Tracking your Mailings

This guide will demonstrate how to use the dashboard to check the tracking statuses of orders, verify the IMB statuses of orders (only in the US), track certified or registered mailings, and establish webhooks to manage status updates.

Tracking Status

The process for checking the status of letters, postcards, and cheques is the same and can be generalized for any collateral. To start, navigate to the letters, postcards, or cheques page to see a list of your orders. If you're looking for a specific order, use the search bar at the top of the page. When you find the order you're interested in, click on it for detailed information.

Once you navigate to your specific order page, you'll find a graphic representing your order status. This graphic is divided into 4 sections:

1. Ready: The order was successfully created and is set to be printed on the 'Send Date'. By default, the 'Send Date' is the next business day, but this can be changed to a later date.
2. Printing: The order has been sent to the printer and will be processed within 2business days.
3. Processed for Delivery: The order has been handed off to the local postal service.
4. Completed: The order has likely been delivered. Please note, this is an approximation.
5. Cancelled: The order has been cancelled, it will not be sent out, and no charges will be applied.

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Order Cancellation

Please note that orders can only be cancelled while they are in the "ready" stage. Once an order's status changes to "printing," PostGrid will no longer be able to cancel it.

The status of an order can also be verified by expanding the 'Raw Data' list to show all information related to the order. Here, you can view the tracking status of an order by looking at the status field. This value will be one of the values listed above. If an order has a tracking number, it will also appear with the raw data of the order.

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Please note that the "Completed" status is an approximation.

The system automatically changes the status from "Processed for Delivery" to "Completed" after 10-12 days, based on estimated timelines derived from historical data.

Tracking Number

Shortly after an order has been processed, a trackingNumber property is added to it in the 'Raw Data'. You can use this tracking number to track your order via USPS tracking. If you don't see this tracking number on your order within a few days of it being processed, please contact our support team at [email protected].

Intelligent-Mail Tracking

The Intelligent Mail barcode is a 65-bar Postal Service™ barcode used to sort and track letters and flats. This service is provided by the USPS and is only available for sending out mail within the US.

The process for checking the IMB status of letters, postcards, and cheques is the same and can be generalized for any collateral. To start, navigate to the letters, postcards, or cheques page to see a list of your orders. If you're looking for a specific order, use the search bar at the top of the page. When you find the order you're interested in, click on it for detailed information.

Once you navigate to your specific order page, you'll find a graphic representing your order status. This graphic is divided into 4 sections however information regarding the IMB status will only be displayed in the last two parts, section 3 and section 4:

1. Entered Mail Stream: This indicates that the order has been received at a USPS facility.
2. Out For Delivery: This tells you that the order is currently being delivered.
3. Returned to Sender: This means that the order has been sent back to the original sender.

The status of an order can also be verified by expanding the 'Raw Data' list to show all information related to the order. Here, you can view the IMB status of an order by looking at the imbstatus field. This value will be one of the values listed above. If an order has a tracking number, it will also appear with the raw data of the order.

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IMB status for orders depends entirely on USPS scanning the mailings

USPS scans only a portion of the mail—theoretically about 40%. We update all the orders with the IMB information within 5-7 days after the printers have handed off the orders to the USPS and we receive the IMB codes from the printer.

Tracking Certified and Registered Mail

This service is available for letters and cheques only.

The process for checking the tracking for certified and registered mailings is the same and can be generalized for any collateral. To start, navigate to the letters, or cheques page to see a list of your orders. If you're looking for a specific order, use the search bar at the top of the page. When you find the order you're interested in, click on it for detailed information.

Click on the ‘Raw Data’ dropdown to view the full details of your order. If the order has a defined value in the extraService field, then that order is either certified or registered mail. You can compare the value against the certified/registered mail values to confirm which type it is. If you do not see an extraService field or if there is an undefined or null value present in the extraService field, then it means that the order is not certified/registered mail. If an order has a tracking number, it will also appear with the raw data of the order.

Electronic Return Receipt

Return Receipt provides the sender with proof of delivery, including the recipient's signature, delivery address (if different), and date and time of delivery. It's available as a USPS add-on to certified mail.

You can access the return receipt by entering the certified tracking number on the USPS home screen.

To obtain the PDF for the receipt, follow these steps:

1. Visit the USPS website
2. Enter the certified tracking number in the "Search or Track Packages" box

3. Click on "Return Receipt Electronic" and enter the required information to receive the electronic return receipt

4. The USPS will send you an email containing the electronic signature file, as shown in the example below

Creating a Webhook to Handle Status Updates

Navigate to the create a webhook page to create a new webhook. Here, you will need to enter the URL for the webhook, select the event types you wish to listen for, and select your desired payload method (this is set to JWT by default). To receive a notification when an order's status or other field changes, select any updated event. For example, if you wanted to be notified when a letter gets updated you would select the letter.updated event type and likewise for cheques and postcards. You can select as many event types as you would like, you could choose to listen to all events on one webhook or to split the events into different webhooks. Once you have entered your webhook URL and selected your event types to listen to, click the Create button and a new webhook will be created that will listen and notify you when a resource is created/updated for the events you chose.