PASS Mailroom is installed in many university mailrooms. Large volumes of mail come into universities and colleges and the PASS Mailroom system records the internal distribution of all incoming mail . This saves a lot of time trying to find out what happened to an individual parcel or mail item. Addressees receive automatic email advice of mail arrival with collection time slots to enable social distancing. On collection, a PDA records proof of delivery with the built in camera and avoiding any physical contact.
There are many sites in universities and the central system links all sites over an internal private network whilst maintaining the grouping of students on their individual sites. One of our installations covers three sites all connected to the central sql server. Mail moves between mailrooms at each site all visible centrally by the administrator. One criteria was that the system could not be cloud based and we went through a series of configuration trials involving Windows authentication, individual mailroom user login and sql server login before settling on the final system. PASS Mailroom was able to adapt to each scenario easily.
The list of students regularly changes as some graduate and leave and new students arrive. The system updates the changes centrally whilst maintaining archives of previous years in case of loss or dispute over an item. Bulk entry of the annual exit and arrivals updates the database each year , importing from the university lists.
RAF Cosford is the No 1 School of Technical Training, as part of the Defence School of Aeronautical Engineering, and also to the Aerosystems Engineering and Management Training School and the No 1 Radio School. All three of these come under the Defence College of Technical Training. The RAF School of Physical Training and the Defence School of Photography are also based at Cosford. The world renowned RAF Museum is also adjacent to the site.
One of the main criteria was dat safety and GDPR compliance and PASS Mailroom is configured to meet those stringent requirements.
“We have noticed that traditional post is giving way to parcels as consumer purchasing habits are changing with the increased use of on-line shops.” Said Dan Virgin, the Station Postal Services Manager. “With the resulting level of incoming parcels increasing dramatically we urgently needed a system that would help us manage the increase and, at the same time, make us more efficient. “
One of the requirements for Mailroom at RAF Cosford was lone worker tracking. To do this we connected the hand held terminals to the mobile phone network. This gives a real time update of the database when the delivery personnel are out delivering mail. It also enables the generation of a report showing their last known location. “Our station site is very large and the delivery personnel travel all around it so it is important to know where they are in case of an accident.” Said Dan.
There are over 3000 students at RAF Cosford, most of whom live on site. Mailroom has the ability to automatically send an email to a recipient advising the arrival of their mail. This is ideally for the way in which the college works because it means the students only come to collect their post from reception when there is post for them.
For RAF Cosford IT security is always an issue and it was important that the system was not cloud based, as they do not allow their IT systems access to the outside world. Mailroom is a client server application which suited the situation perfectly.
“For us Mailroom has increased our efficiency beyond measure. We have just passed ten thousand parcels delivered with no lost items since we installed the system.” Said Dan. “The signature capture and proof of delivery means items don’t go missing.
