ACS Update

ACS (Address Change Service) is a USPS program that provides businesses with information relating to their undeliverable mail. As part of this program, a participant can be sent a file with undeliverable customers. This includes both customers who have had a change of address (“COAs”), and customers living at invalid addresses (“nixies”).

If your newspaper is part of this program, you can use this option to import the ACS undeliverable file provided to you by the USPS into Circulation, creating temporary stops for subscribers that have moved or who live at undeliverable addresses. In order to qualify for an undeliverable file, your mail labels must have the subscription ID print in the ACS Keyline position (this can be done with Label Designer). The subscription ID of undeliverable subscribers is then passed back in the ACS file. More information about the ACS program can be found by contacting the USPS.

The ACS Update will:

• Import the ACS undeliverable file and match the subscription ID with a subscription in Circulation.

• Create a temporary stop for all subscribers matched, unless a future temporary stop has already been entered.

• Update a demographic specified by the user.

• Print any errors to a processing report.

To import an ACS undeliverable file:

• Select ACS Update from the Subscription/Address menu to display the Address Change Service Report/Update screen.

  
• Select Add and complete the following fields.

  Field	Type	What to enter
  FILE NAME	open (20)	Enter the file name of your ACS file. The file must be placed in the /dti/exchange/cm directory; see Appendix B for the format.
  REPORT ONLY	yes/no	ACS Update can be run in a report-only mode (no temp stops will be created and no demographics will be updated). If you only want to create the report, enter “y” here.
  EFFECTIVE DATE	date	Enter the date for which to create temporary stops and update demographics.
  SOURCE	setup	Enter a source code for the ACS update.
  REASON	setup	Enter a reason code for the ACS update. This reason code will be used with any temporary stop transactions created by it.
  OCCUPANT DEMOGRAPHIC	setup	Enter the ID of the occupant demographic that should be updated as part of this process.
  DEMOGRAPHIC ANSWER	setup	Enter the answer that should be updated with the demographic. Subscribers that are matched by the update will receive this answer to the demographic question above.

• Select Continue to import the ACS file. After processing is completed, a report will list the number of records imported and other information about the process (for example, subscribers who already had future temp stops will be listed).