In the Postal Bulletin 22641 Jan 11, 2024, the USPS decided that flats in trays now must be all bundled or no bundling at all:
Effective January 21, 2024, the Postal Service™ will revise Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM®), parts 207, 245, and 705, to reflect minor changes related to Periodicals and USPS Marketing Mail® flat-tray preparation and to Bound Printed Matter flats comailing requirements. These revisions are effective January 21, 2024.
Bundling in flat trays is optional, and any bundles must be trayed and labeled separately from loose flats prepared in flat trays.
Currently, the default in MailStream Plus 8.4.6 is to have loose flats(unbundled) and bundled flats in the same tray. This is controlled by the ALG BL parameter, position 24:
Define when to Bundle Periodical Flats in Flat Trays:
X Bundle the mail only if the bundle would be more finely.
A Always Bundle the mail.
Blank Default is X.
Precisely is working on an update to remove the ability to mix loose pieces and bundles in trays. With this update MailStream Plus will always bundle the mail. Until this update is available, please add the following:
....+....1....+....2....+....3....+....4....+....5....+....6....+....7..
ALG BL A
This will prepare the Flats mailing per the newly updated standard.
Please reach out to Technical Support if there are any questions.
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David Propst
Precisely Software Inc.
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