Are you working on a mail merge version of eM?
Can you please describe the requested feature?
A mail merge is a method of taking data from a database, spreadsheet, or other form of structured data, and inserting it into documents such as letters, mailing labels, and name tags. It usually requires two files, one storing the variable data to be inserted, and the other containing both the instructions for formatting the variable data and the information that will be identical across each result of the mail merge.
Combined with an email client, mail merge is used to send emails that have had the data from the database, full of email addresses, into a form whit or without merged fields (like name, etc.) from the database.
Microsoft uses Word to access the database, provides the form and allow fields from the database to be inserted into the form and sends the combined results to Outlook. Outlook mails the emails.
Pegasus uses a built in program to merge the data and form and then email the results.
I don’t have experience with any others.
A simple CSV file for the data file requiring the first row of data to be headers that can be selected.
eMClient should:
>Have a mail template that can be saved that includes special characters.
>Have an identifier as to what the source data file is:[sourcedata.csv]
>Be able to read the CSV file, and load the header line into memory and present an “Insert” dialog box, toolbar dropdown and “+” button, or something, to insert the selected [FieldName] from the CSV file headers.
>The destination email address must be a part of the dataset.
>Once the [Email] field is selected and the template is saved, it should be able to be pulled back up and run as a process.
>eMClient should then fill in the field references to generate an email that should be placed in the outbox, then move to the next line of data and do it again until all rows of data are exhausted.
This would be a simple, yet functional, Mail Merge.
Hi Michael, thank you for the suggestion, we’ll make sure to consider adding this feature to future releases.
Hope you can manage to use the current setting…
Thank you,
Paul.
IS there a current setting to sort of do this? I may have missed it!!
Hi again,
you can export or import data from a .csv file by either going to the contacts/calendar folder and select the agenda view (in contacts any list view). Select the contacts (or events) you want to export and right click the selection, then select Export > Export into .CSV file.
Note that this export, exports the data that you see in the view you’re currently at, thus if you see for example only a phone number and a name and don’t have any other columns in that view, only these two options will be exported. So you have to adjust the column view based on what data you want to export.
Importing data from a .csv file is quite simple, just go to File > Import > Import contacts from .csv file
Hope this helps,
Paul.
Okay… no nothing that will help me execute a mail merge. I already knew about importing and exporting contacts/events/etc. , it’s not that it isn’t useful… just not for doing anything like a mail-merge.
Appreciate your attempt Paul.
Sincerely,
Michael
We don’t have a mail merge feature planned at the moment but we’ll consider adding the feature to future releases as I previously mentioned.
Thank you for understanding, and if you have any other suggestions, issues or questions about the application, let us know, we’ll be happy to help.
Paul.
I’m checking out eM as a replacement for Outllook 2013 and Thunderbird. Mail merge functionality is quite important for us. Thunderbird with a mail-merge add-on works very well. It takes an arbitrary CSV file and you map the columns to e-mail address, personalised name, company name and other individual mail “variables” in a very simple, reliable and effective manner. Check it out for inspiration developing this feature into eM!
Hi, thank you for the suggestion, we’ll check the feature and consider adding the option to future releases.
Regards,
Paul.