posted on July 3, 2007 09:05:41 AM new
Hi, what do I need to do to have Vendio default to the First Class Mail non-Machineable rate without delivery confirmation for one of my items?
I have tried listing it as package type "large envelope" and "envelope" and it always prints out as a 2 oz FCM Parcel instead of a 2 oz FCM flat. This is costing me about $.50 extra per item!
I am exporting my shipping in XML and printing through Dazzle.
I double checked some of the exported data from Vendio, and the <PackageType> data being exported appears to conform with the Dazzle specified requirements for the formatting of this field.
Are you finding that once imported into Dazzle, that the program just defaults to the package type as 'Package (rectangular)' regardless of how you had it setup? (something I ran into now when testing, just waiting to hear back from Dazzle on it.)
posted on July 3, 2007 10:39:37 AM new
Yes, it does that when I print one label manually. I am doing a bulk export and these items are mixed in with Priority Mail. I am not really able to see what Dazzle does when I print from the exported file. It would be nice to know how to change this either in Vendio or Dazzle.
When you export just one item from that page, then import the file, you can make the change, as well as review the data that has been imported.
This is how I was able to see that Dazzle was defaulting all package types to that 'Package (rectangular)' regardless of how you had it setup in the XML file.
Try doing just one at a time for right now to see how Dazzle is importing that data. You can check the package type that was exported by simply opening that XML file in Internet Explorer and looking for the <PackageType> field. The exported XML file appears to formatted correctly, and im not sure (yet) why Dazzle isn't factoring in this information properly. (waiting to hear back)
Regards,
Christopher
They did finally call back (literally just a moment ago) and I need to clarify just a few things before replying. We should have more information available for you later this afternoon.
Thank you for your patience while we check into this with Endicia.
UPDATE: I haven't heard back yet while trying to clarify a few issues with their Dazzle program. We will as soon as we have more information available. (the rep we worked with did admit a little issue in the program, but we should have a workaround for you shortly.)
Regards,
Christopher
[ edited by ChristopherCS on Jul 5, 2007 04:17 PM ]
Ok, I did hear back from the Dazzle engineer just now. Here is what they said regarding the usage of Delivery Confirmation (DC):
"The current DC setting in DAZzle when the XML file is executed is used if the XML file does not set it. This usually means the layout settings will apply. In the rare case the layout does not have a DC setting explicitly used (this is hard to do) it will be whatever was set last in DAZzle. If the user picks this on the print window that will apply – but ONLY if no other setting impacts the DC setting (like using an address or mail class that is incompatible).
If they do not specify a value in XML you can not easily predict the results."
Since Delivery Confirmation isn't being specified in your exported XML file, the Dazzle software will default to showing the last known/used option when you printed from the Dazzle program. Given what the engineer mentioned above, you would want to run through a manual printing of postage (you could probably just do a test and then cancel) where you don't enable the DC option. This way the next time you print from an external file where the value for DC isn't specified, the program will default to this last know/used option.
posted on July 9, 2007 04:58:58 PM new
I don't quite understand what you mean. 99% of my items ship via Priority Mail WITH delivery confirmation. I need to be able to print an XML batch that is mixed Priority Mail and the First Class Flats.
From what they are stating, that won't be possible. Since there is no delivery confirmation option in Vendio, we don't specify if the item should have it or not during the exporting of the XML file.
Since that value is missing, Dazzle uses whatever was last used in the program in regards to delivery confirmation. You can override what comes up prior to printing if you do them one at a time, but in a batch all of the items would use the same value unless otherwise specified in the exported XML data (which is isn't at this time.)
We'll pass along a suggestion on your behalf to create a new shipping tool that would somehow allow sellers to designate the DC option for each item at some point in the post sale process (any suggestions?)
The only workaround would be to manually edit the XML file data for each item to add the value required to tell Dazzle if that particular item should be using DC or not.
