How to Run a Mailing

You set up and create a mailing, either a letter or an email, on the New Mailing tab. The New Mailing tab consists of five steps that take you through the process of selecting the type of template, setting preferences for addresses and salutations, selecting and reviewing recipients and finally creating the letters and envelopes or sending the emails.

Step 1 - Select Template

You can create letters, emails and labels or envelopes. For each, you can create as many different templates as you need. At this step, you select the type of template, and then select an existing template of that type or create a new template.

In some cases, depending on what you selected to open the New Mailing screen, not all template types may be available. For example, if you clicked on the Acknowledge button from the Gift Manager, only Acknowledgment templates would be available. The Mailing Overview topic has more details.

To select a template, do the following:

Indicate the type of mailing you are doing by clicking on one or more of the check boxes: Letters, Email, Labels or Envelopes.
1. Each check box opens a list of templates, grouped by template type. This allows you to include letters and emails in the same mailing and allows you to print envelopes or label for the letters. You can select separate templates for the letter and the email, and a third template for the envelopes or labels.
From each of the lists, open the type of template you are using and select the template you want to use for this mailing. Select the template by clicking on the circle to the left of the template name.
1. If you are doing both letters and emails at the same time, you must select the same type of template for both. For example, you cannot send invitations by mail and gift acknowledgments by email in the same run.
If you want to make changes to the template before you run the letters, drill down on the template name. This opens the Create Letter Template screen where you can edit the letter.
If you want to create a new letter template, drill down on New Template. This opens the Create Letter Template screen where you can write the letter and insert the available merge fields. After you save the new template, you can select it from the list of available templates.
After you have selected the template or templates you want to use, click on Next to go to Step 2.

Step 2 - Set Mailing Preferences

When you complete each mailing, an entry is made into the Journal of every recipient. The Journal entry includes the date of the mailing, who was assigned responsibility, and a mailing tag. In addition, you can add a follow up activity to each recipient of the mailing.

You select recipients on Step 3, but at this step you set preferences for how those recipients will be addressed, by indicating that the mailing should be sent to everyone's preferred address or a different address, and whether you want to substitute alternate names and/or salutations.

You can specify that you want everyone in each household and organization to receive the mailing or just one name.

Finally you can choose to include addresses and email addresses even if they are marked to receive no mail.

To set preferences for your mailing, do the following:

Enter the date of the mailing.
1. This date is added to the Journal entry for each recipient. It is also used to determine if an address is a good address for that particular date.
Select the staff member who is responsible for completing this mailing.
Select a Mailing tag for this mailing. This tag will appear on the Journal for each recipient.
If you wish to add a follow up activity for each recipient, click on the check box. This opens a set of fields to complete, defining the activity you are adding.
If some recipients of this mailing should receive it at an address that is not their normally preferred address, select an Address Mailing Tag. This is used to select addresses using the Mailing tags, bypassing the preferred address.
1. If you select an address Mailing tag, the addresses attached to each recipient name are checked to see if one of them has that Mailing tag attached. If it does, then that address is substituted for the preferred address for that recipient.
If you want to use an alternate name for some recipients of this mailing, select the Mailing tag from the list labeled Alternate Name Tag. If a recipient has an alternate name with this Mailing tag, it is substituted for the recipient's preferred display name.
If you want to use an alternate salutation for some recipients of this mailing, select the Mailing tag from the list labeled Alternate Salutation Tag. If a recipient has an alternate salutation with this Mailing tag, it is substituted for the recipient's preferred salutation.
Indicate if you want to send this mailing to only one name in each household or to all names. If you select one name, and there are several names in a household that are potential recipients, then it will go to the primary name.
1. In most cases you may want to send only one copy of a mailing to each household. Sometimes, however, you may want to send it to each member of the household separately. For example, if the mailing is a volunteer thank you letter, then you want to make sure it goes to everyone who might have volunteered. If you are sending a general email, if you want to make sure everyone sees it, you can specify that it should go to all names.
If your mailing includes some names at organizations as well as households, you indicate if you want the mailing to go to all names at the organization or only to the primary name.
There may be some mailings that you want to send even though someone has asked for no mail. An example might be an acknowledgment letter. If you want to bypass the "Do not mail" specification on an address, check the "Include Do not mail addresses."
There may be some emails that you want to send even though someone has asked for no email. An example might be an email acknowledgment letter. If you want to bypass the "Do not email" specification on an email address, check the "Include Do not email addresses."
If you have selected only a letter template or only an email template, but not one of each, answer the additional question related to your recipients' mailing method preference.
Click on Next to go to Step 3.

