PDX CAT User Guide
PDX CAT User Guide
Version: 06
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The PDX CAT application is accessed via the CAT Business Customer Gateway (BCG). To create a CAT
account, log into the CAT BCG using the URL: https://gateway-cat.usps.com/eAdmin/view/signin
and click the ‘Sign up for the BCG’ button. A new username and password for the CAT environment
are required to create the new CAT account (though it is probable that the same BCG production
account name can be used in CAT).
PDX CAT API calls mimic PDX Production API calls, except for changing the URL of the Production API
calls from “pdx.usps.com” to “pdx-cat.usps.com” and updating the username/password to the BCG
CAT account credentials. Users will need to configure new MIDs to use in the CAT environment.
Follow the steps below to get access to the PDX. The BCG CAT can be accessed using the following
hyperlink: https://gateway-cat.usps.com/
• To use PDX for Uploading Manifest Files:
o Create a BCG CAT account, if you have not already done so
o Login to BCG CAT and access PDX via the Shipping Services tab
o Use the REST API to upload using the URL: https://pdx-cat.usps.com/api/manifests
Follow the 19 steps below to create one or more MIDs for your BCG CAT account (this process takes
less than 5 minutes).
1. Navigate to “https://gateway-cat.usps.com/eAdmin/view/signin”.
2. Click on “Sign in to the BCG”.
3. Enter the username and password for your BCG CAT account. Click on “Sign In”.
5. First time users will be provided a drop-down menu to select programs from…
7. Click on “Continue”
8. Wait patiently. The enrollment acknowledgement page will be returned. All answers will be
prepopulated.
11. Enable the radio button for “Web Services”, then click on “Save & Continue”. Click on “Save &
Close” when complete.
12. You may have to click on “Save and Close” for the next page to be displayed.
17. Repeat step 16 (i.e., enable the checkbox next to a CRID and click “Request New MID” to
create as many MIDs as you want on your account).
18. Once satisfied with the MIDs/CRIDs assigned, click on the “GATEWAY” link at the top.
19. Navigate to “Shipping Services” → Parcel Data Exchange (PDX) as shown below in Figure 1. Click
on the ‘Go to Service’ button for PDX CAT to access the PDX landing page.
If you have not yet been approved to access PDX CAT by your BSA, you will see ‘Pending BSA’ or
‘Get Access’ rather than the ‘Go to Services’ button. If displayed, click on the ‘Get Access’
button. Contact your BSA to approve you for the service.
The default landing page for the PDX application is the ‘Upload Manifest Files’ page (Manifest
Files tab) shown by Figure 2 below. The top portion of this page is used to upload manifests
(Section 2.2.1) while the bottom portion displays a table with uploaded manifest history (Section
2.2.3).
To choose a file to upload to the selected environment, click on the ‘+ Select Manifest
File(s)’ button, as shown in Figure 4.
After clicking the ‘+ Select Manifest File(s)’ button, a file selection dialog box will open.
Select the files to upload, then click ‘Open’ as shown in Figure 5. Up to 25 files with a
maximum total size of 250 MB may be selected. Manifest filenames are limited to less than
180 characters; manifests with filenames of 180 or more characters will fail to upload. Keep
manifest filenames unique (example: add a date/timestamp). Manifest filenames should be
alphanumeric characters without encoding. Manifest file contents must be alphanumeric
text without encoding; special characters or encoding will cause manifest processing to fail.
After clicking on ‘Open’, two new buttons, ‘Start Upload’ and ‘Cancel Upload’ will be displayed
to the right of the ‘+ Select Manifest File(s)’ button (see Figure 6). If satisfied with the list of
selected files, proceed by clicking the ‘Start Upload’ button. To cancel the upload, click the
‘Cancel Upload’ button.
Response:
{"id":918265,"environment":"TEST ENVIRONMENT FOR MAILERS","createdTime":"Mar 22, 2021 15:00:57
PM","sentTime":null,"filename":"001.qzNVudUPZsHe.podsub"}
For descriptions of these files, please refer to Publication 199: Intelligent Mail Package Barcode
at: https://postalpro.usps.com/pub199_draft
File limitations are listed below in section 2.2.6 Limitations on Inbound and Outbound Files.
3. Environment
To filter by environment, select ‘Test Environment for Mailers’ (TEM) or ‘Production’ (PROD)
from the dropdown within the Environment column as shown by Figure 9, box 3a. To sort the
table to display either TEM or PROD files first, click on the up/down carets to the right of the
header of the Environment column as shown by Figure 9, box 3b.
4. Upload Time
‘Upload Time’ refers to the time when the file was uploaded in Central Standard Time (CST).
To filter by Upload Time, select the respective ‘From’ and ‘To’ dates by clicking in the input
fields, as shown by Figure 9, box 4a, and clicking on the desired month and day inside of the
selection calendar. To clear the date filter, click the ‘Clear’ button at the bottom of each
calendar and the default date range will be restored (previous 45 days). To sort by chronological
or reverse-chronological order, select the up/down carets to the right of the column header of
the Upload Time as shown by Figure 9, box 4b.
5. Processing Status
‘Processing Status’ reflects the time (in CST) when the file was sent for processing to the
destination application. If this field is empty, the file has not yet been sent for processing.
To filter by Processing Status date, select the respective ‘From’ and ‘To’ dates by clicking in the
input fields, as shown by Figure 9, box 4a, and clicking on the desired month and day inside of
the selection calendar. To clear the date filter, click the ‘Clear’ button at the bottom of each
calendar and the default date range will be restored (previous 45 days).
Hovering the cursor over the check mark will display additional manifest processing information
similar to the following: Sent for processing on Wed 04/18/21 06:20 AM CDT.
