Mail Merge - Welcome Letters

Purpose: To generate and distribute Community Website Welcome Letters to Residents

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The "email" function in this procedure is executed via Microsoft Word and Outlook, which require the information to be stored within Shiftsuite.

The initial steps are completed using the Accounting application's Write Letters function.

• Open the Condo in Accounting by clicking on Open Corporation

• Select your Condo and click Open

• First, save the mail merge template to your desktop
• Go to Settings and select System Setup.
• Select List Maintenance
• Select Mail Merge Templates

• Next, select the Community Website Welcome Letter and double-click on the template you wish to use.

• Once selected, click to Download Template and save it to your desktop for easy access.

     

• The next step is to transfer the data from the system to your desktop.
  • Go to Property Management and select Write Letters.

• Choose the category Community Website Welcome Letter, then select Choose Template and the template you just saved. Next, select the units that need welcome letters (for this example, select All).
  • Click Export Data and save the Excel sheet to your desktop.

         

NOTE: Check "Put into Owners Correspondence" box if you wish to have the Welcome Letter tracked in the Owner's Correspondence. 

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NOTE: The next steps are completely done outside of the Shiftsuite system.

• Open the Template you saved in step 3.d – this will open Microsoft Word.
• Once open, select Mailings and Start Mail Merge.
  • Under Start Mail Merge select Email Messages

• Now go to Select Recipients and click the Use an Existing List option.
  • Select the excel document saved that you exported in step 5.a.

• If needed - to edit the Welcome Letter email template, there is now access to the rest of the Mail Merge options shown in Write and Insert Field area within Microsoft Word.
  
  
  
  
• Select Preview Results to ensure the layout looks as expected and all information has pulled correctly.
  
  
  
  
  • Some error messages may indicate there is an invalid Mail Merge field, simply select a valid Mail Merge field instead. (e.g., the <<EmailAddress>> mail merge field was invalid so <<PMEmail>> was used instead.)

         

• Once confirmed that all information has been pulled correctly, please select Finish & Merge.

• The final step is choosing your Subject line. Treat this as you would a normal email subject line.
  • Keep the Mail format as HTML
  • Keep Send records field to All
  • Then select OK.

You have now completed all the steps and you will notice emails in your Sent Items folder within Microsoft Outlook.

Be sure to give Microsoft Word time to complete the job. The more units/residents you have, the longer it will take, so please be patient.