Performing a Mail Merge
Oracle Sales and Marketing lets you send personalized letters to a list of people with specific information inserted into a form letter. The form letter is usually connected to a promotion or an event, allowing you to use address and product interest information gathered about a list of prospects or enrollees, and selectively insert that information in the letter. For example, the same letter may need to be sent to all people enrolled in a certain seminar or training program.
You can set up a mailing to be sent at a Specified Date, for example, to welcome all participants in a seminar a month ahead of time. You can also order a mailing as the result of a Status Change. In this case, if a person is enrolled in a seminar, and their status changes (payment is received, for example) to confirmed, a letter is automatically sent confirming the details of their seminar or training program.
Prerequisites
The path must be set correctly to your word processor and to your Oracle database. When you select New Letter, or Edit Letter, Microsoft Word 7.0 opens and indicates the correct path. When both paths are set correctly, Oracle Sales and Marketing automatically presents the correct template for a form letter or locates a form letter and inserts the merged information in the form letter. See your system administrator if your path is not set correctly.
The following instructions are specific to the task of event letters.
1. Register, then create a new letter using tokens from the Insert Merge Field menu to create merge fields or select an existing letter.
2. Edit the new letter as appropriate.
3. Choose the Save and Proceed button on the toolbar.
4. From the Navigator, choose Events -> Offering.
5. Find the event associated with the letter and open the Event Offering window.
6. Choose the Roster button.
The event roster contains line entries for each enrollee in the event. In addition to name, address, company name, telephone, etc., the status column contains a list of values including: enrolled, confirmed, walk in, and cancelled. Leave the window open.
7. Choose the Letters button from the Event Offering window.
The Event Letters window opens. Notice that the title of the event, its code number, and the date it takes place are shown on the title bar.
Fill in the information about the letter in the first available blank line.
Action Type: Determines when the letter will be sent. Your choices are either Specified Date, meaning to be mailed on or after a specified date or Status Change, where a letter is sent upon enrollment status change.
Letter Name: You may either type in the name of your letter, or choose from the list of values.
Letter Code: You may either type in the letter code assigned when you registered the letter, choose the code from a list of values, or the code may have been filled in when you selected the title of the letter.
Enrollment Status: Select the enrollment status of the people who will receive the letter. For example, you may want a confirmation letter sent when a person's status changes from Enrolled to Confirmed, to give the attendee further instructions or confirmation of receipt of payment.
Mail Date: Enter the date of the mailing if you selected Specified Date.
8. Choose Save and Proceed from the toolbar.
9. From the Navigator, choose Event -> Letter Merge.
The Letter Merge window opens.
The path and the merge file name appear in the Name column. The word processor name appears in the Word Processor column.
10. Choose the Merge button.
The form letter appears, and the information from the events roster is compiled with it. Form letters appears on the screen, as many as there are records fulfilling the criteria you have specified.
Suggestion: Use the screen document to proof read the letter for format and content. You can scroll through the output, or choose the Test Merge button from the toolbar in the Microsoft Word application to see an individual letter.
- Print the letters as you would any other document at your local printer. Use Print Preview to inspect the individual letters before printing.
- The event merge request is registered and recorded within Oracle Sales and Marketing when you enter information in the Event Letters window. If you have a connection to an Order Fulfillment department, they can access and create event letter merges just as you would locally. See your system administrator for more information.
To perform a mail merge: