BCC Software Launched The Integratec API Platform

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Last week, BCC Software launched the Integratec API Platform, a first-of-its-kind way to integrate postal mailing software with other parts of the direct mailing process. We sat down with President, Chris Lien to learn more.

Q: Chris, you’ve recently released the Integratec API Platform; what are the main benefits of using it?

A: Integratec is a true API platform that allows our customers to expand their workflow automation opportunities. It’s an extensible platform that can satisfy today’s needs as well as enable expansion for tomorrow’s opportunities. Included with this initial launch of Integratec is an Essentials component, which provides extract, transform and load (ETL) functionality — so it is going to pull in and rationalize that data from numerous sources and formats making the data accessible to the platform for a multitude of capabilities – and a Reporting module, which provides both data output and reporting capabilities to understand and report on how the data was improved and leveraged within Integratec.
Included in this initial launch of Integratec is the Presort module. We chose Presort for a number of important reasons.

First – our customers are continually seeking new opportunities to improve workflow automation in mail preparation. This is in the wake of the US Postal Service rationalizing their network, right-sizing it if you will, based on mail volume and type-of-use of mail and in turn opening improved mail preparation, induction, and handling efficiencies. Integratec also provides our partners the opportunity to strategically integrate the Integratec Presort capabilities into their existing workflows providing new growth opportunities for them and their customers.

Our partners have told us there’s really no true Presort API available in the market, and so with Integratec, we’re able to bring something to the market that satisfies the need – which is primarily mail preparation – in a very opaque manner. For example, partners that want to integrate mail preparation as part of their overall document composition, printing, or finishing production solution, Integratec Presort gives them the opportunity to seamlessly and easily embed that capability into their solution without the end customer having to install multiple applications or deal with file transferring. It becomes a seamless solution that is essentially opaque to the end customer. That’s important to our partners. They want to own the relationship, so we can now provide this to them as a true OEM-type toolkit. It’s a reflection of what we’ve heard from the market.

The Integratec API Platform is the only available PAVE™ certified API using the secure messaging layer, ZeroMQ™ with the CurveZMQ protocol, enabling Integratec to pass even the most stringent security requirements for mailers in industries like healthcare and finance. The PAVE (Presort Accuracy, Validation, and Evaluation) program, designed in cooperation with the mailing industry, aims to evaluate presort software and determine its accuracy in sorting address files according to Domestic Mail Manuel (DMM®) standards. Without PAVE certification, mailers cannot access the workshare discounts offers by the USPS®.

One of the other differentiators with Integratec is its security. Because we are using ZeroMQ™ security protocols, we’re confident that we’ve launched to the market something that is unlike anything else in terms of security, extensible and integration capabilities.

Q: What kind of feedback are you getting from your beta users?

A: A couple things we’ve certainly heard from the early users is that this validates exactly what they were looking for. They were pleased with the ZeroMQ™ security – that immediately put them at ease – that we had built a platform with the latest in data security, which is top-of-mind of many of our customers and partners. They appreciated that it’s a true API, .NET capable, so it’ll be easy for them to integrate. It’s also familiar enough with what they are doing right now, so many of our beta customers can pick this up and use it immediately and see it as a complimentary technology to what they already have from BCC Software.

Q: Could you explain the function and advantages of your BCC Mail Manager™?

A: BCC Mail Manager is an interactive complete mailing solution. It includes data import and constructs, address quality, matching and consolidation capabilities, presorting, and label generation. It’s really everything that you would need from beginning to end to produce a USPS®-certified mailing that results in the lowest possible postage. With Integratec, what we did was take BCC Mail Manager and de-couple it into its core components – address quality, presort, reports and label generation –and make those components available as objects within the Integratec API platform. BCC Software already has an API for address quality, ZIPFOURce™ and we have a Datavolve™ solution that they can integrate into their application.

Q: What are your plans for next six months?

A: We’re to going to continue to build out the Integratec platform on two levels. First, we’re going to take the beta feedback from our customers to continue to enhance the presort module to address the predominant needs. Second, we’re going to be simultaneously expanding the platform. Our focus will be giving our customers and partners access to the broadest number of address and data quality services available of any software provider in the industry.

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