulations. If you want to exercise this option, activate this check box.

Pallet routing label

Similar to the tray and bundle labels you can print the pallet labels here.

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Common options

The current default template is shown in field Tray routing label resp. Bundle routing label. Execute the following actions with the buttons on the right of this field:

Icon Description

If you click this button you will see a preview (on the current page) of the label prior to printing.

This button calls the print dialog (on page 250) for routing labels. Before starting the prints you

can set the printer properties to your needs.

If you click this button you will run the export (on page 312) of the tray resp. bundle routing

label information. You can use the exported data to create the routing labels on other systems.

You can also export the tray and bundle routing labels as PDF files via the dropdown menu.

You can also edit the routing labels to a certain extent in order to adjust them to your needs.

Modifications can be saved and used for future prints. Thus, two new options are available in the dropdown menu which can be reached via the button.

Edit

Choose the Edit menu item if you want to launch the label editor (on page 410) and make some

changes.

Reset Default

If you have altered your routing labels with the editor it will be automatically used as template for future prints. You can recall the certified default template by executing this command.

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Preview

In this dialog you can receive an impression how the tray resp. bundle labels would look like if they are printed.

Generally, the functions in the icon bar are identical to those from other Infopost-Manager modules.

You can print both the current and all routing labels or export them as PDF file; you will be able to zoom in and out and switch die single routing labels using the cursor keys.

The dropdown field on the right side of the icon bar informs you whether you see a tray or a bundle routing label.

6.7. Posting lists

You can use this menu item to start printing the forms which are required for posting. The forms are completely filled based on the information you provided for Infopost and only needs to be signed. If appropriate, additional forms such as the POSTCARD slip can be printed from here.

You can also print single sheets of the forms but all sheets of the posting list are required for posting the current project.

If the posting spans several routing regions, the general terms and conditions of Deutsche Post regulate that a separate posting list is required for each routing region. When optimizing via Infopost-Manager one posting list is sufficient as long as the compilation of routing regions will be included.

Modules International optimization, Vario and Job splitting

With activated module International optimization the international posting lists will be available, too. If the Vario module is activated and if a VarioPlus-mailshot is to be produced Infopost-Manager offers here the required variant lists. Comparable to this the Job splitting module provides posting lists for every

single job. Details can be found in chapters International optimization (on page 341), Vario (on page 361) and Job splitting (on page 361).

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Phone number

The phone number for inquiries to be entered here is mandatory. It will be printed on the different posting lists at dedicated places.

Date option

Activate the date option to enter the desired posting date in the posting list. If this option is not activated no date will be printed.

Print Preview

Initiate the Print Preview to view the posting lists before you print them.

You will find more details on the further options of this Preview in the Print Preview (on page 404)

chapter.

This preview can also be initiated in the Print postal forms dialog window by double-clicking the desired form.

Activate the check box Pallets will be picked up if you also want to print a pallet notification. In this case a dialog to select reception and pick-up point will appear.

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6.8. Production and posting documents

With this menu item you can create complete document sets for your mailshot in one step. This is

especially useful if you work with partial postings (on page 155) or job splittings (on page 361).

Select a posting from the dropdown menu, for which you like to create a set of production and posting documents. The different Documents can be defined on the correspondent area. Option <all

postings>

creates all sets in one step. Each set is stored in a separate ZIP archive.

In the Output you have to specify the directory for the storage of the created documents. You can use the file prefix to head each ZIP archive file name with this string.

6.9. Mail merge (IPM)

on page 238

178

6.10. Mail merge (Word)

on page 303

6.11. Address export

on page 312

6 Results menu

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7 Analysis menu

7. Analysis menu

7.1. Project statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

7.1.1.

General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

7.1.2.

Address import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

7.1.3.

Address check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

7.1.4.

Duplicate search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

7.1.5.

Item properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

7.1.6.

Production properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

7.1.7.

Payment method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

7.1.8.

Gross charge

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

7.1.9.

Discount . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

7.1.10. Net charge

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

7.1.11. Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

7.1.12. Data exchange Deutsche Post . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

7.2. Address spread by ZIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

7.3. Address spread by cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

7.4. Spread by provinces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

7.5. Spread by Nielsen regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

7.6. Address spread by routing regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

7.7. Address spread by routing zones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

7.8. Address spread by countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

7.9. Map Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

This menu offers statistical information on your project and on the processed addresses.

