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Mail tracking: IV-MTR, IMb Tracing and Informed Delivery

Mailers track letters, flats and their containers in Informed Visibility Mail Tracking & Reporting, IV-MTR, a free USPS application built on scan data. Its logical delivery events show, in near real time, when pieces reach the recipient. Informed Delivery shows consumers images of their letter mail before it arrives, and mailers can add images and a link.

Updated November 5, 202680 sources

Questions

What is USPS Informed Visibility Mail Tracking?

Informed Visibility Mail Tracking & Reporting, IV-MTR, is a free USPS application that gives mailers near real-time tracking data for domestic-bound mail. It tracks letters and flats at all levels, from each piece to the container that holds it, using scan data. International-bound and package tracking data is not in IV-MTR.

How do you track a USPS Intelligent Mail barcode?

A mailer queries a single Intelligent Mail barcode through the IV-MTR API, which returns the piece's attributes and handling events. That query needs the full barcode, and a separate query finds a piece from its Mailer ID and serial number. The API holds 30 days of data after the scan, and a one-time query in the IV-MTR web application reaches back 120 days.

How do you track presorted First-Class Mail?

Commercial mailers track barcoded First-Class Mail letters and flats in IV-MTR, with the bundles, trays and containers that hold them. Each piece's Service Type Identifier depends on its mail class, whether it is Full-Service and whether the mailer wants IV-MTR tracking data. Without the mailing's eDoc, its electronic documentation, IV-MTR has only each piece's own scans, not events passed down from trays or generated from business rules.

What is the purpose of USPS Informed Delivery?

Informed Delivery is a free, optional USPS notification service that lets eligible consumers preview their letter-sized mail and manage packages scheduled to arrive soon. USPS images the address side of letters and cards on its automation equipment and shares the images with users before delivery. Mailers can add content to a piece's preview that lets users act on it at once.

Do you have to pay for USPS Informed Delivery?

No: Informed Delivery is free for consumers, and USPS offers mailers its basic campaign functionality for no additional fee. From January 1 to December 31, 2026, the Informed Delivery Add-On/Upgrade Promotion takes an extra one percent off qualifying postage for mailings with Informed Delivery campaigns. To get it, a mailer must already receive an eligible base promotion.

Can you get USPS Informed Delivery for a business or a PO Box?

Yes: Informed Delivery gives eligible residential, business and PO Box consumers digital previews of their mail and lets them manage their packages. Mailers' campaign content reaches users by email notification, on an online dashboard or in the USPS mobile app.

Does Informed Delivery show all mail?

No: a piece appears in Informed Delivery only when it is automation compatible and scanned on USPS automation equipment. Users see grayscale images of letter mail, and a campaign's representative image can take the place of a piece's grayscale image.

What are the Informed Delivery ride-along image specs?

An Informed Delivery ride-along image is a clickable color JPG image in RGB, at most 300 pixels wide, 200 pixels high and 200 KB. Every campaign needs one, and the Informed Delivery API takes it encoded as BASE64. A representative image, required for flats, may be up to 780 by 500 pixels and 200 KB.

How it fits together

Tracking starts with the barcode: an Intelligent Mail barcode is the USPS barcode used to sort and track letters and flats. IV-MTR shows only mail objects that carry one, or an Intelligent Mail tray or container barcode. USPS mail processing machines, handheld scanners and location tracking devices generate scan data as mail moves. IV-MTR turns the scans into handling events at every level, from single pieces to whole containers. Before IV-MTR, IMb Tracing gave mailers piece and bundle data, and PostalOne! gave container and handling unit data.

Mailers get the data by one-time query, by recurring data feed or through the IV-MTR API. Roles set what a user can do, and permissions set whose data the user sees. Both work inside a CRID, the USPS code that identifies a business at a specific location. Data delegation shares data between a company's own CRIDs or with other companies. IV-MTR also passes on data from other USPS systems, such as Mail Quality Data, the error detail behind the Mailer Scorecard.

USPS measures how many days Full-Service mail takes from entry to delivery, against its published service standards. The IV-MTR scan for a container's entry into the USPS network is also the scan for Start-the-Clock, the recorded time a mailpiece enters the mailstream. Service Performance Measurement Mail Exclusions gives Full-Service mailers information and tools on the mail left out.

