Mail Merge - Welcome Letters

How to Mass E-Mail Community Website Welcome Letters

The “email” function of this procedure is completed through Microsoft Word and Microsoft Outlook. However, those systems need the information stored within Shiftsuite.

The first set of steps are done within the Accounting application’s Write Letters function.

1. Open the condo in Accounting. To do so, click on ‘Open Corporation’.
   
2. Select your condo and click Open.
   
   
   
   
3. The first step is to Save the mail merge template to your desktop.
   • Go to ‘Settings’ and then ‘System Setup’.

         

• Select ‘List Maintenance’ then ‘Mail Merge Templates’

       

• Now select ‘Community Website Welcome Letter’ and select the template you would like to use.

       

• Once selected, double click to download the template, and save to your desktop so it is easily accessible.

       

4. The next step is to get the data that exists within the system, onto your desktop as well.
   Go to ‘Property Management’ and select ‘Write Letters’.

5. ‘Choose Category’ Community Website Welcome Letter and then ‘Choose Template’ and select the template just saved. Now select the units that need welcome letters (for this example, we will Select All).
   • Click ‘Export Data’ and save the excel sheet to your desktop.

           

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

6. Open the Template you saved in step 3.d – this will open Microsoft Word.
7. Once open, select ‘Mailings’ and ‘Start Mail Merge’.
   • Under Start Mail Merge please select ‘Email Messages’
     
8. 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.
   
   
9. 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.
   
   
   
   
10. 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.)

           

11. Once confirmed that all information has been pulled correctly, please select “Finish & Merge”.
    
    
    
    
12. The final step is choosing your Subject line. Treat this as you would a normal email subject line.
    1. Keep the Mail format as HTML
    2. Keep Send records field to All
    3. 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.