CBP Deployed Certain A2.1 ACE Capabilities on January 24th
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection sources, CBP deployed, as scheduled, enhanced ACE capabilities within the ESAR A2.1 (M1 Reference Data) release, on Saturday, January 24, 2009.
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(The A2.1 release lays the groundwork for the M1 release (Ocean and Rail e-Manifest). It is expected that the A2.1 release (in its entirety) and M1 release will be deployed simultaneously in the spring of 2009.)
CBP, ITDS Documents on A2.1/M1
CBP and the International Trade Data System have issued various documents on this January 24, 2009 deployment, highlights of which are as follows (notices are hyperlinked):
Deployment cutover reminder - this document, issued by CBP via a CSMS message, was issued as a reminder that CBP was deploying the enhanced ACE capabilities within the A2.1 release on January 24th.
New ACE portal features of this release include: portal navigation changes, log off changes, access to bond data, the availability of a new reference file - UN Location Code, etc.
Carrier portal changes for A2.1/M1 - this document, issued by CBP via a CSMS message, provides an overview of carrier portal changes that were to occur on January 24, 2009.
According to this document, carriers with ACE portal accounts will now see continuous bond data under the "Bond" tab in their carrier view. Also, ocean and rail carriers gain the ability to create a list of authorized custodial bond users in their ACE portal accounts; however, the in-bond authorization will not be used to edit actual in-bond transactions until the spring of 2009 when A2.1/M1 are deployed.
A2.1 overview for all users - this document, issued by ITDS, provides an A2.1 overview for all users.
According to the document, the A2.1 release will be deployed simultaneously with the M1 release. In preparation for the M1 release scheduled for the spring of 2009, CBP will deploy several portal enhancements on January 24, 2009. Some enhancements are aesthetic and some will affect the way users currently operate in the portal.
CBP encourages rail and sea carriers to sign up for ACE accounts - CBP issued a notice encouraging rail and sea carriers to sign up now for a free ACE Secure Data Portal account in anticipation of the 2009 replacement of current rail and sea automated manifest systems with ACE (A2.1/M1).
All ACE account holders will benefit from the system's reporting tool, which provides the trade community the ability to create and save customized reports. In addition, the 2009 ACE enhancements will enable account holders to extract bill of lading status, cargo release notifications, hold and hold removal notifications, movement authorizations and transaction histories at the bill of lading level.
PGA perspective of ACE reports migration - this document, issued by ITDS, is similar to CBP's previously issued CSMS message on the ACE reports migration; however, it includes notes for Participating Government Agencies (PGAs).
(CBP previously issued a CSMS message stating that that in order to accommodate additional reporting capabilities, the A2.1/M1 release will require a more robust data warehouse. Accordingly, as part of the deployment of A2.1, the existing data warehouse information will be migrated to the new data warehouse. See today's ITT, 090127302, for BP summary on CBP reporting issues with ACE reports.)
(See ITT's Online Archives or 01/15/09 news, 09011515, for BP summary announcing that CBP was scheduled to deploy these capabilities on Jan. 24th.
See ITT's Online Archives or 07/28/08 news, 08072805, for M1, other ACE drops being delayed.)