Label file format

The following file format is produced by any of the following:

• The QuickFill Label Splitter, when you choose the "dBase" or "CSV" file type.

• The Issue Label update when you check one or more of the 'Presort' boxes on the 'Shipping' tab of the publication definition screen.

• The Customer Data export when you choose the "Postware/ArcList postal presort" output format.

When you use the QuickFill Label Splitter to create 'dBase' output files the name assigned to the dBase label files is in the format Lnnnnnnn.DBF or Snnnnnnn.DBF, where nnnnnnn is a number. Similarly, if you use the label splitter to create comma delimited (CSV) output files the name is in the format Lnnnnnn.CSV or Snnnnnnn.CSV. QuickFill saves the both dBase and CSV files it produces in the mail-merge directory. The "About QuickFill" screen displays the exact location of this directory.  If the file format selected (dBase or CSV) is one of the 'SN' formats then the file will be named beginning with an 'S' (see Note 6 below).  

Note 1: the fields BILLREN through COPIES and ORDERNUM through SUBSCRIBER are not present in the files created by the Customer Data export, nor for files created by the Label Splitter from promotional, agency, group, and one-shot labels.

Note 2: these fields are only present for issue label files created for audited publications.

Note 3: There are two available formats for the ACSKEY field: all numeric or alphanumeric. You make your choice of formats on the Preferences screen. You must use the alphanumeric format if you have or expect to have more than 10 million customer or order records in your database.

The format of the numeric ACSKEY field is #1111 1111 2222 2223# where the 1's represent the QuickFill customer number (including check digit and left padded with zeros), the 2's represent the related QuickFill order number (without the check digit and left padded with zeros), and the 3 represents the USPS check digit.

The format of the alphanumeric ACSKEY field is #ACCC CCCC OOOO OOOX# where the A is literally the letter 'A', the C's are the customer number encoded in hexadecimal, the O's are the order number, also encoded in hexadecimal and the X is the USPS check digit.

Note 4: The ONECODE9 field consists of a prefix digit of 1, 2 or 3 followed by the customer number, zero filled and without a check digit. The prefix digit is based on the current month, where 1 is January, April, July and October, 2 is February, May, August and November and 3 is March, June, September and December. The intent is that the same mail piece identifier number will not reoccur within any 45 day period, provided the publication is published no more than once a month. USPS specifications state that the mail piece ID should be unique within any 45 day period. 

Note 5: The ONECODE6 field is constructed from the customer number by dropping the last digit (the check digit) and the top one or two digits if the resulting number is longer than six digits. The resulting number should be unique for databases with less than one million customers. If you frequently import and then subsequently purge lists of prospects, your customer numbers may be too long and the ONECODE6 field will not contain a unique number. The ACS importer attempts to resolve ambiguous OneCode mail piece ID numbers by checking the zip codes associated with all of the possible matching customer numbers.

Note 6: These three fields, TIMESTAMP, MAILERID and SERIALNUM will only be present if the file was created by the Label Splitter and the output format was one of the following: dBase SN, dbase Audit SN, CSV SN or CSV Audit SN.  The MAILERID and SERIALNUM are meant to be used when creating Intelligent Mail barcodes.  The TIMESTAMP is used internally by QuickFill when determining what serial numbers the Label Splitter should assign. These "SN" type files will be named as Snnnnnnn.DBF or Snnnnnnn.CSV.