Mail Merge

Mail merge is the ability to create a form letter, print labels or other such documents and substitute portions of the document (e.g. the recipient’s name and address) with information from another source (e.g. a list of customers).

In order to create a Mail Merge you need two documents; a form letter and a data file. The form letter contains the field names that will be completed with data from the data file as well as the text of the letter. The data file contains the valid field names as well as the data. The list of valid field names depends on where you are in Newviews.

The process of creating a Mail Merge is as follows:

1. In NewViews, mark a block of items (Accounts, Employees, Transactions, etc.) that contain data that you want to use in your Mail Merge.
2. Run Mail Merge on the block, leaving the first field in the prompt box blank. This will create three files, a data source file required by MS Word, and two readable documentation files. See Mail Merge Files.
3. Startup MS Word and create a new mail merge document or open an existing document.
4. Set MS Word's mail merge data source file to the data file created above.
5. Create your form letter adding the mail merge fields where appropriate. Save the file.
6. Back in NewViews, run the Mail Merge tool again but this time fill in the first field in the prompt box with the name of the Word document created above.
7. View the result.

The links below will take you through this process step by step.

• Creating a Data Source File
• Using an Existing Template Document
• Creating a New Template Document
• Creating a Merged Document
• Creating Print Address Labels
• Mail Merge Custom Scripts
• Sample Mail Merge Documents
• Troubleshooting Mail Merge

To perform a mail-merge, optionally select table items with a block (or selection) and execute a Tools>Mail Merge command. Mail Merge works on either the entire table, or a block of items, or the active item.

Extra Address Name

Since accounts can have Extra Addresses, this provides for a -glob pattern.

e.g. B_* will source the address from the billing address S_* will source the address from the Shipping address S_?ON will source the address from the Shipping address, but only for ON....

Each address in the extra addresses list has a Name. The naming of extra addresses can be very important. The above only works when all billing address Names start with the letter S_.

The address name field allows you to use one or more of an account's extra addresses as the billing used during the merge.

For example, suppose you have setup extra addresses for all of your customers using a naming convention whereby you have entered the province followed by the city as the "Name" of each customer's extra addresses.

Using this example, if you have the "Extra Address Name" field filled in with "ONTARIO_TORONTO" then NewViews Mail Merge will use the corresponding extra address if it exists. Otherwise, NewViews Mail Merge will use the default billing address. The "Extra Address Name" field can do pattern matching so using the example above and entering "ON*" into the "Extra Address Name" field will cause NewViews Mail Merge to look for an extra address that starts with the letters "ON".

One data record will be created for each customer's extra addresses that match the pattern.

Sample Mail Merge Custom Script

NewViews mail merge is an exceptionally powerful tool. In addition to selecting blocks of data to act as your data source, scripts can be used to filter or manipulate the data in various ways. For example, using a script you could create a form letter for customers who bought a particular product or live in a particular geographical location. The NewViews Upgrades Plan renewal letter sent to NewViews users is a good example of the power of scripts used in conjunction with mail merge.

A sample script is included with NewViews and is located in the following directory c:/nv/nv2.exe/object/newviews/account. For more information on how to use Mail Merge with scripts see Mail Merge Custom Scripts