A Complex Mail Merge Question

[Erik Tice]

I have a complex mail merge question I am trying to do through Word
and emailed through Outlook.

I have a list of Human Resources Contacts that I send a list monthly
to of all of their employees who need a performance evaluation.
There are also two different types of performance evaluations:
probationary and annual and these are reminder letters so they will
know who in their area will need either an annual or probationary
evaluation.
A Human Resources Contact can also have more than one department they
are in charge of and they want only one email with all of their
departments, listing both types of evaluations for each department.

I've been attempting doing this with a mail merge but am a little
stuck on where to begin. I'm running Word 2003 and Outlook 2003 but
the majority of users are still running Word 2000 and Outlook 2000

I know I can do this in Access 2000 as a report but that is not an
option because I cannot email the report as an attachment to Outlook
only the parts that matter for my one HR Contact. I've already
attempted to convert to Word RTF but formatting errors creep into my
document and I still have to seperate out the document by each HR
Contact in order to email the HR Contact the departments they are
responsible for.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

I also need to be able to mail merge the following phrase into the
e-mail i attach my attachments to:

"To assist you in the USPS appraisal process, attached is a memo from
Sandy Lovins regarding performance evaluations in your area with names
of employees whose evaluations are due."


Below is what an attached message should look like:

University of South Florida
University Services
Human Resources
SVC 2172
974-2970
DATE: {END OF MONTH}
TO: {HR CONTACT FIELD}
FROM: Sandy Lovins
Associate Vice President, Human Resources
SUBJECT: USPS Performance Reviews
In order to assist in your organizational unit's efforts to ensure
timely completion of performance evaluations, the attached list has
been provided as a courtesy reminder of employees in your area who are
due an evaluation in the near future. Attached is a listing for your
reference.
An effective performance management system is based on an
organizational commitment to communicate openly and honestly about the
contributions, successes, and shortcomings experienced during the
review period as well as confirm or readjust performance standards
and/or behavioral expectations and communicate goals. These, in turn,
serve as effective tools for objectively monitoring and measuring
performance. While the annual or probationary reviews are important
stop points to actively discuss performance, please remember that
performance feedback (both informal and formal) should occur on a
regular basis throughout the year. This process provides management
with an opportunity to track and check performance contributions,
recognize accomplishments, and make minor adjustments throughout the
review period to improve overall performance outcomes.
If you need any assistance with the process, have questions about
deadlines, or would like to learn more about performance management,
please contact Penny Phillips (ext. 4-5703) or Norene Evans (ext.
4-5706) in our Employee Relations Department. They would be happy to
assist you in assessing employee performance, writing sound
performance evaluations, or preparing performance plans. Also, the
following documents may be of assistance in understanding the types of
USPS performance evaluations and the timeframes involved in preparing
them:
Types.htm http://www.usf.edu/usfpers/Procedures/ER/Types.htm
Examples.htm http://www.usf.edu/usfpers/Procedures/ER/Examples.htm

We appreciate your commitment to ensuring the delivery of quality and
timely performance feedback to USF employees.

{Department Name Field} (centered)
Annual Appraisals Due
Name DeptID ID Job Title Anniversary
{NAME FIELD} {DEPTID} {ID} {JOB TITLE} {ANNIVERSARY}


Probationary Appraisals Due
Name DeptID ID Job Title Prob End Date

{NAME FIELD} {DEPTID} {ID} {JOB TITLE} {PROBATIONARY}


{Department Name Field} (centered)
Annual Appraisals Due
Name DeptID ID Job Title Anniversary
{NAME FIELD} {DEPTID} {ID} {JOB TITLE} {ANNIVERSARY}


Probationary Appraisals Due
Name DeptID ID Job Title Prob End Date

{NAME FIELD} {DEPTID} {ID} {JOB TITLE} {PROBATIONARY}


Erik L. Tice
Sr. Computer Support Specialist
USF Division of Human Resources
Data & Systems Management
4202 E Fowler Avenue SVC2172
Tampa, FL 33620-6980
813/974-5711
813/974-5227 Fax

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

See the "Multiple items per condition" item under the "Special merges"
section of fellow MVP CIndy Meister's website at
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister/MergFram.htm


--
Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[BusStop]

Do you have your information tracked via Access?

It's possible to import data into a mail merge from Access. You could
combine the functionality of Access (and it's search and sort
capabilites) with Word's mail merge. What I'm picturing is a data
stream that is tracked through access and then dumping, in peices,
into word.

In the interests of confidentiality, (I think) you would need to run
seperate mail merges for each person in HR. That would provide each HR
person with one (or two, since there are two letters) documents with
letters for several people. It would then be up to them to seperate
out those letters before sending them to the appropriate people.

Still a bit of by-hand-work going on there.

In my office they have managed to find a way to use outlook to
generate automatic emails to individuals who have reference books
checked out from HR. The location and date-checked-out are tracked in
access, and the system simply generates generic emails to anyone who
hasn't returned one yet.

I did not set up that system and I'm not good enough with access to
tell you anything more than this - it's possible.

Aside: It's possible to create a PHP code for a web-based form that
automatically generates email and form letters to the individuals
selected on the form (I've got one about half written - it's not bug
free, unfortunately). But that's a very time-consuming solution.

Is any of this heading in the direction you need to go with this
project?

BusStop
http://phillybusstop.blogspot.com