Creating letters

In Customers, you can write and send letters while you have a customer's record open with Microsoft Word™ Integration (Letter System).

Note: If you have created the Letter activity type, creating a letter for an individual customer generates an activity record for that customer.

To merge a letter for a single customer using the Letter System

Note: When using the Letter System, you will need to close any other instances of MS Word that you may have open.

  1. From Customers, select Manage customers.
  2. Find the customer's record.
  3. Select the Letters tab.
  4. Click New Letter to open the Membership Standard Letters window.
  5. Select the letter to merge from the Membership Standard Letters window.
  6. Click Merge and enable the activity options for your merge:
  7. Enable the Create Activity records with merge option to create the LETTER activity for each customer record.
  8. Enable the Create EMAIL Activities with merge option to create the EMAIL activity instead of the LETTER activity.

    9. Note: If you want to email the letter to customers and create an e‑mail activity, you must enable both options. An EMAIL activity type must be defined in the database.

  9. Enable the Include Bad Addresses with merge option to include in your merge, those addresses that have an invalid status.
  10. Click Continue to open MS Word.

    11. The template opens in MS Word with the text and merge fields displayed.

    Note: An activity is automatically created for a merge completed on the Letters tab.

  11. Start the merge process:
    • In MS Word, select the Merge to New Document icon on the toolbar to open the Merge to New Document window.
    • Select All records or enter a range.
    • Click OK to display the letters.

    12. If you selected New document, the letters are shown.

  12. Print the form letter.
  13. Close the Form Letter window.
  14. Close the template (.DOC) file.

To merge an email letter for a single customer using the Letter System

To ensure all letters are delivered by email, verify the E-mail field for each customer is populated on the Manage customers window.

Note: When using the Letter System, you will need to close any other instances of MS Word that you may have open.

  1. Open your email program.
  2. From Customers, select Manage customers.
  3. Find or insert a customer record.
  4. Select the Letters tab.
  5. Click New Letter to open the Membership Standard Letters window.
  6. Select the letter template to merge.
  7. Click Merge to open the Membership Standard Letters window.
  8. Enable the Create Activity records with merge option to create the LETTER activity.
  9. Enable the Create EMAIL Activities with merge option to create the EMAIL activity for each customer record.

    10. Note: An activity is automatically created for a merge completed on the Letters tab. If you want to email the letter to customer and create an email activity, you must enable both options. An EMAIL activity type must be defined in the database.

  10. Enable the Include Bad Address with merge option to include those addresses that have an invalid status.
  11. Click Continue. The template opens in MS Word with the text and merge fields displayed.
  12. In MS Word, select the Merge to E-mail icon on the toolbar to open the Merge to E-mail window.
  13. Select NameEMAIL from the To drop-down list.
  14. (optional) Enter a Subject line.
  15. Select the Mail format drop-down list and select the appropriate format.

    16. Note: If you select the Attachment format or the Plain Text format, two message prompts will display for each record that is being merged. Click Yes for each prompt. The message prompts will not display if you select the HTML format.

  16. Click OK to display the letters
  17. Close the Form Letters window.
  18. Close the template (.DOC) file.

To view a letter or email activity

You can view activities for a letter or email on the Letters tab or the Activities-All tab.

Note: A given LETTER activity will reflect a letter's text only when that text differs from the permanent text stored in the letter template. For example, if you send a letter to all of your customers but add additional information (such as an answer to a customer's question) to only one of the letters, the entire text of that letter would be stored for that customer's LETTER activity.

The letter text associated with the template is saved to the Activity_Attach.ATTACH_TEXT table. Once a template is saved, all future letter activities will use the original template, regardless if the template is changed.

  1. To view a letter from the Customers module:
    • Select Manage customers.
    • Find a customer record with a LETTER or EMAIL activity record.
    • Select the Activities-All tab.
    • Double-click an EMAIL or LETTER activity to open the Activity Detail window.
  2. To view an  EMAIL or LETTER activity through the Letters tab:
    • From Customers, select Manage customers.
    • Find a customer record with a LETTER or EMAIL activity record.
    • Select the Letters tab.
    • Double-click the letter or email line item to open the Activity Detail window.

The Letters tab