How To – Use the Multiple Letters Wizard

The Multiple Letter Wizard uses the letter templates from Miscellaneous > Letters for creating letters so you need to create your letter template beforehand. Follow the steps at the end to edit templates.

The first step when using the Multiple Letter Wizard is to prepare your list of recipients. To do this, open a list of contacts from the Main Menu. This could be any of the lists that have a clients or contacts in them. If using a funerals list, letters will be addressed to the clients of invoiced funerals.

The next step is to filter the list and sort it so that it represents the list you wish to send your letters. This is done by using the Sort button. The screenshot below shows a list of Clients ( Main Menu | Contact | Clients) filtered by town.

With your list of contacts ready, click on the Functions menu at the top of the screen and choose Multiple letters wizard. This will start the wizard and you will see the Welcome screen, which gives you an introduction to the wizard. On the left hand side you can see your progress through the wizard. Press the Next button to continue.

The next screen allows you to filter your list further. There are options that are based on the Organisation tab of the contact file, such as the staff member that is responsible, the area, branch, region or brand, or any of the three of the custom “group” fields.

The bottom section of this screen allows you to find only the contacts with or without an email address. Choosing to only include contacts with an e-mail address will clean the list up if you wish to only email the letters. Choosing to only include contacts without an e-mail address would be useful if you have already sent one batch of letters by email and now wish to send to the remaining contacts by post. If you only wish to post the letters then choose the do not consider e-mail address option.

Press Next to continue.

The next screen shows you all the contacts that meet your criteria. Here you can remove individual recipients from the list. To remove a recipient from the list, click on their line and then press the red minus button at the bottom of the screen, shown here.

When you are happy with your list of recipients, press the Next button to continue. This next screen, shown below, asks you to choose the template for your letter. The drop-down list displays the templates you can choose from.

The Edit button allows you to change the text of the letter. This is useful if your template is set up but for this one instance you want to add something extra, or change some wording. By pressing Edit you can also change the date which will appear on the letter and who the letter is being sent from. It is always useful to press Edit and check that your letter is written how you wish.

Press Next to continue to the next step.This step is where you choose the report to use for the letter, and also choose an envelope report, if you wish to also print envelopes to the recipients. You can press the Sample buttons to preview the letter in the selected style. If you do not wish to print envelopes as well then clear all of the text out of the Envelope/label template box by selecting the text and pressing the delete key.

When you have chosen your templates, press Next to continue.

The options here are:

• Show a preview with the possibility to print or export – this will generate the letters and bring a print preview of them. From this you can then print or export the document as required.
• Send directly to the printer – this will generate the letters and print them out, without a print preview.
• Prepare a single e-mail with all the letters attached, but do not send it yet – this will generate the letters and create a single pdf document, attaching it to a new email.
• Prepare separate e-mails to each recipient, but do not send them yet – this will generate the letters and attaches each one as a pdf to a new email to each recipient. The emails will open so that you can edit them before sending.
• Create separate e-mails to each recipient, and send them – this will do the same as the above option, except this time the emails will be sent automatically.
• I will print the letters later – this option generates the letters but does not do anything further with them.

When you have chosen the option necessary, click the Next button to move to a confirmation screen, and if you are happy with everything so far, press Next again to generate the letters.

When the wizard generates the letters, each one is added to the Main Menu | Miscellaneous | Letters list. When the wizard has finished doing this you will be presented with a print preview if you chose that option. If you chose to generate the envelopes as well these will be generated when you close the print preview. If you chose to have emails generated this will be done at this stage. The next screen lets you choose how to process the letters within Eulogica.

The options on this last screen are:

• Yes, mark the letters as sent (and create event record in contact window) – this option will mark all the letters as sent and also create an event record in each of the contacts that was in the list.
• No, I will send and mark the letters later – this will leave the letters marked as ‘not sent’ and will not create an event for each contact. The letters will be in the letters list under Main Menu | Miscellaneous | Letters.
• No, and I wish to delete the letters – this will remove the letters from the letters list and leave no record that you created the letters.

A more detailed copy of these instructions, as an extract from the Eulogica Manual, is available as a PDF by clicking here.

BONUS TIP

To create a new template go to the Main Menu, open the Miscellaneous menu and select Letters. This will bring up a list of all the letters that have been created. Now press the Lines button at the bottom right and choose Templates from the options that pop up.

This will change the list from displaying the letters in the system to displaying the templates instead. Here you can press the New button which will bring up what looks like a blank letter. You can write your letter as usual, giving it a header and putting text in the body. Do not fill in the other fields at this point though. When you are done, press the OK button. At this point you will be asked to give a name to the template. Enter a name and press OK or press Cancel to go back to editing the template. The template will then appear in the list of options when you go to create a new letter or use the Multiple Letters Wizard.