4. Usage

Once the form 1583 is in place, ECM works as advertised. In our tests, we set up a P.O. box in New York City and began sending mail as soon as the initial setup was done (before the 1583 form hurdles were known). Accept for one certified letter, all the mail was received, even though form 1583 hadn’t been processed. With the 1583 processed, ECM’s online display showed the mail in the inbox, which is the first point of virtual contact you get with your mail.

Once mail hits your inbox, you get to see the outside of it, which helps you to determine if you want to do something else with it. That something else could be to have ECM open the mail and scan it so you can see the contents, shred it or have it forwarded to a physical address.

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The inbox isn’t like a typical Outlook inbox where you can just leave stuff if you want to. Whenever you just leave items in the inbox, ECM will send you an inactive mail email to ask what you want to do with the inbox contents.

The inbox as tested was often (if not always) incorrect in identifying how many pages were actually in any given piece of mail. In one test case, the system guessed that a particular piece of email had eight pages.

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Once the scan is complete, the letter becomes available in a PDF file. In the case of the eight pager that ECM identified, it was actually a one-page printout of a GearDigest.com article that was mailed to the test address box.

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