What is PosteCS service?

PosteCS™ is an Internet-based document delivery service that allows you to send electronic documents securely with speed and convenience to anyone with an Internet email address and a web browser.

Why do you need PosteCS service?

Regular email is not safe or secure for content-sensitive deliveries—there have been numerous reports of hackers successfully accessing private email messages.

PosteCS service was specifically designed to help Canadian businesses and organizations. It implements high-level encrypted emessaging via the Internet without additional hardware or software requirements.

Why should you use PosteCS service?

Date and time stamping

• An Electronic Postmark™ provides proof that a document existed at a certain date and time and has not been tampered with upon receipt.
• The records are kept by a trusted third party—Canada Post.

Real time robust tracking

• You can track deliveries through every step of the process.
• Real-time tracking shows when documents were sent, when receivers were notified, and when they accessed the documents.
• You can generate automatic delivery notifications.
• View your detail delivery report showing the send options you selected such as scheduled delivery and expiration dates.
• Find specific information about a certain delivery using our Search feature.
• Increase business performance and efficiency when the tracking function is extended to your business processes.

Privacy

• We keep confidential any personal information we receive from our customers, and have earned a reputation as a trusted third party.
• Your document delivery is more secure, private and reliable than either fax or email. We employ a combination of industry standards and proprietary security measures to provide sensitive documents a secure channel of delivery.

Document expiration
You can set the expiry date to determine when a document is automatically deleted from the server.

Password protection

• You can specify use of a password to access a PosteCS message. Your recipient enters the password to retrieve the password-protected document.
• You have 2 password choices to protect access to a document:
  
  • If the intended recipient is a PosteCS user, you can request the use of the recipient's PosteCS account password.
  • Communicate a password to your recipient through an alternative means. The use of a password, together with SSL and encryption, secure the PosteCS delivery.

What are the benefits to your organization of using PosteCS service?

Save money

With PosteCS service there is no additional investment of hardware, software or technical resources. PosteCS service is compatible with your existing email system and provides a ready-to-use secure emessaging service to send, protect, store and track your Internet emessages and documents in real-time.

Enjoy peace of mind

Real-time tracking, the Electronic Postmark, and secure information storage on the PosteCS server contribute to the peace of mind PosteCS provides you.

How can my company use PosteCS service?

PosteCS service is for a wide range of business applications.

• procurement
• legal
• medical
• government
• financial and insurance
• accounting
• real estate
• education
• manufacturing/high-tech
• human resources
• advertising agencies and publishing

Rates & prices

14-day free trial

If you're a new customer, you can use the PosteCS service at no charge for 14 days.* (One free trial per business.) Billing and the contract year will then commence.

* Up to 20 deliveries. If you exceed 20 deliveries within the 14-day trial period, billing will begin at applicable rate. One delivery is defined as a message with all its attachments successfully sent to one email address.

Standard pricing

Deliveries (per month) 1-10 11-50 51+	Unit rate per delivery (CAN $) $3.50 $2.50 $1.50
High volume rates You must sign a PosteCS service agreement for a minimum commitment of 1,000 deliveries ($1,000.00) per contracted year.
Committed deliveries Level 1 1,000 – 5,000 Level 2 5,001 – 10,000 Level 3 10,001 – 20,000 Level 4 20,000+	Unit rate per delivery (CAN $) $1.00 $0.90 $0.80 $0.60

Additional services/fees

Additional storage fees: Surcharge of $0.50 per day per delivery when storage exceeds the standard 10-day period.

Other: Hosting services, on-site maintenance fees, etc. Charges based on requirements as defined in an approved statement of work (SOW).

Billing/invoicing details:

• For high volume rate: by the end of the contracted year, if you do not meet the minimum 1,000 deliveries, Canada Post will be entitled to bill for this minimum committed volume ($1,000.00).
• In addition to minimum volume requirements, at the end of the contracted year if your usage is less than the committed delivery level agreed to, Canada Post will be entitled to send an adjustment bill. The amount billed will be the actual deliveries multiplied by the unit rate for the level actually achieved, less amounts already billed.
• Canada Post reserves the right to review the volume actually achieved and to adjust the committed delivery level and unit rate to reflect projected usage.
• You will be billed, in Canadian dollars, for the actual usage at the end of each calendar month.
• All charges are subject to tax as applicable.

Canada Post reserves the right to change prices and terms with 30 days written notice.

