Our company is about to start using UPS Mail Innovations for < 1 pound 1st Class mail shipments.
When mapping our Shipping Methods to this service within SuperManager, what is the Ship Class that we should be using for Export. I'm not finding any options that are specific to UPS Mail Innovations (nothing in the UPS options, nor anything in the Endicia/Dazzle options). Since our XML data would be sent to UPS, I'm it should be under this shipping method. (I see a Standard option, but I'm guessing that is not what I want.)
Is UPS Mail Innovations offered? And if so, how should it be set-up?
Thanks!
Jeff,
UPS Mail Innovations is not currently supported. We could add this in an upcoming release. I'm just curious...what is the advantage of using mail innovations vs. using Dazzle for USPS packages?
Thanks,
David
Hi David,
It really stems from the amount of issues we were having with our SuperManager / Dazzle interface (I'm pretty sure it was/is all on Dazzle/Endicias end).
When we were having those issues, we started exploring a solution from UPS that would allow us to still ship <1 pound packages (without all of the issues that Dazzle/Endicia was causing us) at a similar price point.
Dazzle/Endicia is now working better for us most days, but the benefits of UPS Mail Innovations (for us) is:
- Competitive (Potentially Better) Rates.
- No previous issues with Bulk Label creation (this is for UPS, we anticipate the same with UPS Mail Innovations)
- Consolidate interface/business with one 3rd Party vendor
None of these are critical (As long as we are not having issues with USPS). Still, it would always be nice to have this option available if for some reason USPS/Dazzle was no longer an option and/or their systems were down.... And we *had* to make a quick change.
Consider it a nice-to-have... at some point.
Jeff,
That will now be available in the next beta release, which will be 1.6.1.8. I expect it to go out next week. One way you could help speed up the release is to give us a WorldShip output file or two to test. To do this, you would need to go through the WorldShip exchange process manually rather than using the XML exchange. This is done through the following:
- Right click on the order to send to WorldShip and choose "Export", "WorldShip XML" and save that file to the location that the WorldShip auto XML import is monitoring
- Wait for WorldShip to finish its processing
- Go to the directory where the XML auto import is watching and find the file sm-worldship.out and email that file to me
- Go back to SuperManager and choose "File", "Import", "Shipments", "WorldShip XML" and choose that .out file
The XML exchange process you usually use in SuperManager erases this file after importing it so we need to manually perform the exchange to grab the output file.
I have a couple of output files, but they are from WorldShip 10 or 11 so I want to make sure everything is up to date.
Thanks,
David
Hi David,
One piece of clarification. You ask "One way you could help speed up the release is to give us a WorldShip output file or two to test. "
What should be contained within this WorldShip output file? Is it our USPS 1st Class Mail items that we want to transition over to UPS Mail Innovations? Or, is it our normal UPS products (which only contain products > 2 pounds?).
** We do not currently have UPS Mail Innovations set-up. So all of our lighter items are still going out via 1st Class Mail.
Thanks in advance for the additional info.
Jeff,
I just need some sample output files for WorldShip. They don't have to be any particular ship method.
Thanks,
David
Thanks. I'll see if we can get you something tomorrow.
Test File emailed. Let me know if you have any questions / concerns.
Jeff,
The version that supports the Mail Innovations classes has been released as beta 1.6.1.8. Please give it a try and let me know how it works.
Thanks,
David
Will do. We held off implementing UPS Mail Innovations with UPS (since the method was not available in SM). Now that it is available, we will proceed with setting up our UPS account.
It may be 1 to 2 weeks before we are set-up & processing/testing.
Thanks for adding this!
Hi,
We are testing UPS Mail Innovations. We are currently running into this error (image attached) during the XML exchange with World Ship. We have tried adjusting the product weights to see if that is makes a difference...., but still receive this error when we have weights (default: pounds) of 0.25 & 1.5
Let me know if you need additional information.
Jeff,
Which type of packaging are you using? I noticed that it says that the "Weight" element is not required for "Envelope" packaging. I wonder if you specify envelope and a weight it not only is not required, but also not allowed.
Thanks,
David
Hi David,
For our test, our method is mapped to "Package". (As we aren't necessarily sending out envelopes, but instead it is plastic mailer bags). Can we use "envelope" in these scenarios? (We will most likely test this to see what happens and I'll let you know)
When we spoke to our UPS MI rep, they indicated that WorldShip should receive the product as type "irregular" (at least for the package scenarios we are shipping). I don't think this is currently an option in SM. (Not sure if it has to be this, but it is what our UPS MI had mentioned to us).
Oh. And just an FYI. Our Rep told us to map everything as Expedited Mail Innovations. (He provided the reason to our Order Manager, but I don't recall what it was.)
Jeff,
I would think you would want to use the "Package" type. However, I have seen a few things that said you should use "Irregular". The problem is, UPS doesn't document how to set the package type to "Irregular". Can you ask your rep what the two letter/digit code would be for "Irregular"?
Thanks,
David