By Michele Barletta

The famous ‘pink slips’ that are so well known by the students at Quincy University are now a thing of the past. The mailroom has implemented a new tracking system which allows students to be notified via email when their package is ready to be collected.

‘QTrak‘ is a system that is popular with other business in the area, and used by colleges across the nation.

Shane Wingerter is the coordinator of the mailroom and copy center and has been for just over two years now. Wingerter has been pushing to get the new system at QU and is very happy with the way it has been working this semester.

“QTrak in itself is just a package receiving and delivery system, so it’s all electronic,” Wingerter said.

Wingerter uses an app on his iPad to scan the barcodes of packages as they arrive at QU. Immediately after scanning, QTrak logs all the necessary information. The origin of the package, the destination, the sender, receiver, and the carrier used to deliver.

“Before QTrak, we would log all of this by hand,” Wingerter said. “We would spend hours and hours with little pink slips, which then got logged into a book, and the pink slips then went into your box.”

Students seem to be happy with the new system and say it’s a lot more convenient for them. Nick Chapman prefers the digital system and says he was surprised it took this long for one to be implemented.

“Because of how advanced technology is, I thought something like this would’ve been available sooner,” Chapman said. “It makes the whole process a lot easier, I don’t have to keep going to the mailroom to see if my package has arrived, i just wait for the email and then go pick it up.”

In addition to the efficiency of the system, Wingerter says that QTrak helps him do tasks that he coudn’t before.

“Every scanned package gets automatcially logged onto my master computer, so I can print those off and track trends,” Wingerter said. “You know, like when is our busiest time of the month and when will I need student workers here to help get through all the packages quickly.”

Above everything else, Wingerter says the biggest benefit of QTrak, is the time it saves him.

“This completely frees us up, so what took three or four hours to do, has been reduced to probably 35 to 40 minutes,” Wingerter explained.

The mail room has had it’s security issues over the years, and Wingerter says that any time there’s so much hand writing involved, the possibility of human error is always a risk.

In addition to the convenience of the new system, QTrak also adds an element of greater security.