Take a quick tour

Take a guided tour to discover many of the exciting features of PosteCS service. Take the complete tour or just tour specific features by selecting them from the list under PosteCS Quick Tour Select once you launch the tour.

Select the icon to start your guided tour.

How can I automate the sending, receiving and tracking of large volumes of regular electronic documents?

Use our PosteCS Volume Transaction Processing (VTP) application. It saves time and money by allowing you to automate the sending, receiving and tracking of large volumes of correspondence such as: account statements, transaction confirmations, purchase orders, client reports, etc.

PosteCS VTP is easy to install and comes with 3 utilities that you access from a command line prompt:

• PosteCSSend automates the sending of high volumes of outgoing packages.
• PosteCSReceive automates the receipt (download and extraction) of incoming packages.
• PosteCSTrack automates the tracking of packages sent via PosteCS service.

To get started with PosteCS VTP, download the User Guide.

Frequently asked questions

Why Canada Post?
Who should use PosteCS service?
How does PosteCS service work?
What are the system requirements for PosteCS service?
What are the special features of PosteCS service?
How is PosteCS service different from my enterprise groupware email system?
How do I sign up for a PosteCS account?
What should I do if I forget my PosteCS account name or password?
What is required if I want to send or receive a PosteCS message?
What prevents anyone who intercepts the email notification from using the unique URL to access the document?
What kind of documents can I send via PosteCS service?
What is the Electronic Postmark?
What is the difference between PosteCS service and epost™ service?
There have been recent reports of hackers successfully accessing private email messages. Will these hackers be able to do the same with PosteCS service?

Why Canada Post?

We keep confidential any personal information we receive from our customers. Information we obtain from PosteCS users will be kept confidential and only used for the purpose for which is collected.

We have earned a reputation as a trusted third party based on:

• Demonstrating rigorous protection of the mail.
• Demonstrating neutrality regarding the content of messages in our charge.
• Keeping personal addressing information confidential.

Who should use PosteCS service?

Any business that needs to securely communicate information over the Internet can benefit by using PosteCS.

PosteCS applications include:

• Procurement: bids responses, submissions
• Legal: negotiations-related documents, acquisitions
• Finance and accounting: financial reports, statements, invoice delivery
• Consulting: business plans, presentations, proposals
• Manufacturing: technical specifications, drawings, proprietary information, programming files
• Medical: lab reports, research results
• Human resources: application forms, auto-response acknowledgements
• Education: transcripts, reference documentation, research files
• Government: citizens' private database applications

How does PosteCS service work?

PosteCS works transparently under SSL enabled browsers where sophisticated authentication and encryption takes place. It works in 3 basic steps :

1. Sender uploads messages or documents, with choice of security levels, to the PosteCS server via secure https link.
2. PosteCS server sends out an email notification which contains a unique URL (a patented technology).
3. Recipient selects the unique URL (or cuts and pastes it into their browser) to get to the message and documents stored on the secure PosteCS server.

What are the system requirements for PosteCS service?

• Macintosh or Windows OS
• a PosteCS account
• an Internet email address
• access to the Internet
• an SSL enabled web browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0+ or Netscape Navigator 3.0+).

What are the special features of PosteCS service?

• Real-time tracking
  Deliveries can be tracked through every step of the process. Real-time tracking shows when documents were sent, when receivers were notified, and when they accessed the documents. Automatic delivery notifications can be generated.
• Document expiration
  Senders set the expiry date determining when the document is automatically deleted from the server.
• Electronic Postmark option
  On a sender's request, an Electronic Postmark will accompany a PosteCS package. It is a Canada Post date-stamped and time-stamped, cryptographically sealed digital object containing an "electronic footprint" of the original package, among other attributes. The Electronic Postmark record is then, by way of a Canada Post digital signature, digitally "sealed" to prevent undetected modification of the package.
• Password protection
  Senders should specify use of a password to access the PosteCS message. The correct password would need to be keyed in by the recipient to retrieve the password-protected document.
  
  With PosteCS, there are 2 password choices to protect access to the document. If the intended recipient is a PosteCS user, the sender can request the use of the recipient's PosteCS account password. Alternatively, a unique password should be communicated to the recipient to protect the document. In this case, the sender communicates the password to the recipient through an alternative means. The use of a password, together with SSL and encryption, secure the PosteCS delivery.
• Third-party billing
  PosteCS allows account holders to create billing codes, specify them when sending documents and create invoices against the billing codes to bill third parties for deliveries.

