search database and produce reports

[Richard R]

We have an Excel spreadsheet for all 1200 of our employees with name,
department name, SSN and birthdate. I need to produce
separate letters to each of the relevant department heads IF they have an
employee due a test each month, listing the employees only for that
department. I would like to automate this procedure with linked files or a
query or some other way rather than do cut & paste, if possible, but I am at
a loss how. Can I get Word to search the Excel sheet for all employees with
birthmonth "X" AND department "Y", import the corresponding name and
department into a document, then repeat for each department with employees
due that month? A lot to ask, I know, but I am lazy!
Richard

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?UmljaGFyZCBS?=,

We have an Excel spreadsheet for all 1200 of our employees with name,
department name, SSN and birthdate. I need to produce
separate letters to each of the relevant department heads IF they have an
employee due a test each month, listing the employees only for that
department. I would like to automate this procedure with linked files or a
query or some other way rather than do cut & paste, if possible, but I am at
a loss how. Can I get Word to search the Excel sheet for all employees with
birthmonth "X" AND department "Y", import the corresponding name and
department into a document, then repeat for each department with employees
due that month? A lot to ask, I know, but I am lazy!

This should be possible using mail merge, but it might be a bit of work to set
it up. First thing you should do is go to the Mail Merge FAQ on my website. In
the "Special merges" section you'll find a short discussion about one-to-many
types of merges (which Word doesn't support directly) with links to sample
files for the three basic types of approach that can be used. Figure out which
will give you the most satisfactory result (easiest is to use a Database
field).

Once you know that, and have tested it a bit, we can work out how to filter the
records correctly.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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