7.1. Project statistics

The project statistics will show you a summary of all results provided by Infopost-Manager for the current project and all the information you have provided on the items, on production and on the payment method in a compressed format.

Furthermore, Infopost-Manager calculates the average costs per item in this project which will be shown in this list.

More detailed information on the additional options available in this preview are part of chapter Print

Preview

(on page 404).

7.1.1

General

This block shows the project name, the description, the text of the Info field (q.v. Project properties

(on page 41)) and further information on the current project properties.

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7 Analysis menu

7.1.2

Address import

This table briefly summarizes all results after importing addresses.

It shows both the source files from which the addresses were taken and detailed information on how many addresses have been imported, how they are spread across Germany and foreign countries and the respective quota of postally correct addresses. The number of addresses not imported is also stated.

7.1.3

Address check

This table contains all results of the address check.

You will see

• how many addresses comply to the postal regulations after the check,

• how many corrections were made manually, automatically or by Thesaurus,

• in how many addresses the spelling was changed,

• how many addresses are still partly or completely incorrect even after the check, and

• how many of the recipients are abroad.

181

7.1.4

Duplicate search

You will see in this list

• how many duplicate groups were found in the current address file,

• how many duplicates were identified within these groups, and

• the quota of removed duplicates.

7 Analysis menu

7.1.5

Item properties

The project statistics reflect the information you provided on the item:

Format, weight, thickness, content and franking type are stated; furthermore, the item distribution to Infopost and remaining items and the respective charges and descriptions per category are given.

7.1.6

Production properties

All production information of the current project which you provided during preparation will be summarized here.

You will see e.g. the values for tray or bundle properties, filling amounts, tray resp. bundle quantity per pallet or routing district optimization.

7.1.7

Payment method

This information on how the charge of the current project is to be invoiced is taken from the data which you provided during preparation.

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7 Analysis menu

7.1.8

Gross charge

The project statistics show the details on how the charge for the current project is composed.

The table shows the charges for the two categories Infopost and remaining items calculated based on the information per item, the exact item quantity per category, any extra items (see below) required in order to achieve the minimum quantity required for Infopost, and the resulting costs.

An example will clarify the advantage of extra items:

A mailshot with addresses distributed all over Germany consists of 3,500 items. Since the regulations of

Deutsche Post AG for Infopost, however, require at least 4,000 items, you would have to pay the letter mail charge of EUR 0.55, i.e. a total charge of EUR 1,925. If, however, you add 500 virtual ”extra items”, you will pay the reduced charge for Infopost of 4,000 x EUR 0.25 = EUR 1,000.

7.1.9

Discount

Within bundle resp. tray production and pallet production, Deutsche Post grants production rebates for Infopost items depending on the preliminary processing in production. The following applies to such production rebates:

If you only use Germany trays and Germany pallets, you may simplify the production but at the same time will lose the possibility of a discount, which will only be granted if routing region resp. ZIP trays and routing zone resp. routing region pallets are produced.

Infopost-Manager’s default settings ensures that the production rebates are used to the best. In menu item Preparation - Production properties you can regulate the number of trays which will have to be produced. Depending on theses settings, you may simplify production but will get less discounts, or you may receive higher discounts but will also have to deal with a higher production complexity.

If you use the franking mark (ZL), which is possible from 4,000 effective items in combination with data exchange, you will also be given an additional discount.

The project statistics show in detail the rebates percentage for each production type, if applicable, and the corresponding item quantity. In addition to that, the totals of the various rebates and the grand total, which will be deducted from the charge, are listed here.

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7 Analysis menu

7.1.10

Net charge

This table shows the charge after deduction of the discounts. At the same time, Infopost-Manager calculates the average costs per item.

7.1.11

Production

The left table shows numbers of produced trays separated into the targets ZIP, routing region and

Germany while the right table shows the numbers of produced pallets separated into the targets routing region, routing zone or Germany.

7.1.12

Data exchange Deutsche Post

The table shows whether or not data have been exchanged (on page 158) with the Deutsche Post

server. If yes, the exact time and date is listed as well as the transferred numbers.

7.2. Address spread by ZIP

This lists gives a compilation of the used addresses grouped by ZIPs.

