Features and Enhancements Supported in this Release

New features summarized below, see the Version 4.1.000 release notes for details

Enhanced Support of US Postal Service (USPS) Carrier

Flagship now supports the following updated and additional USPS services, forms, and nomenclature:

•Parcel Select – Parcel Select is a Destination Entry Parcel Post service that offers additional discounted rates for palletized Parcel Post shipments delivered to a USPS-specified Distribution Center and addressed for delivery within that Center's service area.

•Electronic Verification System (eVS) – eVS is an electronic manifest system that allows mailers to document and pay postage and extra service fees by transmitting electronic files to the Postal Service without generating paper manifests or postage statements.

•Cubic pricing – Cubic pricing is a volume-based pricing system available to large-volume Commercial Plus Priority Mail shippers. Charges are calculated on a combination of cubic measurement and zone.

•Concatenated Integrated Barcode – This limited format contains only the standard PIC for tracking and the postal routing code, plus the term "ZIP" is printed on the barcode label as part of the human-readable portion.

•Support for May 2010 compliance changes – Service names and USPS form-based reports are updated to reflect the change in terminology from Bulk Mail Center (BMC) to National Distribution Center (NDC).

Enhancements to Group Shipping

The following enhancements to Group Shipping are included in this release:

•Group transactions are now more efficient. Flagship now processes the entire group as a unit where previously each shipment within a group was processed separately, resulting in some performance issues.

•Improvements in group shipment functionality for the user are as follows:
- The user can now track the status of group shipment processing with a progress bar that Flagship automatically displays when a group shipment is executed. Note that, although the Flagship menus are still active during this process, users should not attempt to use them. This is a known issue to be addressed in a future release.
- After completing a group shipment, Flagship displays a window with the following information about the shipment: Company Name,  Tracking Number, and a Success or Error flag.

Enhancements to Batch Shipping

The following enhancements to Batch Shipping are included in this release:

•Batch transactions are now more efficient. Flagship now processes the entire batch as a unit where previously each shipment within a batch was processed separately, resulting in some performance issues.

•Improvements in batch shipment functionality for the user are as follows:
- When the user performs a search in the From Batch screen, the Search screen now provides a [SHIP] so that the user can select a batch, and then Ship the batch directly from the Search screen.
- The user can now track the status of batch shipment processing with a progress bar that Flagship automatically displays when a batch shipment is executed. Note that, although the Flagship menus are still active during this process, users should not attempt to use them. This is a known issue to be addressed in a future release.

Enhancements to the Corporate Address Book

The following enhancements to the Corporate Address Book are included in this release:

•Users can now access addresses for the Corporate Address Book from two different external data sources. (Previously, all corporate addresses needed to be stored in a single database.) This enables customers to use a native address database without first importing it into the Flagship corporate database. Supported formats include the following: Access, MySQL, Excel, CSV, and Text.

•This enhanced functionality also enables users to specify separate data sources for separate types of addresses; for example: individual addresses and group addresses, as well as to produce SQL queries from within the Flagship UI to create, map, and search databases for addresses and groups or use predefined queries for these tasks.

Enhancements to the Address Book UI (Personal and Global Address Books)

The following enhancements to Batch shipping are included in this release:

•Users can now add addresses when creating an Address Group (Previously, the user first had to create and save the Address Group, and then add existing addresses to it.)

•Users can now add groups to both the Personal and Global Address Books. (Previously, users could add groups only to the Personal Address Book.)

•Users can now add or update addresses to both the Personal and Global Address Books from the Warehouse screen.

•Users can now delete multiple selected addresses from the Address book in a single operation.

•The Address Book now provides an option to delete addresses after exporting them.

•Multiple groups can now be deleted in a single operation.

Enhancements to Integration Adapter (IAServer) Process Flow

The following enhancements to IAServer process now are included in this release:

•The IAServer is now configured to process parallel transactions (threads) simultaneously and to prioritize these operations for enhanced performance. (Previously, the IAServer handled only a single transaction at a time sequentially without prioritizing transactions.) The user can also configure the number of simultaneous transactions that the IAServer handles.

•The IAServer now logs failed requests in a way that facilitates correction and resubmission of these requests.

Miscellaneous Enhancements

•Performance improvements are made to From Hold functionality

•If the user retrieves package weight from a scale for the value of the Piece Weight field on the Warehouse screen, this field now displays continuous scale weight readings.