6. Hide Manifests
To hide a manifest row in the table, click the ‘Hide’ button in the Hide Manifests column within
the same row as shown by Figure 9, box 5a. The manifest will still exist in the PDX file system,
but will no longer be displayed in the Manifest Upload History Table. To unhide all previously
hidden manifests, click the ‘Unhide All’ button as shown by Figure 9, box 5b.
7. Common Errors
• File upload is limited to {size} in total size per request
The file chosen exceeds the maximum size PDX will process. Split the file.
• File upload is limited to 25 files per request.
A maximum of 25 files can be uploaded at one time. Only the first 25 will be processed.
All outbound files generated during the last 45 days for all MIDs associated with your account
will be displayed in the table. Populate the various filters (i.e. MID, Filename, Environment,
Created Time, Previously Downloaded, File Type) to determine which files to display. Outbound
files can be searched for or downloaded as shown by Figure 11.
5. Created Time
To filter by Created Time, select the respective ‘From’ and/or ‘To’ dates by clicking in the input
fields, as shown by Figure 11, box 5a, and clicking on the desired month and day inside of the
selection calendar. To clear the date filter, click the ‘Clear’ button at the bottom of each
calendar and the default date range will be restored (previous 45 days). To sort by chronological
or reverse-chronological order, select the up/down carets to the right of the column header of
the date field as shown by Figure 11, box 5b. All times are displayed in CST.
6. Previously Downloaded
To filter by whether or not files were previously downloaded, click on the ‘Select Download
Status’ dropdown menu and choose from: ‘Previously Downloaded’, ‘Not Downloaded’ or
‘Select Download Status’ (default for both previously and not downloaded); as shown by Figure
11, box 6.
7. File Type
To filter by file type, click on the ‘Select File Type’ dropdown in the File Type column and choose
one entry from the list of file types; as shown by Figure 11, box 7.
8. Bulk Download
To download multiple Customer Outbound Files at one time, click the ‘Download Selected Files’
button above the table as shown by Figure 11, box 8. Files fitting the filter criteria entered in
each column of the table will be downloaded in a zip file. If no filter criteria are entered before
clicking the bulk download button, all files from the past 45 days will be downloaded. If no files
fit the filter criteria, the ‘Download Select Files’ button while be ghosted/unavailable for
selection. If the results contain too many files, or too much data, the download will fail with an
appropriate message similar to the following:
• Total count of Selected Files exceeds the Max ZIP File Count Limit {max file count}
• Total byte size of Selected Files Exceeds the Max ZIP Bytes Size Limit {max size}
Creating Zip files is inherently slow since the processing and compression of many files is
required. Simultaneous Zip requests will be denied and an error message similar to the
following will be displayed:
A zip is still in progress. Please try later. Last started at: MM/DD/YYYY HH:MI:SS
If the Zip fails to complete (e.g. disk write failure) new Zip requests will continue to fail for up to
10 minutes (the restriction is automatically cleared after 10 minutes); Zip requests will then be
accepted again.
Once the environment, MID and file have been chosen, two new buttons (‘Start Upload’ and
‘Cancel Upload’) will be displayed as shown by Figure 12 box 5 along with the filename and size
(as shown by box 4). Clicking on the ‘Start Upload’ button will load the outbound file to the
chosen environment and MID. Clicking on the ‘Cancel Upload’ button will cancel the outbound
file upload process.
EWDELIVERY.V10.RPT.MMDDhhmmss
Delivery Partner Event CEW v1.0
Example: EWDELIVERY.V10.RPT.0103153115
WKEXTR01.RPT.MMDDhhmmss
Weekly Unmanifested Extract v1.3
(number "0", not letter "O")
WKEXTR01.V15.RPT.MMDDhhmmss
Weekly Unmanifested Extract v1.5
(number "0", not letter "O")
WKEXTR01.V16.RPT.MMDDhhmmss
Weekly Unmanifested Extract v1.6
(number "0", not letter "O")
WKEXTR01.V20.RPT.MMDDhhmmss
Weekly Unmanifested Extract v2.0
(number "0", not letter "O")
Recipient is a Customer
Recipient is a Customer
For descriptions of these files, please refer to Publication 199: Intelligent Mail Package Barcode
at: https://postalpro.usps.com/pub199_draft
The Documentation tab displays PDX documentation available for download. To download a
document, click on the blue button containing the name of the document as shown by Figure
13, box 1 (e.g. PDX API User Guide.pdf).
A drop-down menu in the top right corner displays the logged in user’s name, email, and phone
number as shown by Figure 14. To change the user information that is displayed here, login to
the BCG and select ‘Manage Account’ from the left panel. Click on the “EDIT PROFILE” button
and change the appropriate data. The change will take affect the next time you log into the
BCG/PDX.
If MID information has changed (e.g. MIDs were added to the PDX account), the user can refresh
the MID information in PDX by clicking on the dropdown located in the top right corner of the
page (by the customer name) and selecting ‘Refresh the MIDs’.
Information will be displayed that the MIDs are being updated on the PDX account.
2.6 Logout
To log out of the system, click on the dropdown located in the top right corner of the page and
select ‘Logout’. The session will be logged out and redirected to the BCG homepage.
2.7 Help
Help is available via email or phone. Click on the ‘Help’ link in the top banner for contact
information.
Also available in the top header are links to USPS.com and the Gateway (BCG landing page).
Questions or comments can be sent directly to the PDX team via [email protected].
Alternatively, the USPS help desk can be reached at: (800) 522-9085.
If your BCG CAT password has expired (e.g., your PDX CAT API requests fail authentication), it
must be reset.
To reset your BCG password, please contact the USPS help desk at: (800) 522-9085.
During business hours, use option 3, then option 6.