When I told our Trading Partner I show the transaction was picked up they asked for the Mailbag # so their VAN could investigate. It would be nice if the Mailbag # is available in InFlight.

Dear Joe,

Thank you for sharing this idea. I understand the challenge—when a Trading Partner asks for the Mailbag number for further investigation by their VAN, you currently need to raise a support case to retrieve it. Making the Mailbag # visible directly in Inflight would save time for both customers and our Support team and improve the overall troubleshooting experience.

Providing this level of visibility aligns well with our broader goal of enhancing end-to-end traceability and reducing operational friction. Exposing the Mailbag # in the Inflight details (and potentially search results) could certainly help customers respond faster to partner inquiries and avoid unnecessary ticket escalations.

To evaluate this enhancement properly, I’d like to clarify a few key points.

1. Should the Mailbag # appear only in the Inflight event details, or should it also be available in the search/filter results?

2. Do you need the Mailbag # for all protocols (X.400, AS2, VAN interconnects) or only for specific VAN flows?

3. At what point in the lifecycle is the Mailbag # expected—only after delivery, or also for in-process transactions?

4. Do you foresee customers exporting or reporting on Mailbag # values, or is it mostly needed for ad-hoc troubleshooting?

5. Should access to Mailbag information be available to all users, or limited to specific roles (e.g., admin/ops users)?

Once I have your inputs, I’ll work with Engineering and Support to assess feasibility, underlying metadata availability, and UI impacts for showing Mailbag details in Inflight.

Thanks again for raising this valuable enhancement—it directly helps improve customer visibility and reduces support dependency.

Regards,

Manoj Panda

Product Manager, IBM Sterling B2B & VAN