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Word Merge

If you want to send letters and use a mail merge from TouchPoint, you can do that after a little bit of setup by your System Admin. You must be using a version of Word that creates documents with the extension .docx.

The basics are as follows:

  • Upload the document, which can include any of the Email Replacement Codes that normally are used in emails, such as {today}, {first}, {address}, {csz}, and so forth.

  • Copy the URL from the upload and paste it into Special Content in the Custom Reports section where you create a new ‘report’ for the document.

  • Run a search for those to receive the letter and select the Toolbar > code icon > Custom Reports and click on the name of the document.

  • Open the download file which will contain one letter for each person in the search.

  • Make any changes (if needed) to individual documents and print them.

Use Case - First-Time Givers

This is perfect for sending letters from the pastor to any first-time givers that week. Create a search using the Condition Recent First-Time Giver and set it to look back 7 days. Each week, run the search and use the toolbar to access the thank you letter (that has already been uploaded and added as a Custom Report to the toolbar). When you access it it from the toolbar, the letters will download to your computer as one file with the correct email replacements in each letter.

Note

This is going to create letters for each individual, so in some cases you may want to limit your search to only the Head of Household in order to not send two letters to the same family.

Use Case - Church Notifications

If your church is in the habit of notifying a new member’s previous church that he has joined your church, you could upload that letter. The email replacement codes would be for the new member, but you would send the letter to the person’s previous church. So, in this case, if you use an address inside the letter, it will not be the address you are sending to, but will be the address of the new member. That might be good information to include about that person so their previous church can identify him in their database.

Use Case - Delinquent Pledgers

If you need to send letters to pledgers who are behind on their giving, you can create a Word Merge document with the replacement codes for pledge amount and pledge balance. Create a search for people with a pledge balance. Then use the Word Merge to generate reminder letters.

Saving and Uploading the Document

Important

As the System Admin, you will need to decide which role you want to use for accessing the Word Merge document from Custom Reports. We suggest something such as ManageWordMerge which you would give to yourself and then to anyone that needs to access and use the Word merge document. If you use a role that is not in your database (it will display on your user page under Custom), add it to the Lookup Code > Roles. Then assign that role to yourself.

You can use any role, but it is probably best to use a role specifically for this function instead of using Edit or Admin.

Step 1 - Save document

Create the letter and save it on your computer. Be sure to include whatever email replacement codes you want, using the same format (the curly braces) as if you were sending an email.

Example: Dear {first}

Step 2 - Upload document

Go to your people record and select the Toolbar > envelope icon > Create/Edit Saved draft.

Select any template. It does not matter, because you are only using it as the vehicle to upload the document.

Click in the body of the email, then click the plain link icon (not the gold link), and then click on the Upload tab.

Click Choose File, find your document on your computer and double-click to select it. Then click the Send it to the Server button.

Click OK. This will place the URL in the body of the email.

Copy that link and paste it in a text file where you can access it or make sure it is in your clipboard.

Add Merge to Custom Reports

Step 1

Go to Administration > Setup > Special Content and select the Text Content tab.

Then select Custom Reports.

Step 2

Scroll to the bottom of the list of Custom Reports and insert a line just above the closing tag. The closing tag is </CustomReports>

Step 3

Add the new report using xml following these specific instructions:

Enter this text <Report name="ThankYouFirstTimeGivers" where the text displayed in quotes will be the name you want to display in the custom reports menu. Our sample will display as Thank You First Time Givers.

The type will be URL, so enter type="URL".

Now you want to specify the user role that determines who can access this report. The role will be whatever role you decide to use. We suggest something like ManageWordMerge.

So, enter role="ManageWordMerge" or whatever role you decide to use. Just be sure to enter the name of the role between the quotes exactly as it appears in the Lookup Codes.

Note

This role should be assigned to ministers or staff - whoever needs to access the document for the merge.

Then enter this text - url="/Export2/DocXMerge/@qid?filename=thankyougift with the actual filename after the = sign being whatever you choose to call it. It does not display externally.

Follow the file name with this text &amp;template=.

The template will be the URL for your document. So, after the = sign paste the URL you previously copied when you uploaded your document.

At the end of the URL add this text " />.

Click Save Changes.

Your addition to the Custom Report file will look like the image below. There is a space between Picture4Directory and type and another space between URL and url.

https://i.tpsdb.com/2016-11-04_16-00-16.png

Custom Reports - DocXMerge

Test the Report

Go to a people record, a tag, an org, or a search results (anywhere you can access the blue Toolbar).

Click the code icon and then select your new report.

It will open the document in Word. Verify that the email replacement codes were entered correctly and that the text is appearing as it should.

If not, make corrections to your document and upload it again. Return to Special Content > Text Content > Custom Reports and just replace the existing URL with the new one.

Caution

Do not try to do this merge for your entire database. Just test using a few records.

Use the DocX Merge

Step 1

Create and save a search in Search Builder that will return those that should receive your letter. If your letter is thanking first-time givers, your search will include the Condition Recent First-Time Giver. If you look back 7 days, you will want to run this search each week to get the most recent batch of givers.

Step 2

Each week run the saved search.

Once you have the search results, go to the blue Toolbar > code icon and click the new Custom Report you created.

This will open in Word with a document for each person in your search results. Use the Print function in Word to print the letters

Tip

If you need to, you can edit any of the letters before printing them.

Step3 3

Return to your Search Results and select the blue Toolbar > Cloud > Address Labels and select the type of address labels you need and print them.

Labels or Envelopes

If you prefer to use envelopes, you can set up your original letter to include the mailing address at the top, so that you can use a window envelope.

Or you can create a 2nd Custom Report for the envelopes (using the same steps as you did for the letter) and select that report to print the envelopes.



Latest Update

04/28/2023

Remove invalid character from instruction sample