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#1
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Mail Merge help needed....desperately
Dear Word experts,
How are you? Normally I spent time in the special Microsoft CRM (Customer Relationship Management) newsgroup, but the answer to my question can not be answered...yet. That's when I found this group. Our problem is the following. We are using the Microsoft CRM software to manage customer relationships. This piece of software should 'naturally' tie into other MS applications such as Word and Excel. However....we are facing a big issue when mail merging to Word. The situation is as follows: MS CRM allows you to create a quote on which you can put a number of products (line items). The structure would look something like this: Product Pieces Price Total Price Product X 2 50 100 Product Y 4 20 80 Etc Etc When the quote is finished, you can start a process which brings all your products and other quote details(e.g customer address details) to Word. Now the problem comes up. As an end-user, you seem to haver little influence in how the items are put into the quote template. They are just 'dumped' in randomly. We however, would like to group our products by a unique identifier (in this case: software, hardware and instruction) and display them in their own little section. So, ideally: Software Product X 2 50 100 Hardware Product Y 4 20 80 Etc. I now I am asking a lot, but is it possible (perhaps by putting in 'IF' statements) to design the template in such a way that it will not put all products in one table, but group them according to their type and calculate the subtotals accordingly. This would really, really help us . Microsoft can not help us at this time and we are getting lost. Thanks!!!!!!!! Michiel |
#2
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Mail Merge help needed....desperately
Michiel: I am not at all familiar with the CRM software, but I'm very
familiar with Word. A couple quickie little macros could help you tremendous. Can you: 1) Send me one of these files 2) Send me a desired "after" of the same file If it's as simple as I suspect, I could turn it around in an hour or less. ************ Anne Troy www.OfficeArticles.com "MS CRM" wrote in message ups.com... Dear Word experts, How are you? Normally I spent time in the special Microsoft CRM (Customer Relationship Management) newsgroup, but the answer to my question can not be answered...yet. That's when I found this group. Our problem is the following. We are using the Microsoft CRM software to manage customer relationships. This piece of software should 'naturally' tie into other MS applications such as Word and Excel. However....we are facing a big issue when mail merging to Word. The situation is as follows: MS CRM allows you to create a quote on which you can put a number of products (line items). The structure would look something like this: Product Pieces Price Total Price Product X 2 50 100 Product Y 4 20 80 Etc Etc When the quote is finished, you can start a process which brings all your products and other quote details(e.g customer address details) to Word. Now the problem comes up. As an end-user, you seem to haver little influence in how the items are put into the quote template. They are just 'dumped' in randomly. We however, would like to group our products by a unique identifier (in this case: software, hardware and instruction) and display them in their own little section. So, ideally: Software Product X 2 50 100 Hardware Product Y 4 20 80 Etc. I now I am asking a lot, but is it possible (perhaps by putting in 'IF' statements) to design the template in such a way that it will not put all products in one table, but group them according to their type and calculate the subtotals accordingly. This would really, really help us . Microsoft can not help us at this time and we are getting lost. Thanks!!!!!!!! Michiel |
#3
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Mail Merge help needed....desperately
Michiel,
I suspect you are going to have a few problems sorting out your quotes. Your data source (whatever MS CRM uses) looks like it is relational in structure which is something mail merge does not handle natively. There are some work arounds I have heard of - possibly a search for relational data merges might turn up something. Use of MS Query and some code behind your merge document (parameter passing to MS Query etc) may provide a solution. This is not something I have ever tried or done. I would be inclined to use Access reporting to create your quotes. Access is relational and I am sure would be able to connect to your CRM database. Sorry to not be able to suggest a canned solution to your requirement. Others in this group may well have other better suggestions / solutions. HTH Terry "MS CRM" wrote: Dear Word experts, How are you? Normally I spent time in the special Microsoft CRM (Customer Relationship Management) newsgroup, but the answer to my question can not be answered...yet. That's when I found this group. Our problem is the following. We are using the Microsoft CRM software to manage customer relationships. This piece of software should 'naturally' tie into other MS applications such as Word and Excel. However....we are facing a big issue when mail merging to Word. The situation is as follows: MS CRM allows you to create a quote on which you can put a number of products (line items). The structure would look something like this: Product Pieces Price Total Price Product X 2 50 100 Product Y 4 20 80 Etc Etc When the quote is finished, you can start a process which brings all your products and other quote details(e.g customer address details) to Word. Now the problem comes up. As an end-user, you seem to haver little influence in how the items are put into the quote template. They are just 'dumped' in randomly. We however, would like to group our products by a unique identifier (in this case: software, hardware and instruction) and display them in their own little section. So, ideally: Software Product X 2 50 100 Hardware Product Y 4 20 80 Etc. I now I am asking a lot, but is it possible (perhaps by putting in 'IF' statements) to design the template in such a way that it will not put all products in one table, but group them according to their type and calculate the subtotals accordingly. This would really, really help us . Microsoft can not help us at this time and we are getting lost. Thanks!!!!!!!! Michiel |
#4
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Mail Merge help needed....desperately
Hi Terry/Anne,
Thanks a lot for your quick replies....I would really like to add my ..dot template and an example of the datasource to this thread, but it does not seem to allow me. We have been thinking of using a different tool to create the quotes, but Word is what is used normally, plus there is a lot of standard text that also needs to be included in the document. I do not think the relational aspect will cause a problem, as the fields will only display their contents in Word. However, since we do wat to group the components and sum them up, some calculations needs to take place. Although I do not want to be too straightforward, I can always supply the .dot template to give a better idea of how the contents should look like. Where can I possibly send it to? Thanks a lot! Michiel TerryC schreef: Michiel, I suspect you are going to have a few problems sorting out your quotes. Your data source (whatever MS CRM uses) looks like it is relational in structure which is something mail merge does not handle natively. There are some work arounds I have heard of - possibly a search for relational data merges might turn up something. Use of MS Query and some code behind your merge document (parameter passing to MS Query etc) may provide a solution. This is not something I have ever tried or done. I would be inclined to use Access reporting to create your quotes. Access is relational and I am sure would be able to connect to your CRM database. Sorry to not be able to suggest a canned solution to your requirement. Others in this group may well have other better suggestions / solutions. HTH Terry "MS CRM" wrote: Dear Word experts, How are you? Normally I spent time in the special Microsoft CRM (Customer Relationship Management) newsgroup, but the answer to my question can not be answered...yet. That's when I found this group. Our problem is the following. We are using the Microsoft CRM software to manage customer relationships. This piece of software should 'naturally' tie into other MS applications such as Word and Excel. However....we are facing a big issue when mail merging to Word. The situation is as follows: MS CRM allows you to create a quote on which you can put a number of products (line items). The structure would look something like this: Product Pieces Price Total Price Product X 2 50 100 Product Y 4 20 80 Etc Etc When the quote is finished, you can start a process which brings all your products and other quote details(e.g customer address details) to Word. Now the problem comes up. As an end-user, you seem to haver little influence in how the items are put into the quote template. They are just 'dumped' in randomly. We however, would like to group our products by a unique identifier (in this case: software, hardware and instruction) and display them in their own little section. So, ideally: Software Product X 2 50 100 Hardware Product Y 4 20 80 Etc. I now I am asking a lot, but is it possible (perhaps by putting in 'IF' statements) to design the template in such a way that it will not put all products in one table, but group them according to their type and calculate the subtotals accordingly. This would really, really help us . Microsoft can not help us at this time and we are getting lost. Thanks!!!!!!!! Michiel |
#5
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Mail Merge help needed....desperately
Michiel: You can join my forum and upload in a thread the
www.officearticles.com/forum ************ Anne Troy www.OfficeArticles.com "MS CRM" wrote in message oups.com... Hi Terry/Anne, Thanks a lot for your quick replies....I would really like to add my .dot template and an example of the datasource to this thread, but it does not seem to allow me. We have been thinking of using a different tool to create the quotes, but Word is what is used normally, plus there is a lot of standard text that also needs to be included in the document. I do not think the relational aspect will cause a problem, as the fields will only display their contents in Word. However, since we do wat to group the components and sum them up, some calculations needs to take place. Although I do not want to be too straightforward, I can always supply the .dot template to give a better idea of how the contents should look like. Where can I possibly send it to? Thanks a lot! Michiel TerryC schreef: Michiel, I suspect you are going to have a few problems sorting out your quotes. Your data source (whatever MS CRM uses) looks like it is relational in structure which is something mail merge does not handle natively. There are some work arounds I have heard of - possibly a search for relational data merges might turn up something. Use of MS Query and some code behind your merge document (parameter passing to MS Query etc) may provide a solution. This is not something I have ever tried or done. I would be inclined to use Access reporting to create your quotes. Access is relational and I am sure would be able to connect to your CRM database. Sorry to not be able to suggest a canned solution to your requirement. Others in this group may well have other better suggestions / solutions. HTH Terry "MS CRM" wrote: Dear Word experts, How are you? Normally I spent time in the special Microsoft CRM (Customer Relationship Management) newsgroup, but the answer to my question can not be answered...yet. That's when I found this group. Our problem is the following. We are using the Microsoft CRM software to manage customer relationships. This piece of software should 'naturally' tie into other MS applications such as Word and Excel. However....we are facing a big issue when mail merging to Word. The situation is as follows: MS CRM allows you to create a quote on which you can put a number of products (line items). The structure would look something like this: Product Pieces Price Total Price Product X 2 50 100 Product Y 4 20 80 Etc Etc When the quote is finished, you can start a process which brings all your products and other quote details(e.g customer address details) to Word. Now the problem comes up. As an end-user, you seem to haver little influence in how the items are put into the quote template. They are just 'dumped' in randomly. We however, would like to group our products by a unique identifier (in this case: software, hardware and instruction) and display them in their own little section. So, ideally: Software Product X 2 50 100 Hardware Product Y 4 20 80 Etc. I now I am asking a lot, but is it possible (perhaps by putting in 'IF' statements) to design the template in such a way that it will not put all products in one table, but group them according to their type and calculate the subtotals accordingly. This would really, really help us . Microsoft can not help us at this time and we are getting lost. Thanks!!!!!!!! Michiel |
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