Ack Letter Print Order

Amy Horrocks 2 · January 3

Right now, the ack letters are being generated in the order they are listed in the Mail Merge wizard. I want them to run in the order I entered the gifts. Is there a way to change that? (I cannot/will not change the order of gift entry based on the ack letter) Thanks

JoAnn Strommen · January 3

@Amy Horrocks Assuming from the same day so sorting by date doesn't work? If so, you'd need to be able to sort by gift ID to get them in order entered.
You could try sorting by a query that has them in order by gift ID on the Format (9) tab there are sort options. Try that before clicking ‘export’.

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Might work - I don't see that Gift ID is available to include in the export data field.

Curious, why do you want them by order entered?

Amy Horrocks 2 · January 3

@JoAnn Strommen In order streamlines the process. Here's the pile of gifts I entered, here's the pile of letters. I can easily match them up together to then present to my boss for signature. In my former life, that happened but I'm not sure what changed/what I forgot. We are self hosted, so I still use Mail in RE.

Christine Robertson 4 · January 3

@Amy Horrocks If you choose to sort by Query and your Query is set to sort by Gift ID as @JoAnn Strommen mentioned) that might do it.

JoAnn Strommen · January 3

@Amy Horrocks What order are they coming in the Mail Merge Wizard?

Is there any selection entered for how to sort that should be removed?

Are you entering in a batch and then sorting the batch? Is that the order coming in Mail Merge?

Amy Horrocks 2 · January 6

@JoAnn Strommen It's the list of conditional merge documents that we have for the various ack letters. (in the Mail Merge Wizard, conditional mail merge, “use the grid below to set up a different merge document for each condition”) Raiser's Edge is merging the docs based on that order. Example:

If I enter a batch of 5 gifts…

Gift 1 Letter F

Gift 2 Letter A

Gift 3 Letter D

Gift 4 Letter B

Gift 5 Letter C

I want the letters to come out F,A,D,B,C. Instead, they come out A,B,C,D,F.

Rachel Bailey · January 6

@Christine Robertson, this is what we do. We are hosted by Blackbaud so we run the Gift query through an Envelope parameter file in RE: Mail first. Then we do a Gift Export with the same query and run that with an IF…THEN…ELSE conditional mail merge in Microsoft Word. Since both are pulling from the same gift query which is sorted by the field we want, the envelopes and letters come out in the same order.

Daniel R. Snyder · January 7

@Amy Horrocks I wonder if you don't sort them at all if that will get what you want. We are BB hosted so I can't test this, but I do remember that they used to come our in the order they were committed/entered for us so I wonder if no filters is really what is needed in the end?

Amy Horrocks 2 · January 7

@Dan Snyder I'm not using any kind of filter Just a date parameter for a week's worth of gifts. But all campaigns/funds/appeals.

Ack Letter Print Order

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