Informed Delivery turns the images USPS takes of letters on its automation equipment into previews for consumers. Mailers enter campaigns for their pieces by hand in the Mailer Campaign Portal, Informed Delivery's portal for mailers. They can also send campaigns in eDoc or manage them through the Informed Delivery API. IV-MTR carries each campaign's results, such as email opens, click-through rates and delivery dates.

Mail objects and handling events

A mail object is any unit IV-MTR tracks, from a single mailpiece to a container or the transportation that carries it. As USPS processes mailpieces, it nests them in trays and containers, de-nests them and re-nests them. IV-MTR captures these nesting associations to track mail end to end.

A handling event is any change in a mail object's state, such as sorting, scanning or transporting. Each carries a three-digit operation code that names the processing operation behind it. Actual handling events come from physical scans, and assumed ones from nesting associations. A logical handling event is one the system generates from business rules.

Assumed handling events pass one scan to the mail inside: when a tray is scanned, IV-MTR can assume that scan for every piece in it. They depend on the mailer's eDoc for its containers, trays and bundles, and on USPS nesting information for USPS containers and trays.

IV-MTR calculates each piece's Predicted Delivery Date, when it is most likely to go out for delivery, at its first enroute handling event. An enroute event is one outside the destination facility. IV-MTR recalculates the date at each later enroute or destination handling event.

  1. IV-MTR takes the event's date, plus one day if the event came after its operation's clearance cutoff.
  2. For an enroute event, it adds the service standard from that facility to the destination ZIP Code.
  3. It moves the result to the next Postal Service delivery date, if necessary.

At a last processing event in the destination facility, IV-MTR takes the first and last steps and adds no service standard.

A logical out for delivery event shows that a bundle reached the delivery unit, was distributed and is expected to go out for delivery. At the delivery unit, containers with mail for that day's delivery are scanned as Distributed. Bundles that did not go out for delivery that day are scanned as Curtailed. When the unit scans its Inventory Complete barcode, IV-MTR creates the event for each bundle with a Distributed scan but no Curtailed scan.

A logical delivery event, with operation code 517, is an implied delivery. Its time is the moment its trigger occurs. For on-street delivery, the trigger is the carrier's device leaving the geofence for the piece's ZIP+4.

mail object

“Generic term referring to a mailpiece, bundle, handling unit (tray, tub, or sack), container, or transportation”

nesting

“Insertion of smaller mail objects into a larger mail object. The smaller mail objects are then referred to as nested mail objects, while the larger mail object is then referred to as a composite mail object.”

actual handling event

Also called actual scan

“Capture of a scan or other handling of a physical mail object”

operation code

Also called opcode, Scan Event Code

“Each handling event has a three-digit Scan Event Code, or operation code (opcode), that describes the type of processing operation that generated the event.”

Predicted Delivery Date

Also called PDD

“The Predicted Delivery Date (PDD) indicates when a mailpiece is most likely to go out for delivery.”

logical out for delivery event

“A logical out for delivery event indicates that a bundle has arrived and been distributed at the Delivery Unit and is expected to be out for delivery.”

handling event

Also called scan event

“Any change in the state of a mail object including actions such as assembling, processing, sorting, scanning, staging, and transporting. May also be referred to as a scan event.”

assumed handling event

“a system-generated event that is an implied handling of a nested mail object based on a handling event associated to the composite mail object”

logical handling event

“System-generated event for a mail object based on business rules. For example, the system could create a logical handling event for “Out for Delivery” based on an actual handling event of “Arrived at Unit.””

Logical Delivery Events

Also called LDEs

“Implied event indicating when the mailpiece should have been delivered.”

IMb Tracing

IMb Tracing, formerly CONFIRM, was the USPS system that gave mailers automated piece and bundle tracking data. That system is retired, and IV-MTR holds the tracking for pieces, bundles, trays and containers in one application. A one-time query or data feed can still deliver the retired system's format, the IMb Tracing legacy file format, which holds piece data only.

Destination IMb Tracing covered outgoing mail and told a mailer when it would reach its destination. Origin IMb Tracing covered incoming mail, so a business could expect customers' checks, replies or orders. In IV-MTR, a user who checks Include Origin Scans can add a routing code mapped to the mailer's CRID to a query.

