Guides › Scanning the post

Scanning the post

For whoever opens the post. There is no sorting, counting or naming to do: stack it, press the button, and SortedPost works out where each letter starts and ends, what it is and who should get it.

1Open and stack

• Open the envelopes and take out the contents. Unfold, remove staples and paper clips.
• Keep each letter's pages together and in order. That's the only rule. Letters don't need to be in any particular order relative to each other.
• Leave backs alone. If a page has nothing on the back, that's fine; SortedPost notices and ignores it.
• Roughly 20 to 40 pages per stack is ideal. A smaller stack is quicker to re-scan if the feeder jams.

2Press the button

Square the stack, put it in the feeder face up, and press the POST one-touch key. Don't change any settings on the panel; the button already has them. When the feeder is empty, the copier sends the scan and the panel goes back to normal.

3That's it

Within about a minute the letters appear in SortedPost's Inbox, each split out, named and with a suggested recipient. Someone glances at them, confirms or changes the recipient and presses send, which takes a few seconds a letter. If your admin has switched on automatic sending, letters SortedPost is confident about go straight out and only the uncertain ones wait.

When to use a separator sheet

SortedPost tells letters apart from the pages themselves: page numbers, sentences that run on, the same letterhead or reference, a signature at the end. For ordinary post that is reliable. For a few cases a separator sheet makes the boundary certain:

• Several letters from the same sender on the same letterhead, such as a bank sending three statements.
• Single sheets with little text on them, like compliment slips or cheques, that could be mistaken for a page of the letter before.
• A letter with attachments that should be filed as separate documents.

Print sheets from Scanners › Print separator sheet in SortedPost and keep a stack by the copier. Drop one between letters wherever you want a hard break. The sheet is removed from the scan automatically and pages are never joined across it. Admins can also set SortedPost to split only at sheets, which suits a post room that always uses them.

If a split is wrong

Occasionally two letters are joined or one is split in two. In the Inbox, open the document and use Split at the right page, or Merge with the one next to it. When you change who a letter goes to, that correction is remembered, and over time SortedPost gets better at that sender's post.

Away from the copier

A letter handed to you in a meeting, or post at a branch with no copier, can still go in. Open Capture in the app on your phone, leave Send to on SortedPost inbox, and tap Take photo for each page. Then Send: it arrives in the Inbox and is read and routed like scanned post. Lay the page flat in good light and fill the screen with it.

Things worth knowing

• Feeder jam? Clear it and re-scan the whole stack, then delete the partial scan from the Inbox so nothing is sent twice.
• Cheques and cards. Scan them with the letter they came with. The feeder handles card stock; for anything thicker, use the glass.
• Envelopes. Usually not needed. If the envelope carries the only clue to who it's for, scan it in front of the letter and it stays with it.
• Private and confidential. If your organisation keeps certain post unopened, don't scan it. SortedPost only ever sees what goes through the copier.