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GENERATE A MAIL MERGE FROM AN AD-HOC REPORT

You can export the results of an ad-hoc report into a spreadsheet and save the spreadsheet as a data source for a mail merge with a pre-prepared template. The report should contain all of the fields that you want to include in your letters and the column headings will become the mail merge tokens that you insert into your template.

Run the Ad-hoc Report

  1. Select Reporting>Ad-hoc Reporting.

  2. Click Open then search for and double-click the required report.

  3. Execute the report and then click Spreadsheet on the toolbar. The report results will be displayed in a spreadsheet. Each entry on the spreadsheet will result in a letter being produced for that client.

  4. Save the spreadsheet. The name is important as this will be linked to the mail merge template. If you use the same name each time, but just update the data, then this will simplify the merge routine.

Create Letter Template

The same template can be used multiple times by refreshing the data in the spreadsheet and overwriting the original spreadsheet with the updated data.

  1. Launch OpenOffice Writer

  1. OpenOffice Writer defaults all documents to be in a book style format and you should amend the print settings as follows to avoid printing a blank page between each printed page.

  2. Click the Tools Menu and Options.

  3. Click the + symbol to the left of Open Office Writer

  4. Remove the tick from Print Automatically Inserted Blank Pages.

Unfortunately, there is no facility to save this modification to an existing document, so click File>Save As and save the document as your new template. Open this new template to continue.

  1. Type the non-variable text, ie standard text, into your letter and save the template – without closing it.

  1. To add today’s date to the template:

  2. place your cursor in the position that you wish to display the date, > click on the Insert menu and click Fields and then > Other;

  3. click on the Document tab and in the Type column, click > Date;

  4. in the Select column, click Date (not Date Fixed);

  5. in the Format column, select your required date format and

  6. Click Insert.

  7. To add your field tokens to the template, click on the Database tab and then click on Mail Merge Fields.

  8. To link your spreadsheet to the template so that you can import the data saved on the spreadsheet into your letter, you need to identify the spreadsheet as a database in the Database Selection box. To do so, click Browse in the Add Database File section. Browse for and double-click your saved spreadsheet.

  9. Click the + symbol to the left of the database (spreadsheet) name and then click the + symbol to the left of Sheet 1. This will display the column headers in your spreadsheet. The column headers are the field tokens that you can add to your template in the required positions. You can either double-click on each field so that they appear one after the other in the template and re-position them later or place your cursor where you would like each token to be positioned and then double-click each one in turn (you can click on each token and click Insert if you prefer this to double-clicking).

Notes:

You can click between the template and the Field Selection screen when inserting field tokens.

  1. When all of the tokens have been added click Close and save the template in the OneDrive folder – C:\Users\A1\Assisi Documents\OneDrive\Templates. This will ensure that the template is available for use at other branches.

  2. If you are using the template immediately to generate your letters, you can leave it open at this stage, otherwise close the document.

Complete The Merge

Open your template (if it is not already open) and select Mail Merge Wizard from the Tools menu.

  1. Select starting document: Leave as Use the Current Document and click Next.
  1. Select document type: Leave as Letter and click Next.
  1. Insert address block: Check that the correct spreadsheet is listed as the Current Address List and click Next.

  1. Create a salutation: Click Next.

  2. Edit document: Click Next.

  3. Personalise the document: Click Next.

  4. Save, Print or Send the Document.

  5. Save your starting document – already saved.

  6. Save merged documents. Optional – Save if you wish to save the > merged letters to check back on who received a letter.

  7. Click Print merged documents > Check your printer and make > sure that Print All Documents is selected > Click > Print Documents.

  8. Click Finish when complete.

  9. The starting document will be displayed on the screen. Close without saving.

  10. The merged document will then be displayed on the screen. Saving this is optional. If you do save it, make sure that you don’t overwrite the starting document, ie your mail merge template.