The Service Type Identifier, STID, is the barcode field that identifies the services requested on a piece. A mailer picks it by mail class and by the Address Change Service and IV-MTR services it wants. In general, an IV-MTR data feed carries data only for Tracing STIDs, the ones the STID Table lists with IV-MTR. The IV-MTR API returns a piece's data whether or not its STID is a tracing one.

First-Class Mail STIDs with IV-MTR, by option and service level.

Service Type IDentifier (STID) Table, effective January 21, 2024
STIDGroupOptionService levelInformed Visibility Mail Tracking & Reporting
310No Address Corrections – No Printed EndorsementsBasic or NonautomationWith IV® MTR
270No Address Corrections – No Printed EndorsementsFull-ServiceWith IV® MTR
040Manual Corrections **Basic or NonautomationWith IV® MTR
220OneCode ACS®Address Service Requested Opt 1Basic or NonautomationWith IV® MTR
140OneCode ACS®Address Service Requested Opt 2Basic or NonautomationWith IV® MTR
502OneCode ACS®Change Service Requested Opt 1 ♻Basic or NonautomationWith IV® MTR
240OneCode ACS®Change Service Requested Opt 2 ♻Basic or NonautomationWith IV® MTR
340OneCode ACS®Return Service Requested Opt 2Basic or NonautomationWith IV® MTR
344OneCode ACS®Temp-Return Service Requested Opt 2Basic or NonautomationWith IV® MTR
314Full-Service ACS™Address Service Requested Opt 1Full-ServiceWith IV® MTR
141Full-Service ACS™Address Service Requested Opt 2Full-ServiceWith IV® MTR
514Full-Service ACS™Change Service Requested Opt 1 ♻Full-ServiceWith IV® MTR

1 to 12 of 27 codes in the Service Type IDentifier (STID) Table, effective January 21, 2024.

An Origin IMb Tracing barcode need not include a Mailer ID. The mailer identifies each piece with a 15-digit Origin IMb Tracing Customer Number instead. That number may be any digits, even all zeros, if the barcode's STID is associated with Origin IMb Tracing. The barcode's delivery point ZIP Code is the subscriber's ID for Origin IMb Tracing.

Some reply mail STIDs form a group, Reply Mail by ZIP. On a piece with one of these, IV-MTR uses the barcode's routing code to decide who sees the data. It shows the data to the CRIDs associated with that routing code.

Destination IMb Tracing

Also called Destination Confirm

“Destination IMb Tracing is for outgoing mail that gives you advanced information about when you mail will reach its destination.”

Origin IMb Tracing

Also called Origin Confirm

“Origin IMb Tracing for incoming mail lets you anticipate when customers’ checks, replies, or orders are on the way back to you.”

IMb Tracing Legacy File Format

“Legacy IMb Tracing format with pre-defined data fields”

Scan Data

Also called Mail Tracking (Scan) Data, Mail Tracking (Scan)

“mail tracking data that is generated by Postal processing and tracking equipment, including mail processing machines, handheld scanners, and location tracking devices”

Queries, data feeds and the API

A one-time query is an ad hoc search that any IV-MTR user can run, for data up to 120 days old. A data feed is a recurring subscription that sends results at a set interval, from the time it is set up forward. IV-MTR keeps scan-level tracking data for 120 days.

Online View shows a one-time query's results without downloading a file. Online Download makes files and lists them in an output history to download. Send to Address sends a query's files to a server by Secure File Transfer Protocol. IV-MTR can also push data to the mailer's web service, or the web service pulls it. A server or web service must first be in the IV-MTR address book.

A saved report stores a query's whole set of choices, from the entities it covers to the data fields it returns. Mailers reuse saved reports, or saved portions such as entities or data fields, in queries, data feeds and data delegation rules. A public saved report is open to all the owning CRID's IV-MTR users, and a private one only to its maker.

The IV-MTR API connects a mailer's web or mobile applications to near real-time IV-MTR data without the overhead of data feeds. Besides single-barcode and job queries, it lets users with very large data feeds or delegations update them faster. API data is available for 30 days after the scan date. The API processes at most 500 requests a minute for each CRID.

saved report

“a set of entities (CRIDs, MIDs, routing codes, and/or STIDs), mail object and handling event types, filters, and data fields for which to receive data through a one-time query or data feed”

Saved Entity

Also called Saved Entities

“a set of selected CRIDs, MIDs, routing codes, and/or STIDs for which you want to receive mail tracking data”

Saved Filter

“A saved filter is a set of data field filters that limit the mail tracking data returned in a one-time query or data feed or available in a data delegation rule.”

