L
laura
Hello,
I do a lot of programming in Access, so am quite familiar with it. However,
I have a client, a charity, who needs to centralise their names and
addresses throughout the organisation. We're talking about maybe 4 or 5
groups within the charity (about 25 employees in all), each needing to keep
their own list of names and addresses, roughly about 200 each, some more,
some less. Sometimes these names and addresses my cross over the
departments, i.e., be stored by more than one department. Also, the charity
itself would like access to them all, for fundraising, mailshots, AGM, that
sort of thing.
Many people swear by Outlook, and although I use it, I do not use it to it's
full potential. I believe it is very powerful and customisable. The charity
does use Outlook to some degree - I think mainly to share Calendars. Some of
the divisions use Outlook for their own names and addresses tracking. Others
are simply typing directly into Word (arghhhh). Some are even using their
own small Access databases.
They are in a terrible mess at the moment, some mailshots are going out in
duplicate to some people, some are not receiving their mailshots at all and
some may even be deceased.
I want to be able to bring the whole thing together for them, but do not
know what the best option would be. They would quite like it to be
controlled centrally by one person. In my belief this is not ideal because
each division would want to be able to modify their own records and the
result would be that each of them would start up their own little database
once again, defeating the purpose of the exercise. Having said that, to
centralise it would be a too big a job for one person also.
Their concerns are that if absolutely everyone has access to the names and
addresses, then there is no control over modifications and changes. On the
one hand they do want each division to be able to amend their records, and
on the other they don't because of possible mistakes. This is obviously a
contradiction in terms and it is my task to come up with some kind of
solution and whether to do this in Access or to find a way to make Outlook
do the job.
The names and addresses would have to be categorised for mailshot purposes,
i.e., fundraiser, trustee, member, associate, volunteer, etc. In some cases
there will be a Mr. & Mrs., but they might want to write to the Mrs. on her
own sometimes. In some cases there might be two people with different
surnames living at the same address.
Will we be able to do email mailshots from the Outlook addresses and can
they also carry attachments?
I am sure there are many organisations out there who have their own methods
and systems, and I would greatly appreciate any pointers and advice as to
which path to take, and how to tackle the problem.
Many thanks
Laura TD
I do a lot of programming in Access, so am quite familiar with it. However,
I have a client, a charity, who needs to centralise their names and
addresses throughout the organisation. We're talking about maybe 4 or 5
groups within the charity (about 25 employees in all), each needing to keep
their own list of names and addresses, roughly about 200 each, some more,
some less. Sometimes these names and addresses my cross over the
departments, i.e., be stored by more than one department. Also, the charity
itself would like access to them all, for fundraising, mailshots, AGM, that
sort of thing.
Many people swear by Outlook, and although I use it, I do not use it to it's
full potential. I believe it is very powerful and customisable. The charity
does use Outlook to some degree - I think mainly to share Calendars. Some of
the divisions use Outlook for their own names and addresses tracking. Others
are simply typing directly into Word (arghhhh). Some are even using their
own small Access databases.
They are in a terrible mess at the moment, some mailshots are going out in
duplicate to some people, some are not receiving their mailshots at all and
some may even be deceased.
I want to be able to bring the whole thing together for them, but do not
know what the best option would be. They would quite like it to be
controlled centrally by one person. In my belief this is not ideal because
each division would want to be able to modify their own records and the
result would be that each of them would start up their own little database
once again, defeating the purpose of the exercise. Having said that, to
centralise it would be a too big a job for one person also.
Their concerns are that if absolutely everyone has access to the names and
addresses, then there is no control over modifications and changes. On the
one hand they do want each division to be able to amend their records, and
on the other they don't because of possible mistakes. This is obviously a
contradiction in terms and it is my task to come up with some kind of
solution and whether to do this in Access or to find a way to make Outlook
do the job.
The names and addresses would have to be categorised for mailshot purposes,
i.e., fundraiser, trustee, member, associate, volunteer, etc. In some cases
there will be a Mr. & Mrs., but they might want to write to the Mrs. on her
own sometimes. In some cases there might be two people with different
surnames living at the same address.
Will we be able to do email mailshots from the Outlook addresses and can
they also carry attachments?
I am sure there are many organisations out there who have their own methods
and systems, and I would greatly appreciate any pointers and advice as to
which path to take, and how to tackle the problem.
Many thanks
Laura TD