Bookshelf v7.5: About Working with Correspondence Templates

About Working with Correspondence Templates

Siebel correspondence templates are created and edited in Microsoft Word (DOC file format). Templates contain fixed text and one or more merge field. The merge fields are placeholders that will be populated with variable information from your Siebel database, such as a Contact's name and address, when users generate a correspondence for one or more recipients.

Users can create their own personal templates, and administrators can create templates for users. To modify or add a template, Microsoft Word must be installed on your computer.

The fixed text of each correspondence template is written using specific locale conventions and language. In order to support Global Deployment, the author of the template can explicitly indicate the locale and language using the Locale and Language fields in the template record. The Document Server then uses these settings to substitute correctly localized data into the mailmerge fields of the template. The following types of fields are affected:

MLOV fields

Global data fields

Locale-sensitive fields, such as dates and currencies

The data source for Word merge fields that are available to be included in Siebel correspondence templates is in the Siebel.html file. Administrators can augment the set of merge fields available using Siebel Tools. For information, see Configuring Additional Merge Fields.

Guidelines for working with correspondence templates include the following:

One correspondence must be generated before the Siebel.html file will appear for the first time. In most cases, the first generated correspondence template will be one of the Siebel sample templates. Once the Siebel.html file appears, you can use it to create custom templates.

A template must contain at least one merge field in order to generate a correspondence.

Each time a user clicks Generate or Generate Label, the Siebel.html file is overwritten.

Each time a user clicks Generate or Generate Label, the variable data in the data file replaces the merge fields in the Siebel.html file, based on the template format chosen, and a customized correspondence document is created for each recipient on the list.

Check the status of the document or label by clicking the Update button and reviewing the Document Status field. See Table 23.

Table 23. Document Status Field
Status	Meaning
In Queue	Request sent to available document server.
Generating	Document server is creating the Word merge document.
Completed	Document is available and can be accessed from the Generated Document field.
Failed	Document server encountered errors. Check the Document Error and Label Error fields for error messages.

It is recommended that you make the template inactive prior to modifying it. You make the template inactive by deselecting the Active field. This will prevent other users from attempting to create correspondences using this template at the same time you are modifying it. After you have finished your modifications, check the Active field again.

The Siebel.html file is located in the Reports subdirectory on the Siebel Server.

NOTE: You should always perform system administration tasks, such as administration of correspondence templates, against the server database. Although you can perform these tasks against your local database and synchronize, doing so has the potential to cause errors, including data conflicts. In addition, performance problems can result from a large local database, and from routing large numbers of transactions.

For information about which versions of Microsoft Word are supported, see Release Notes and Siebel System Requirements and Supported Platforms for your Siebel application.