Re: Table driven mail merge

"David Cressey" <dcressey_at_verizon.net> wrote in message news:NKFBg.1660$Fl2.926_at_trndny01...
>
> "Emily Jones" <emilyj_at_hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:44d5bca5$0$640$5a6aecb4_at_news.aaisp.net.uk...
>> The client runs a training organisation. They have a large amount of
>> corresondence to send. Contents of the correspondence vary, and
> increasingly
>> so, according to type of course, type of buyer, type of job student has
> etc.
>>
>> I'm attempting to move away from lots of different queries driving lots
>> of
>> different Word templates to a completely table driven approach.
>
> Been there, done that.
>
> There is a large DB application called BANNER that keeps track of most of
> the administrative data for a university.
>
> I once did some consulting for the alumni organization of a university,
> and
> they send out a lot of correspondence in the course of fund raising. I'm
> not sure, but I seem to recall that BANNER already has functionality like
> what you describe.

I'll have a look. But this is a bespoke application, and although it's for a training organisation, the design, I think, is to do with varied output according to row value. So it's more of a general modelling issue, albeit to do with printed (at the moment) communication in an educational setting.

That's what I was asking about really.

> But first, why do you want to move away from Word templates? Does Word
> limit your throughput? your flexibility? your choice of platforms?

The FE is in Access (well, the back end is too, but that will change soon). Word docs just aren't as 'data aware' as Access reports, specifically the sorting and grouping. And I often need that. I've had to jump through all sort of hoops with crosstabs to get the data into a format which will drive a Word mail merge successfully. And crosstabs are non standard, and as far as I can tell extremely difficult to implement in standard SQL IF YOU DON'T KNOW THE NUMBER OF FIELDS IN ADVANCE. If anybody knows any different please say.

If anybody knows how to impersonate the sorting and grouping functions of Access reports in Word then please say.

Word is also v slow, at least compared to an Access report. I keep the templates on the server, so there is time dragging them across the network, and opening the Word application itself. Of course if I stored them on the client that might be faster, but that's a lot more work updating wise.

> You might want to experiment with letting a large DB APP manage all the
> recipient and address data, and all the data needed for selection
> criteria,
> but then express each selected list in a form that can be fed to Word.
> That's not as hard as it sounds, especially if you're getting decent
> network
> support.

OK. Try this. Tables Students, Course, StudentsCourses (a junction ish table). It's more complex than this, but will do as example.

I won't spell out the fields, but no doubt you can imagine.

I want a letter that says:

Dear Student Name

The courses you have taken are:
Course 1
Course 2

Thanks

The Admin office.

In Word how do I get that to work when there may be from 0 to infinity courses taken by a student?

Emily Received on Mon Aug 07 2006 - 17:47:31 CEST