Step 3 - Select Recipients

The group of recipients for a mailing can be selected in a number of ways. For many mailings, the group is determined by filtering on specific information. For example, for acknowledgment letters, the group is determined by filtering on gift dates and whether gifts have been acknowledged. For pledge reminders, the filter finds names with a payment due.

For other mailings, like invitations, you may have already created and saved a list of names you wish to include. Or you can create a new filter, using the Advanced Filter, at this step to find the names.

For all mailing template types other than General Mailings, a set of filters is provided for you to use. These filter options are explained in detail in the Letter Templates topic. You can always also use the Advanced Filter to narrow down the list of recipients further than the template filter.

To select your recipients, do the following:

If you have saved a list that you wish to use for this mailing, click on Use an existing list and select the name of the list.
For all mailing templates other than General Mailings, there is a set of filters to fill in. Select the appropriate information to build the filter to find the recipient names.
If you wish to narrow down the list further, or to select recipients for a General Mailing, use the Advanced Filter to specify what names to include.
If you wish to save this mailing as a favorite, enter a name and description.
1. When a mailing is saved as a favorite, it appears in the list of Favorites in the Communications section of the Navigator. The letter template selected, the preferences set in Step 2, and the filters set in Step 3 are all saved. The actual list of recipients is not saved. When you select the mailing from your list of favorites, all of the information is filled in for you up to and including Step 3. You can then just click on Next to have the recipients selected through any filters and then preview your recipients in Step 4 before sending the mailing.
2. You can share a favorite mailing with other users in your organization by clicking on the Share Favorite box and selecting the users with whom you wish to share the favorite. For each user, select "View", which allows them to run the mailing but not make changes to the setup, or "Edit", which allows them to run the mailing but also to make changes.
Click on Next to go to Step 4.

Step 4 - Preview Recipients

Between Step 3 and Step 4, ExceedFurther finds all of the recipient names using the filters set in Step 3. It then selects the appropriate addresses, display names and salutations, and uses the other preferences set in Step 2 to build the final list of names and addresses. If there are a lot of recipients, it may take a few moments to see the list.

Depending on the letter template you are using for this mailing, additional information about each name is also gathered and ready to merge into your letters. For example, if you are sending acknowledgment letters, the details of each gift are attached to the names. The exact field list for each template type can be viewed in the Letter Templates topic.

To preview the recipient list, do the following:

The names appear in a list, with all of the attributes of lists, so you can change the order of the columns.
If you have included both letter and email templates, some names may have a street address and others may have an email address.
1. Whether a name receives a letter or an email is determined by their preference, as set in the Bio Profile tab.
Each name has a check box next to it, in the left most column in the list. All checked names will be included in the mailing. If you wish to remove a name from the list, uncheck the check box next to their name.
When the list is ready, click on Next to go to Step 5.

Step 5 - Create Documents

At this step you create the letters, envelopes and labels, and send the emails.

For letters, you have the following options:

MS Word letters - this creates letters in MS Word format so you can open them in Word and make any changes you would like before sending them.
MS Word letters and envelopes - this creates both the letters and matching envelopes in MS Word. The envelopes are created through MS Word and not by using the envelope template you might have selected in Step 1.
PDF document - this creates a PDF document for the letters. You can open the PDF and print the letters from there.
Labels/envelopes - this uses the envelope or label template you selected in Step 1.
Export to Excel - this sends the names and all of the other data fields for the selected template to an Excel spreadsheet.
Export to CSV - this sends the names and all of the other data fields for the selected template to a comma separated value file.
Send emails - this sends emails to the names on the list who are set to receive email letters.

To complete Step 5, do the following:

If there are letters to be printed and sent, click on the format you wish to use.
If there are emails included in the recipient list, click on Send emails.
If you have set up labels or envelopes, click on Create labels/envelopes.
After the documents have been created, you may be asked a final question about whether to update your data. For example, if you have selected an acknowledgment letter template, you are asked if you wish to mark the gifts as acknowledged. Click on the appropriate answer, depending on whether this has been a successful mailing.
If you asked for a follow up activity to be created for each recipient, you are asked if you would like those to be created.