My New Acknowledgment Letter will not pull data into

Aaron Shilkaitis

Hi friends!


I have a fun new problem for someone to solve. 


I am taking over my Org's Acknowledgment Letter process and need to add new letters to the Raiser's Edge database. Unfortunately, I have not taken the mailings classes yet so I'm trying to do it off the cuff.


What I have done so far is added a new letter code into Config > Letters > Gifts. Then, I go to Mail > Donor Acknowledgment Letters > Acknowledgment Letters > Send to Word Merge > (next, next , next) > New Document > made sure to match code > Edit Merge Document > created and edited merge document.


When I run the merge, all of the coded information (e.g. <City>, <gift_date> etc) will not pull information through and it ends up on the letter just like that. Now, all of the information is coded the same as our other letters which are working just fine, and I even manually added-in all the fields just in case the copy/pasting wasn't working. Finally, I have confirmed that all of the fields I need ARE being exported under Tab 2 - Fields to Include in the Acknowledgment Letters box.


Hopefully that makes some sense. Does anybody have any ideas why my new letter is not pulling data through into the final letter?


Thanks so much!!

Aaron S

Joanne Felci 2

Hi Aaron,

Just to confirm when you say you manually added-in all the fields just in case the copy/pasting wasn't working do you mean within the mailing wizard you selected the field from the Insert Merged Field within the Word document while in RE - like photo below:




And all merge fields have << >> around them like <<City>>, etc.


And that after you went all the way through the Word merge wizard you hit finish and saved and closed the mail merge?


I have found the Mail area in RE to be a little finicky


Joanne


 

Aaron Shilkaitis

Joanne Felci:

Hi Aaron,

Just to confirm when you say you manually added-in all the fields just in case the copy/pasting wasn't working do you mean within the mailing wizard you selected the field from the Insert Merged Field within the Word document while in RE - like photo below:




And all merge fields have << >> around them like <<City>>, etc.


And that after you went all the way through the Word merge wizard you hit finish and saved and closed the mail merge?


I have found the Mail area in RE to be a little finicky


Joanne


 

Thank you for responding, Joanne.


So, I originally added those fields from the "Add-in" tab (is there a difference?) so I just now went in and added them from the "Insert Merge Field" tab and it's the same thing. My final result looks like this:

 

August 27, 2018  «Reference»«ConstitInformation_Constit_Code_1»«ConstitInformation_Constit_Code_2»«ConstitInformation_Constit_Code_3»





«Additional_Addressee»

«Organization_Name»

«Address_line_1»

«Address_line_2»

«City», «State» «ZIP_Code»

 
Dear «Additional_Salutation»,


Thank you for choosing to invest in our children’s future.


We received your gift of«Amount»for Audubon Society of Portland’s Marmot Cabin upgrade project on«Gift_date». Your support means so much to us.

I cannot deduce why those fields aren't populating. I've been through the basics as far as making sure they're being exported from the gift so I can pull them into the Word Document, but they're not being pulled when I Finish & Merge.


I have the next hour blocked out to check out more forum and BB resources to try to figure it out


Thank you, again,

Aaron


Edit: I also can't figure out why my quote isn't formatting properly. Everything is smushed together "

Melissa S Graves

Call support. They can screenshare with you and see if there is a step in this process you are missing.

Aaron Shilkaitis

Melissa Graves:

Call support. They can screenshare with you and see if there is a step in this process you are missing.

 

Upon retracing my steps, I decided to completely delete the coding and all surrounding text and re-do it. That seemed to work. It seems, perhaps, when I copy/pasted the original letter with the coding included, something was interfering with its ability to pull the date.


I have to laugh that I spent hours on this when I just needed to reset and try again!


Thank you so much for your help all.


My best,

Aaron