Exporting Acknowledgement Letter as excel instead of using inside RE

Options
Wendy Herrel
Wendy Herrel ✭
Ninth Anniversary Photogenic
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion
Can anyone give me the pros and cons of running acknowledgement letter outside of RE by exporting an excel file and merging to word letters? Is it better to create inside RE?
Tagged:

Comments

  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    To me exporting to excel and then merging to Word is extra work.  RE is set up to handle through Mail > Acknowledgement Letters.  If for some reason the fields/format I might need is not available there.  My second option would be Export function to a Word doc right in the Export function. 



    Availability of fields or a need for major format revision or data revision would be the reasons I would consider exporting to excel and then merging into word. 



    My 2 cents...
  • Jen Claudy
    Jen Claudy ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    I switched from Mail to Export years ago for ack letters...but I Export to MS Access (rather than Excel).  My Access "Front End" db has code that sorts and manipulates the data so that it is the way we need it.  And, one of the things I was really frustrated with in RE Mail (which may no longer be the case, I haven't gone back and looked), Access will print the exact same address on the envelope that appears on the letter...without needing to set up two functions exactly the same.  I think it used to be a pain, particularly with contacts.



    We also add dates to the letters after our CEO signs them.  So he signs them, returns to us, and we run them thru the printer again to add the date.  I included a report in Access that just has the current date in the correct spot on the page.  This way, if he is unexpectedly out of the office or unable to get to the letters (he handwrites personal notes on every single one, so he doesn't like to just rush thru them to get them out the door), we don't have to extend the delay by reprinting with updated dates.



    I don't know that Excel will offer the same level of efficiency, though, as I think you'd have to manually manipulate your data every time, or else you're just adding a step if you're Exporting to Excel and running your Word merge without changing any of the data.
  • Chris Z
    Chris Z ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 1 Photogenic
    I highly recommend using the Mail>Donor Acknowledgement Letters within RE.  While it took a while to set up all the conditional options for a handful of letters, by the time it was done, it took longer for the printer to finish the job than it did for me to generate the letters.  I went right from entry to generating the letters.  There wasn't a merge step going from an Excel file, and yet at the end I still had the finished letters, in case I needed a reprint/edit later.



    You will be able to drop in the reference field.  You will have to work with some conditional coding in the Word document, but that is visible by hitting Alt+<F9>.  In my case, I had different people signing the letters based on gift amount and also had different job titles and contact phone numbers for each person.  Not very difficult logic really.
  • Gracie Schild
    Gracie Schild ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 2 Photogenic
    We also use a conditional merge in Mail -> Donor Ack Letters, but I've never done an "if then" condition within the letter.  I'd like to know how to do that so we can say "if Board Memeber or gift over $2500 insert President's signature block". We've been talking about simply adding a President's letter or two so that the person running the letters doesn't have to change them by hand.  So far we're a small shop and that has worked.  But we've just added a major gifts officer and we're starting a capital campaign, so we're hoping to create efficiencies to boost capacity.

    Can someone direct me to a few KB articles or other resources for doing this kind of condition within a conditional merge?  Thanks!

Categories