Digital postal mail gateway
A digital postal mail connector (or “gateway”) is supported within an enterprise's (a mailer's) digital delivery infrastructure, preferably as a rack-mounted hardware appliance or software install. The digital postal mail gateway interfaces with the mailer's existing print process (e.g., a print stream processor) to automatically create an alternative output stream that is sent as one or more digital files and received online by the mailer's customers in web-based electronic mailboxes.
1 . A method of integrating a mailer entity to a web-based digital postal service, the mailer entity including a network and a print stream processor, the method comprising:
locating a gateway in the network associated with the mailer entity downstream from the print stream processor, the gateway including a hardware element and having a display interface;
configuring a mail job using the display interface, the mail job having a network path in the mailer network;
periodically, scanning for the mail job; and
upon determining that a mail piece is associated with the network path, automatically processing the mail job.
2 . The method as described in claim 1 wherein the processing generates content for the mail piece according to a job rule and communicates the mail piece to the digital postal service.
3 . The method as described in claim 2 wherein the mail piece is communicated to the digital postal service over a secure connection.
4 . The method as described in claim 1 wherein the mail piece is associated with the network path upon receipt of data indicating that a document has been dropped in a display folder associated with the display interface.
5 . The method as described in claim 1 wherein the display interface is a web interface.
6 . The method as described in claim 1 further including receiving at the gateway data indicative of access to the mail piece by users of the digital mail service.
7 . The method as described in claim 6 wherein the data is received over an application programming interface (API) associated with the digital mail service.
8 . Apparatus, comprising:
a processor, and
computer memory holding computer program instructions executed by the processor to perform a method, the method comprising:
exposing a display wizard having a drop folder associated therewith;
receiving a piece of mail, as a document, in the drop folder;
in response to the receiving step, automatically creating a digital piece of mail and securely transmitting the digital piece of mail to a digital postal service.