Step-By-Step Guide

IQ Easy Post Web is a web-based barcoding solution. It provides everything required for the processing and barcoding of address lists to get the maximum PreSort mailing discounts. You do not need to install, update or maintain any software. To use IQ Easy Post Web, you should be comfortable with using the Internet, extracting data from your database, as well as performing mail merges and printing labels. Please follow the step by step instructions set out below. Click on the links for more detail.

Please make sure you have read Australia Post's PreSort Service Guide and understand how our service is able to fulfill your barcoding needs.

1. Purchase an IQ Easy Post Web subscription.
2. Download and install the 4-State Barcoding Font For PC or For Mac.
3. Convert your data to a delimited text format and save as a file on your hard disk.
   Please note that any Word or Excel documents will need to be converted to a text-delimited format prior to processing.
4. You will first need to upload the file to the server. At the top of the IQ Easy Post Web screen, beside Upload New File, click on the Browse button and find the file with your data.
5. Click on the Upload File button ONCE and wait until the the file has been uploaded.
6. To customise the behaviour and output of IQ EasyPost Web, go to the bottom of the screen and modify the Advanced Options.
7. Now, select the file you have just uploaded from a list of files labelled Existing File (just above Advanced Options) and click on Process. Our server processes roughly 250 records per second.
8. When the processing has finished, the Status should specify how many records were processed. The output files will appear in a separate table just below the input files.
9. If the output files don't seem to appear on the screen, you may need to press the Refresh Status button. If an error occurred during the processing, and the Process button is disabled (grey), click on the Reset Status button.
10. You can download each file separately by clicking on the links, or download just the AllOutput.ZIP file, which contains all the files in one archive. Use a program like WinZip to extract all the files. Note: Macintosh users do NOT have such an application installed by default.
11. Import the relevant output file(s) back into your database and then perform your mail merge as usual.
12. To process another file, repeat steps 3 - 7. To re-process a file you have already uploaded, select the file from the Existing File list and click on Process. Note: Each time you process a new file, your output directory gets cleared.

Uploading Files

At the top of the screen, just under Select File Source, there will be a text box labelled Upload New File. You can click on the browse button to quickly locate the file on your hard drive, or you may specify the filename in the text box. Click on the Upload File button to begin uploading. Status of the upload is shown in the Status Bar of your browser (bottom right).

This file will now appear in a table labelled Input Files. How to Process the File.

Note: Files in the input and output directories are automatically overwritten!

Valid File Formatting

You are allowed to upload any 'delimited' text files (ie. COMMA, TAB, SEMICOLON) or ZIP files containing such delimited text files. The TAB delimiter is most commonly used. Excel spreadsheets, Word documents and MS Access databases are not of an acceptable file format. You must use the export features of your database/spreadsheet program to convert the files into one of the above text delimited formats.

See Exporting Data Examples.

When exporting, you can include all your non-address fields. They will be output, untouched, in the order they appear in your database. It is strongly advised, that address fields be in their natural order (ie. Address Line 1, Address Line 2, Locality, State, Post Code, Country) so that they can be easily detected by the File Formatting component of IQ Easy Post Web.
Note: 1. In your data file, please remember not to leave any blank lines before the field names. 2. Make sure that only the PostCode data has 4 digits so that it is not ambiguous.

If you upload an archive (in ZIP, GZ, TAR, or BIN format), its contents will be extracted into your input directory upon arrival (displayed in the first table) and the archive itself will be deleted. If only one file was compressed in the archive, it will automatically be processed by IQ Easy Post Web and output files will be placed in your output directory (displayed in the second table).

Downloading Files

To download a file, whether it be from your input or output directory, right-click on the filename and select Save Target As... (in Internet Explorer) or Save Link As... (in Netscape). Mac users should just click on the file link. A download window should pop up. Browse for a suitable download location and click Save.

The amended version of the original input file is always called Output.txt, and the archive containing all output files for this session is called AllOutput.ZIP.
See also: Understanding the Output.

If additional sorting files and/or reports were selected in the advanced options, then they will be output as well.

