​

Digital Mailroom via API

​

What Is a Digital Mailroom?

• Export PDFs or Word documents
• Print them on office printers
• Hand-fold letters and stuff envelopes
• Frank or stamp envelopes
• Drop everything at the post box

• Receives documents electronically (via API)
• Prints, encloses, and posts them automatically
• Tracks statuses and costs centrally
• Provides an audit trail for compliance and operations

​

Typical Digital Mailroom Use Cases

• Financial services
  • Statements and balance letters
  • Arrears and collections letters
  • Rate or terms changes
• Healthcare
  • Appointment confirmations and reminders
  • Referral letters
  • Policy and consent updates
• Local government & utilities
  • Council tax or billing letters
  • Regulatory notices
  • Service updates and works notices

​

Reference Architecture

• Your core system raises events (invoice issued, appointment booked, notice required).
• An integration service calls the Intelliprint API to create print jobs.
• Intelliprint prints and posts the mail via Royal Mail.
• Webhooks and tracking endpoints feed back statuses to your systems.

​

Pattern 1: Event-Driven Letters

// Example: Node.js express-style handler for an "invoice.created" event
import Intelliprint from "intelliprint";

const ip = Intelliprint(process.env.INTELLIPRINT_API_KEY);

export async function handleInvoiceCreated(invoice) {
  const html = `
    <h1>Invoice ${invoice.number}</h1>
    <p>Dear ${invoice.customer.name},</p>
    <p>Your invoice is now due on ${invoice.due_date}.</p>
  `;

  const printJob = await ip.prints.create({
    testmode: true, // keep true while testing
    content: html,
    recipients: [
      {
        address: {
          name: invoice.customer.name,
          line: invoice.customer.address.line,
          postcode: invoice.customer.address.postcode,
          country: invoice.customer.address.country || "GB"
        }
      }
    ],
    confirmed: true
  });

  await db.invoices.update(invoice.id, {
    postal_print_job_id: printJob.id
  });
}

​

Pattern 2: Daily Batch Mail Runs

1. Throughout the day, your systems create draft print jobs (confirmed: false).
2. At a fixed time (e.g. 15:00 UK), a scheduled job confirms eligible drafts.
3. Intelliprint prints and posts all confirmed jobs.

• Review and approve batches from a dashboard
• Reconcile mailings with finance and operations

​

Pattern 3: Bulk Campaigns from CRM / CSV

• A CRM or database export to CSV
• The Mailing List + Template quickstart

​

Tracking & Audit Trail

• API tracking
  Use Track, Retrieve & Cancel to:
  • List print jobs by date or metadata
  • Drill into individual letters and statuses
  • Cancel jobs that have not yet been printed
• Webhooks
  Configure Webhooks to receive events such as:
  • letter.updated – for lifecycle statuses (waiting_to_print, printing, enclosing, shipping, sent, returned, failed_wrong_address)
  • mailing_list.addresses_validated
• Metadata
  Attach your own identifiers (e.g. customer_id, invoice_id, case_reference) via metadata so you can cross-reference letters with your internal systems.

const printJob = await ip.prints.create({
  testmode: true,
  content: "<h1>Important notice</h1>",
  recipients: [{ address: {/* ... */} }],
  metadata: {
    customer_id: "cust_12345",
    notice_type: "terms_update",
    channel: "postal"
  },
  confirmed: true
});

​

Compliance & Address Quality

• Use address validation for large mailings to avoid undeliverable post
  See Address Validation in Overview & Concepts.
• Use test mode to verify templates, backgrounds, and layouts without posting real mail.
• Use double-sided printing and the Costs guide to keep budgets under control.

​

Next Steps