Unused addresses might be e.g. manually ignored during duplicate search or in the address management or were classified as postally incorrect by the address check.

You see the number of addresses belonging to a specific ZIP. The geographic distribution within

Germany is shown by the Map Tool (on page 191).

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7 Analysis menu

The spread by ZIP can be printed or exported.

Further information on Preview, Print options and Export can be found in chapters Preview und Print

Change the column width by navigating the mouse to the right column border until the mouse arrow changes to . Now drag the column to the desired width.

By right-clicking the column header you can change the Column layout and Optimize column width

Germany is shown by the Map Tool (on page 191).

7.3. Address spread by cities

This lists gives a compilation of the used addresses grouped by cities.

Unused addresses might be e.g. manually ignored during duplicate search or in the address management or were classified as postally incorrect by the address check.

You see the number of addresses belonging to a specific city. The geographic distribution within

185

7 Analysis menu

The spread by cities can be printed or exported.

Further information on Preview, Print options and Export can be found in chapters Preview und Print

Change the column width by navigating the mouse to the right column border until the mouse arrow changes to . Now drag the column to the desired width.

By right-clicking the column header you can change the Column layout and Optimize column width

7.4. Spread by provinces

This lists gives a compilation of the used addresses grouped by provinces.

Unused addresses might be e.g. manually ignored during duplicate search or in the address management or were classified as postally incorrect by the address check.

You see the number of addresses belonging to a specific province.

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7 Analysis menu

The spread by provinces can be printed or exported.

Further information on Preview, Print options and Export can be found in chapters Preview und Print

Change the column width by navigating the mouse to the right column border until the mouse arrow changes to . Now drag the column to the desired width.

By right-clicking the column header you can change the Column layout and Optimize column width

7.5. Spread by Nielsen regions

This lists gives a compilation of the used addresses grouped by Nielsen regions.

Unused addresses might be e.g. manually ignored during duplicate search or in the address management or were classified as postally incorrect by the address check.

You see the number of addresses belonging to a specific Nielsen regions.

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7 Analysis menu

The spread by Nielsen regions can be printed or exported.

Further information on Preview, Print options and Export can be found in chapters Preview und Print

Change the column width by navigating the mouse to the right column border until the mouse arrow changes to . Now drag the column to the desired width.

By right-clicking the column header you can change the Column layout and Optimize column width

within Germany is shown by the Map Tool (on page 191).

7.6. Address spread by routing regions

This lists gives a compilation of the used addresses grouped by routing regions.

Unused addresses might be e.g. manually ignored during duplicate search or in the address management or were classified as postally incorrect by the address check.

You see the number of addresses belonging to a specific routing region. The geographic distribution

188

7 Analysis menu

The spread by routing regions can be printed or exported.

Further information on Preview, Print options and Export can be found in chapters Preview und Print

Change the column width by navigating the mouse to the right column border until the mouse arrow changes to . Now drag the column to the desired width.

By right-clicking the column header you can change the Column layout and Optimize column width

within Germany is shown by the Map Tool (on page 191).

7.7. Address spread by routing zones

This lists gives a compilation of the used addresses grouped by routing zones.

Unused addresses might be e.g. manually ignored during duplicate search or in the address management or were classified as postally incorrect by the address check.

You see the number of addresses belonging to a specific routing zone. The geographic distribution

189

7 Analysis menu

The spread by routing zones can be printed or exported.

Further information on Preview, Print options and Export can be found in chapters Preview und Print

Change the column width by navigating the mouse to the right column border until the mouse arrow changes to . Now drag the column to the desired width.

By right-clicking the column header you can change the Column layout and Optimize column width

7.8. Address spread by countries

This lists gives a compilation of the used addresses grouped by countries.

All used addresses in your project are grouped by countries. For each entry, the respective country is given as well as its ISO code and the item quantity (separated in total, used and unused).

Unused addresses might be e.g. manually ignored during duplicate search or in the address management or were classified as postally incorrect by the address check.

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7 Analysis menu

The spread by countries can be printed or exported.

Further information on Preview, Print options and Export can be found in chapters Preview und Print

Change the column width by navigating the mouse to the right column border until the mouse arrow changes to . Now drag the column to the desired width.

By right-clicking the column header you can change the Column layout and Optimize column width