Merging Data from Access for Efficiency

If you have an Access Database and you would like to easily transition the information in a query to a form letter you can do this by using the Microsoft Word Mail Merge Wizard. It allows you to set up a mail merge from a t query in an Access database as the data source for form letters, e-mail messages, mailing labels, envelopes, or directories. I used our project database as an example.

Our members that have let their gym memberships expire need to be contacted. We might want to offer them a promotional rate to come back, or perhaps we might want to find out why they left us. This will help the gym keep track of attrition and why members are leaving as well as retention efforts. This process can be extremely time consuming if you did not use the mail merge feature. Once this is set up it will be quick and easy to go in and shoot an email or letter to our past customers that have let their membership expire.

First open the members database from our project, and in the Navigation Pane, select the members as the mail merge data source.

• On the External Data tab, in the Export group, click More, and then click Merge it with Microsoft Office Word.
• The Microsoft Word Mail Merge Wizard starts.
• Select that you want to create the link in a new document, and then click OK. Word starts and opens a new document.
• In the Mail Merge pane, under Select document type, click Letters and then click Next: Starting document to continue to step 2.
• In step 2, click Next: Select recipients.Under Select recipients, chose Use an existing list, and browse for the name of your data source.
• Once you select the correct file it should look like this:
  Please click the very small dot to he right because no matter how I tried this blog would not allow me to post my picture to the page.
  

  

• Click Edit recipient list if you want to customize the contents of the table or query.
• You can filter, sort, and validate the data. Click OK to continue.

• Click Next: Write your letter to continue. Follow the remaining instructions in the Mail Merge pane, and in step 5, click Next: Complete the merge.

Please click the very small dot to he right because no matter how I tried this blog would not allow me to post my picture to the page.

This is just one more way to save time and become more efficient by using all of the capabilities that come with the Microsoft Office software. The task of emailing or mailing all of these customers could have taken hours, but with this feature it can literally be reduced to minutes. I hope you have found this informative and I also hope you can put it to use to help you become more efficient.

The instructional information contained in this Blog posting was found on the Microsoft website, URL below. The instructions were changed to fit the circumstance described and the use of this information is strictly for educational use only. The images were screen shots I took while executing the demonstration.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/access-help/use-a-table-or-query-as-a-mail-merge-data-source-HA001233657.aspx

Database Project - Microsoft Access

This project was a great learning experience for me. In the past I have only used Microsoft Access during another course, and I have not had the opportunity to use it in the business world. The opportunities seem to be endless and only limited by the user’s imagination. I especially like the ability to create a form and protect it so that end users cannot alter it. I found the query function to be the most useful tool and the ability to sort results made dealing with large amounts of data very easy.

I think one way to enhance the functionality of this database is to link the information of those with expired memberships to a form letter in Microsoft Word or outlook via a merge. This will enable you to easily contact these members and entice them to return with some type of promotion. More importantly it may be a way for you to learn more detail about your attrition. Perhaps you will learn that members are leaving due to rates, or better programs at a competing gym.

EMERGE Lakeland

I believe that there are two main things I could have done better in my presentation. First I scrambled to find a way to post my presentation directly to my Blog and I was finally able to do so by using screencast-o-matic.com which I highly recommend. Because I had already recorded my audio on the initial PowerPoint presentation I simply played it while it was recording. This created some feedback which I find quite annoying.

Secondly, I would do a better job communicating my message. In some areas I feel that I was not concise and was a little long-winded. Some areas could be cleaned up and the presentation could be more powerful if some erroneous information were purged. I also would have asked more questions to the audience to get them more involved and thinking about the topic at hand.

In looking at a few other presentations I found some of them to be extremely powerful because they were concise and the presenter hit the bullet points hard and convincingly. The speakers that I listened to were very clear, powerful, and to the point. These are wonderful qualities to have in a short presentation and it will certainly help me in the future.

I learned that I ramble too much from this project and that great presentations are clear, concise, and to the point. In the future I will be sure to double and triple check my speech prior to execution to cut the fat, so to speak. Using screencast-o-matic.com for the first time was great. I am glad I found this excellent tool because it provides 15 minutes of screen capture video that can be uploaded to YouTube or saved as a video file on your hard drive.