Saved View

“a set of data fields, in a specified order, that you can receive through a one-time query or data feed”

Online View

“allows you to view the results of a one-time query without downloading a file”

Online Download

Also called Prepare for Data Download (Online Download), Data Download

“IV-MTR will display the output files within the IV-MTR application, where you can download them”

Send to Address

“The application prepares a file or files of the query results in your selected format and sends the file to an SFTP server.”

Address Book

“In the address book, you can save server locations and people’s contact information for use within the application.”

One-Time Query

Also called OTQ, one-time queries

“a one-time (ad hoc) search for a particular set of records”

data feed

Also called IV-MTR data feeds, Data Feed (Subscription)

“a recurring search (subscription) that provides results at a specified interval”

Roles and data delegation

To use IV-MTR, a user needs a Business Customer Gateway account and then requests access to IV-MTR. The request goes to the CRID's Business Service Administrator, its BSA, and any BSA Delegates. The BSA has the highest level of access and grants other users access to the CRID. A BSA Delegate is a user who isn't the BSA but has been granted the BSA's powers for the CRID. Either one approves or denies the request and assigns one of five user levels.

Roles give a user functions, and permissions give the user visibility of particular CRIDs, Mailer IDs or routing codes. IV-MTR has five application roles, such as the Subscription Manager, who creates and manages a CRID's data feeds. A role assigned at the CRID level covers every Mailer ID that belongs or will belong to the CRID. Only a BSA, a BSA Delegate or a Subscription Manager can create a data feed.

Must
To manage data delegations, a user must be the IV-MTR BSA, a BSA Delegate, or a Data Delegation Manager for the CRID.

To manage a CRID's data delegations, a user must be its IV-MTR BSA, a BSA Delegate or a Data Delegation Manager.

Data delegation shares data with another CRID or Mailer ID: the side that shares is the delegator, and the side that receives is the receiver. Scan data can be shared at the CRID or Mailer ID level. Each data type needs its own delegation. Organizations with IV-MTR accounts set up delegations themselves, without contacting USPS. When one side has no IV-MTR access, the IV Solutions Center can help set the delegation up.

permissions

“permissions provide data visibility to particular CRIDs, MIDs, or routing codes”

CRID-level role

“When a role is assigned at the CRID level, the user can perform the role’s functions for an entire CRID, including all MIDs that belong, or will belong, to that CRID.”

Address Book Manager

“Manages a CRID’s address book”

Report Manager

“Creates and manages a CRID’s public saved reports and portions of reports”

Roles and Permissions Manager

“Assigns roles and permissions for a CRID or MID”

IV-MTR BSA

Also called IV-MTR Business Service Administrator

“The IV-MTR Business Service Administrator (BSA) is responsible for all administrative actions in IVMTR”

Subscription Manager

“Creates and manages a CRID’s data feeds (subscriptions)”

Data Delegation Manager

“Manages data delegation for a CRID or MID”

Data Delegation

Also called data delegation functionality

“Data delegation is used to share data between CRIDs—to provide visibility of a CRID or MID’s data to another CRID or MID’s users.”

Mail quality and service measurement

Mail Quality Data is the uncapped error detail from the Mailer Scorecard, which mailers receive through IV-MTR. It is pass-through data that IV-MTR does not generate itself. It comes only through data feeds, with no history. It is delegated only at the CRID level.

Service performance is the number of days mail takes from the mailer's point of entry to delivery by USPS. Start-the-Clock is the recorded time a mailpiece enters the mailstream, usually from a scan of a container or piece barcode. In IV-MTR, the Entered at USPS scan marks a container's induction and is the scan used for Start-the-Clock.

Some Full-Service mail is not measured, and each piece left out gets an exclusion reason. Mailers reach the SPM Exclusions by CRID application through the Business Customer Gateway. USPS names four exclusions as the top preventable ones. One is a duplicate barcode: a piece whose barcode is not unique within 45 days is excluded.

MQD Data Feeds

“subscriptions that allow you to receive MQD at intervals you select”

Pass-through data

“non-scan data that is generated by other Postal systems and provisioned through the IV-MTR application”

service performance

“In general, the time it takes mail to enter and exit the mailstream measured in the number of days from the point of entry by the mailer to the point of delivery by USPS.”

