Microsoft Word Conditional Statements and Consolidation of Letters

Seth Huckstead · January 8

Dear Community,

I'm looking to move our batch processing from DB view in RE NXT to the Power Automate solution. Right now, I have 12 different letters/letter codes, but their text has little variation. For instance, we have scholarship acknowledgments, tributes/memorial acknowledgments, and a general thank you. In our general letters we have several letters depending on the funding source (US dollar or Canadian dollar) and the amount (if the amount is under 500 it is signed by the head of philanthropy, if over 500 it is signed by the chancellor, president, and vp.) I'm wondering if I can consolidate our general thank you letter into two or even one letter based on the conditions of amount and currency via if than statements?

Our letters also act as our receipts, so we have the addition of the fields necessary by the Canadian Revenue Authority and the currency type for the gift--that is, some of our Canadian donors give in CAD, and some give in USD. Can I use the conditionals to recognize all those variables so that we can consolidate our letters from 12 to maybe three and have the letters recognize gift amount, currency type, and/or country so that we can change the signature field to meet our conditions as well as insert the CAD receipt information when necessary? I see that Alex Wong provided some guidance here. But I'm wondering if there is an example or resource that I can reference to consolidate templates even further through If Than Else statements.

I'm envisioning that when a gift is added, and it needs an acknowledgment letter that we just have Memorial/Tribute, Scholarship, and General Thank You. I would appreciate any help you can offer. It would help make the conditions in the “Switch” function of Power Automate much more simple.

Alex Wong · January 8

@Seth Huckstead
You can do ONE template for sure, even with the condition to do different “signature” (as image).

As long as there is identifyable information from the gift record that is either available via SKY API's Gift API or Query API, you will be able to do any conditioning. (i.e. what info tells between USD vs CAD)

Then you can use one of the template that is already available and attempt to do it, and when stuck, you can use the community to get help, or bring your project to the Power Automate User Group for “live” help.

Then the question is “SHOULD” you do ONE template. Obviously that questions boils down to how different each letter is from each other and if you want to deal with all the complexity of conditioning in Power Automate.

Seth Huckstead · January 8

@Alex Wong, what would you do? (Ask the expert, right?) I could just use the existing twelve-letter code categories, but I'm trying to simplify it for the philanthropy team. I'm the IT “guy” around here, but my expertise is networking, Active Directory, and cloud configuration.

Alex Wong · January 8

@Seth Huckstead
If this is all “cash” donation, I would do ONE letter only.

What I mean is, (while still possible to do ONE letter), I would separate STOCK donation, gift in kind, etc.

Seth Huckstead · January 8

@Alex Wong Do you know of a good resource or tutorial I can reference to build a complex if then template? I know that by default, Word only allows two variables, but there are ways to introduce multiple if-then conditions, etc.

Alex Wong · January 8

@Seth Huckstead
not sure what you mean by “word only allows two variables”. If you mean word mail merge condition only allow “true” this “false” that, then that's not true. You can have the following in word mailmerge field too:
if condition “when condition true” if condition2 “when condition2 true” “when condition2 false”

nesting is allowed, but that's not what you want to do, just FYI.

I don't have a tutorial to share, the link i used most often is the expression reference doc:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/workflow-definition-language-functions-reference

For “building out a word template” to use in power automate, you will not be using the “mail merge fields”. You will instead use “Content Control” under the Developer tab, if you don't already know this.

I remember I showed how to do this on one of the Power Automate User Group session last year, @Erik Leaver maybe able to help locate it for you to view.

Seth Huckstead · January 9

@Alex Wong This is helpful. I thought I needed to build out the template in Word. Thank you.

Alex Wong · January 9

@Seth Huckstead
You do need to build out the template in MS Word first.

Microsoft Word Conditional Statements and Consolidation of Letters

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