Wholesale
Step 3 - Sorting The Test Address List
Once you have received the Access Test Address List, you should use your software to sort this list according to one of the following services and generate electronic versions of a Computer Planning Report, Line Listing and the Sorted Test Address List for submission to Royal Mail Wholesale for validation.
Please note: you must use the appropriate version of the Royal Mail Access Selection Files. Please see the download page for details.
Access Mailing Services
- Access 70 OCR
- Access 1400
If you plan to submit tests for more than one Access posting service, then in the first instance please submit test results for one service only, choosing the scheme nearest the top of the above list.
For example, if you plan to send Access 70 and 1400 tests, then in the first instance send in the Access 70 test only.
Once you have successfully completed the initial test you may submit tests for other services.
Test Parameters
- Sort each scheme as 45g letters.
- Although the maximum bag weight is 11,000g, please use 10,500g for the test purpose.
- For tray product e.g. Access 70, please use tray & bag weight of 9000g for the test purpose.
- Although your software may permit user choice of minimum selection size for Access 1400, please use the standard minimum selection size for letters of 25 items for the tests. For Access 70, the minimum selection size should always be 1 item.
Important Considerations
The software testing process is designed in part to determine whether or not software is able to allocate correctly selection codes from postcodes/sectors (Royal Mail Access Selection Files) and post towns (National Access only) in addresses where quality and format of addressing may vary. Therefore, if your software provides address cleaning and postcoding functions in addition to sortation for Royal Mail Access Selection Files, these additional functions must be disabled for the purposes of the software tests.
The key differences between the Access National and Access Zonal sortations are:
Access National Sortation
Access 70
- Sort by postcode sector
- Sort by post town
Access 1400
- Sort by postcode sector
Access Zonal Sortation
Access 70 and Access 1400
- Sort by postcode sector