Start-the-Clock

Also called STC

“The recorded date and time when a mailpiece enters the mailstream, usually captured by scanning a container or mailpiece barcode.”

Informed Delivery previews and campaigns

USPS images the address side of every letter and card that runs through its automation equipment. Informed Delivery users see these grayscale images in the Daily Digest email before the mail arrives. A Mail Delivery Notification email tells a user when the mail has arrived at the delivery point.

Must
Therefore, a mailpiece must be automation compatible and scanned through USPS automation equipment to be presented to an Informed Delivery user.

A mailpiece must be automation compatible and scanned on USPS automation equipment, or Informed Delivery users never see it.

An interactive campaign gives a piece supplemental content: a ride-along image, a target URL and a representative image. Every campaign needs the ride-along image, a clickable color image that leads to the target URL. The representative image is a color image that replaces the piece's grayscale image. Flats need one, and letters may have one.

A campaign treatment is the set of images and target URL applied to a piece's barcode. When scan and image data arrive from mail processing equipment, Informed Delivery matches each barcode's Mailer ID and serial number to a campaign. It then applies that campaign's treatment to the piece for users to see. A campaign is set at one of two levels: MID Level, for every piece whose barcode holds the campaign's Mailer ID, or Serial-Range Level, for pieces with that Mailer ID and its serial numbers. A MID Level campaign can be set up in the Mailer Campaign Portal or in Mail.dat, but not in Mail.XML.

Submitting campaigns in eDoc removes manual entry in the Mailer Campaign Portal and reduces errors. The Informed Delivery API lets mailers and shippers manage mail and package campaigns from their own front-end applications. Pre-campaign analysis and post-campaign reports are in the Mailer Campaign Portal. IV-MTR carries the post-campaign data, including email opens, click-throughs and delivery dates.

Informed Delivery

Also called ID

“Informed Delivery is a free, optional feature that gives eligible residential, business, and PO Box™ consumers the ability to digitally preview their mail and manage their packages.”

campaign treatment

“Campaign treatment is defined as a set of images (Ride-Along Image and Representative Image) and the Target URL that are applied to a mailpiece IMb.”

Ride-along Image

“The required Ride-along Image is a clickable color image that directs the user to the Target URL.”

Representative Image

Also called Replacement Image

“The Representative Image (available only on mail campaigns) is a color image chosen by the mailer that will be used in place of the scanned grayscale image of the mailpiece.”

Informed Delivery Post Campaign

Also called IDPC, Informed Delivery Post-Campaign (IDPC) data, Informed Delivery Post-Campaign (IDPC) Detailed Data, Informed Delivery (IDPC), IDPC data

“processing, open, and click-through results for Informed Delivery interactive campaigns”

What goes wrong

  • IV-MTR holds no international-bound or package tracking data.
  • Mailings documented in Postal Wizard, the online tool small-volume mailers use to submit postage statements, get only actual handling events in IV-MTR. They get no assumed or logical events, and no tracking by Job ID, the Mail.dat identifier of a mailing's eDoc. Those need eDoc sent in Mail.dat or Mail.XML.
  • A single-piece query without eDoc returns only actual handling events, because assumed and logical events need eDoc.
  • The IV-MTR API's single-piece query returns no data for Business Reply Mail.
  • The IV-MTR API has a limit of 500 requests a minute. It counts each CRID's requests separately, and it answers any beyond the limit with error 429, "Too many requests", without processing them.
  • An IV-MTR data feed has no history, and a one-time query reaches back only 120 days.
  • When a delivery unit does not scan its Inventory Complete barcode, that day's Distributed mail reverts to Curtailed. IV-MTR then creates no logical out for delivery events for it.
  • Delegated data does not join the receiver's existing data feeds or saved reports in IV-MTR. The receiver must update those feeds and reports or create others by hand.
  • A piece whose Intelligent Mail barcode is not unique within 45 days is left out of service measurement. A bundle, tray or container with a non-unique barcode gets no Full-Service feedback.

Index: 97 entries

Services (7)

Systems (35)

Files (3)

Identifier (1)

Documents (4)

Container (1)

Roles (10)

Terms (36)

Sources