Reports:


• AddressMatchingSummaryReport.htm - HTML version of the Address Matching Summary (processing results)
• AddressMatchingSummaryReport.txt - Text version of the Address Matching Summary
• LodgementInfo.htm - HTML version of the Lodgement Information (distribution of mail into trays)
• LodgementInfo.txt - Text version of the Lodgement Information
• ManifestReport.csv - Comma Delimited (text) version of the Manifest Report (tray distribution by state)
• ManifestReport.htm - HTML version of the Manifest Report
• ManifestReport.txt - Text version of the Manifest Report

Sort Level:


• BDT_Output.txt - Delimited text output of Barcoded Direct Trays
• BR_Output.txt - Delimited text output of Barcoded Residue Trays
• UR_Output.txt - Delimited text output of Unbarcoded Trays

State:


• STATE_Output.txt - One delimited text output file for each state

Processing Files

To process or re-process a file that you have uploaded to the server, select the filename from the drop-down list labelled Existing File (above the Advanced Options). Fill in all the necessary options in the Advanced Options section, and click on Process File. Note: Every time you process an address file, your output directory is cleared! So, you are only able to process one file at a time!

Advanced Options
The Advanced Options section is located at the bottom of the screen.

The following information will appear on the Manifest and Processing Summary reports when processing is finished:

• Customer Name - name of Customer, to appear on Manifest Report
• Job Number - Processing job number (if applicable)
• List Name - Name of address list to be processed
• List Owner - Name of the owner of this address list (company or individual)
• List Processor - Person doing the processing on behalf of the List Owner

• Sort Level, BSP - sort in the order of a Sort Level and Barcoded Sort Plan
• Preserve Original Order

• Processing Summary and Manifest - produce both, Manifest and Processing Summary reports
• Processing Summary - a summary of output results and address list information
• Manifest Report - report summarising records barcoded and trays produced
• No reports

Deleting Files

To delete a single file, simply click on the Delete button beside its name.

To delete all the files in a specified directory, click on Delete All, located at the bottom right of the input and output file tables.

Note: there are no confirmation message for file deletion! Deleted files cannot be undeleted!

Refreshing and Resetting the Status

Because browsers tend to write web pages to the disk cache, it is a common problem that the page would not refresh its contents properly. The Refresh Status button located at the bottom-left of the screen will reload the page (on some browsers this may need to be done twice).

The Reset Status button resets the current processing status to Idle.... This is sometimes necessary if your processing has terminated abnormally. You are only able to process files when the status does not signify that a process is still running.

Understanding the Output

Once you have downloaded the Output.txt file to your hard drive, you would have noticed that some of your original field names may have been renamed, and other fields were appended to the original file.

• IQ_address1, IQ_address2, IQ_address3 - represent the 3 address lines.
• IQ_locality, IQ_state, IQ_postcode - the remaining address.
• IQ_bsp - a numeric code (between 1 and 54) representing the Barcode Sort Plan. Letters with the same BSP are placed in the same delivery tray.
• IQ_barcode37 - a string of 37 digits representing the barcode. These digits are converted into a barcode by applying the IQ 4-State Barcode Font to them.
• IQ_flagString - a single letter flag representing the success or failure of barcoding the address. 0 = Correct, 4 = Amended, X = Not Matched.

Mail Merge and Barcode Font

Everyone does their mail merging slightly differently - some print labels, others write letters. Whichever method you use, make sure you follow the standard layout:

• 4-State Barcode
• Name of Person or Company (optional)
• Address1 Address2 Address3
• Locality State PostCode
• Country (optional)

Barcode Font

The barcode field in your mail merge program will initially appear as a number. You will need to manually select the barcode field and apply the Intech IQ 4-State Barcode font to it. The font size to use also has its restrictions: when printed, the width of the barcode should be between 37.0mm and 42.2mm, preferred size is 39.6mm. On a PC with Windows, 18pt font size would probably be sufficient. Would be different on other systems. You will need to do a test print to make sure that it fits to the standard, otherwise it will not be accepted by Australia Post!