How is PosteCS service different from my enterprise groupware email system?

Enterprise groupware email systems, such as Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes, sit inside an enterprise's environment to handle emessaging deliveries. Used outside the enterprise's environment, it is SMTP-based and insecure as there is no requirement for SSL. Further, messages and documents on the groupware email servers are not all encrypted and can only be accessed by account holders within the same groupware email systems.

On the other hand, PosteCS has no such constraints. It is IME™-based (Integrated Messaging Exchange™). IME facilitates the secure transmission of messages and documents outside a groupware enterprise environment. It allows any email account holder to access messages and documents via an SSL enabled web browser. Additional enhancements include real-time tracking and encryption outside enterprise environments. PosteCS provides a secure system-independent platform for enterprise-to-enterprise emessaging and document/file delivery.

PosteCS' IME SMTP notification with HTTPS retrieval method and password is a patented technology. It is the most universally secure alternative to pure SMTP S/MIME from common groupware. PosteCS does not require additional client software.

How do I sign up for a PosteCS account?

For your free 14-day PosteCS test drive, complete the online registration form.

What should I do if I forget my PosteCS account name or password?

If you forget your PosteCS account name or password, simply contact us at PosteCS@canadapost.ca. Provide your name, address, email and telephone number. Our Customer Service support center will contact you with your account name and temporary password. Once you log in to PosteCS you can change the password.

What is required if I want to send or receive a PosteCS message?

As a sender, you need to have a PosteCS account (if you are not currently registered, please complete the online registration form, a regular email account from an Internet Service Provider and an SSL enabled web browser, such as Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher or Netscape 3.0 or higher.

As a recipient, you do not require a PosteCS account. All you need is an Internet email address and access to the web via an SSL enabled web browser. As a recipient, you will receive an email notification in your regular email box that includes a unique URL link for message retrieval. If you have a recent version of a popular browser, certain documents will display directly within the browser.

What prevents anyone who intercepts the email notification from using the unique URL to access the document?

To protect access to the message and enclosed documents, senders should specify use of a password to access the URL. The correct password would need to be keyed in by the recipient to retrieve the password-protected document.

With PosteCS, there are 2 password choices to protect access to the document. If the intended recipient is a PosteCS user, the sender can request the use of the recipient's PosteCS account password. Alternatively, a unique password should be communicated to the recipient to protect the document. In this case, the sender communicates the password to the recipient through an alternative means. The use of a password, together with SSL and encryption, secure the PosteCS delivery.

What kind of documents can I send via PosteCS service?

PosteCS service supports any kind of file format including word processing documents, spreadsheets, multimedia files, and executable programs.

What is the Electronic Postmark?

The Electronic Postmark is a PosteCS feature that provides a valuable trusted third-party validation of the time and date that a package was received by the PosteCS server and validation that a package was not changed after its processing by PosteCS. Specifically, the Electronic Postmark record is a Canada Post time-stamped and date-stamped cryptographically sealed digital object that accompanies a PosteCS package to prevent undetected modification of the package. It also contains a hash or "electronic footprint" of the original package and other attributes. The Electronic Postmark record is then digitally "sealed" by the application of a digital signature.

What is the difference between PosteCS service and epost™ service?

PosteCS is a business-to-business application that delivers messages and documents securely to any valid Internet email address in the world. epost service is a business to consumer or consumer to consumer application delivering to other registered epost participants. Both PosteCS and epost represent Canada Post's commitment to moving into partnerships that focus on the secure delivery of electronic mail.

epost is a web-based service offering a single location for registered Canadian users, consumers and businesses, to send and receive mail, pay bills, access services, find information and interact in an easy to use, private and secure environment. epost deliveries also carry the assurance of the Electronic Postmark. Developed jointly by Canada Post and Cebra Inc., the basic service is free for consumers who register.

There have been recent reports of hackers successfully accessing private email messages. Will these hackers be able to do the same with PosteCS service?

PosteCS service employs a combination of industry standards and proprietary security measures that make it more secure than email. PosteCS recipients receive an email notification to "pick up" a PosteCS package from the secure postal server. The server encryption in combination with password protection and Secure Sockets Layer links make it extremely difficult for an unauthorized user to gain access to a document.

Support

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