Mailmerges with Microsoft Word

Mailmerge is an important and useful feature in TAM. It can be used as a tool for sending documents to a large group of recipients who have something in common, such as clients that have AUTO policies with the same company or clients who have a policy that expires next month.

A Wizard is available for basic mailmerges, for customers and prospects only. (Refer to the Run Marketing Letters Wizard help file topic for more information.) When a mailmerge is run through the Wizard, you have the option to save the document at the customer level and add an activity. When a mailmerge is run using the instructions below, NO activity is created and the document is NOT filed for each customer.

Use the following steps to run a mailmerge using Microsoft Word. Please check the Applied Compatibility Grid to ensure compatibility with your version of Microsoft Office.

There are three parts to this process.

Set up the Marketing Search

  1. At Home Base, click Reports.
  2. On the TAM Reports screen, click Search.
  3. On the Report Selection tab, select a Report Type based on the people for whom you are creating the document (customers, prospects, etc.)
  4. Select the desired Report Choice. The following are the two most requested Report Choices:
  5. Click the Criteria tab.

    Note:     If you chose Policies - Current, you may wish to change the following parameters: Policy Status, Expiration Date, and Record Listings. If you do not change Record Listings to Only One Per Customer, you will get multiple identical letters for each customer depending on how many policies they have.

    If you want to run this for a range of customers, e.g., for the customers whose customer codes begin with the letters "A" through "C", under the Range of Customers parameter select Range of Values, Character, From A to C, and click OK.
  6. Set up the criteria to filter out information you do not want to include.
  7. Click the Fields/Sort tab to select the information (variables) to merge into the document.
  8. Select fields that you want to insert in the document. For more information, see Fields/Sort Tab.

    Note:     A quick way to add address fields is to click on the Address button in the middle of the screen. This adds the most commonly used fields, and you can add or remove items based on your needs.
  9. When you are finished selecting fields, click Run. Click Yes to continue with the Data Preview. When items are found, the Data Preview screen displays.
  10. Check the selections returned from the search. Note: If data shown in the data preview seems incorrect, run a reports reindex and try again.
  11. Click the printer icon next to the Output Destination field to display the Output Destination window.
  12. Change the Output Destination to Word Mailmerge and click OK. 
  13. On the Data Preview window, click OK. 

    The Word Documents window displays.

    Please note the path for the TAM Mailmerge Documents: either \\<UNC path to server volume>\DOC\WDOCS\*.DOC or <drive letter>:\DOC\WDOCS\*.DOC. This is hard-coded into the program. A mailmerge performed within TAM refers only to this particular location for mailmerge documents. This is important to remember, as documents set up elsewhere in the program (in Document Setup, for example) do not display in this list of mailmerge documents. Also, keep in mind that if the document template exists in TAM as a customer or prospect formletter template, it would be easier to use the Marketing Letter/Notes Wizard instead.

    Note:     If you have an existing formletter template that you want to use, do the following before step 15:
    1. Access the My Computer icon. (On TAMCloud, this is the icon that displays your user name and server name, such as JDoe.DOEAG1 on S2-US711-2.)
    2. Browse to the location where your formletter template is saved.
    3. Use [Ctrl]+[C] to copy the formletter template to the Windows clipboard.
    4. Browse to the TAM drive. (On TAMCloud, select the H: drive.)
    5. Open the DOC folder.
    6. Open the WDOCS folder.
    7. Use [Ctrl]+[V] to paste a copy of the formletter template into the WDOCS folder.
    8. Access the Tools dropdown menu, and select Folder Options.
    9. Access the View tab.
    10. Verify that Hide extensions for known file types is not checked, and click OK.
    11. Click the file that you just copied to highlight it.
    12. Press [F2] to rename the file. Change the file extension to .DOC, if that is not already the current extension.
    13. In step 14, below, select Send output to an existing file and select that customer's formletter template filename.

      Note:       When the document opens in Word, text and some formatting remains intact, but other items such as TAM Data variables must be deleted and re-added to merge properly.
  14. Select Send output to an existing file or Send output to a new file. 
    1. If you select Send output to an existing file, select the file from the list and click OK.  Click Yes to use the existing file.
    2. If you select Send output to a new file, enter the new filename and click OK. Click Yes to create the new file. 

      Note:       To prevent errors, limit the filename to eight characters or fewer and do not use spaces. 

      Proceed to Create the Document.

Create the Document

  1. Wait for Microsoft Word to open the new document. (First Word opens, then a blank document opens, and then the new document you are creating appears, displaying a date field.)
  2. The Header Record Delimiters screen displays. Click OK.
  3. Click the Mailings tab.
  4. Create or edit the document. When you come to a point where you want to insert a variable, such as the customer's name, click Insert Merge Field.
  5. Select the field you wish to add from the dropdown list.

    Proceed to Print or Save the Document for Future Printing.

Print or Save the Document for Future Printing

Use the following steps to send the documents to the printer or save the file for future use. We recommend that you save the file and print it later.

Print Immediately

  1. To print the documents immediately, click the Finish & Merge button and then click Print Documents.
  2. The Merge to New Document screen displays. Select to merge All records and click OK. 
  3. If you have chosen to merge the records to a printer, the print dialog box appears. Print options can be set from here. When you are ready to print, click OK.

Print Later

  1. If you DO NOT wish to print all documents immediately, click the Finish & Merge button and then click Edit Individual Documents.
  2. The Merge to New Document screen displays. Select to merge All records and click OK. 
  3. A new document window containing the documents opens. Click File > Save As (in Word, click the Windows icon > ave As) and provide a new document name and location. When you are ready to print the documents, you can access this document through Word (outside of TAM).