Keeping track of mail merges

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mark R Penn
  • Start date Start date
M

Mark R Penn

I have about 21000 contacts in a folder in Outlook, and will mail (physical
mail, not e-mail) about 100 of them each week. I know how to select the
contacts in Outlook and do the actual merge, but can't find any way to keep
track of which contacts have and have not received a given mailing, so that
I don't include them the following week.

I was intending to use the journal first, but that would be a manual process
per contact which is too much for 100 contacts, and would still leave me to
read the journal each time.

I then thought of using flags, so red would be for week one, green for week
two etc in whatever cycle I want, and then view by flag, but although I can
use the coloured flags contact by contact, there appears to be no way to
apply a given coloured flag to a whole group of contacts at once. I can only
add flags to a toolbar in e-mail folders, not in contact folders.

So any ideas? How do people keep track of which contacts have and have not
received a mailing, and when?

Thanks,

Mark
 
How about categories rather than flags?
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.
 
Well I did think of that, but already use categories in the folder for other
purposes, so it would be a bit difficult I think.

In fact flags don't work anyway, even if I spend the time manually applying
them to each contact, because there's no way to group contacts by flag
colour - only whether or not they have a flag.

For now I've created a sub folder for each week, and just drag the relevant
contacts to that, but it seams to me there must be a more elegant way to do
it.

Cheers,

Mark
 
I would add field in the Contacts folder showing the date of each
campaign.

Phone List View | Field Chooser | New Field | make it a Date field and
call it
whatever makes sense to you.

If you group by that field, you can quickly populate it by selecting
people and dragging them into that group - see my footer!

Judy Gleeson [MVP Outlook]
Acorn Training and Consulting
www.acorntraining.com.au

Everyone - turn on your Advanced Toolbars and learn how to use the Field
Chooser and Group by Box!!
 
Adding categories would do the same thing without having to add a field,
wouldn't it?
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.


Judy Gleeson MVP Outlook said:
I would add field in the Contacts folder showing the date of each
campaign.

Phone List View | Field Chooser | New Field | make it a Date field and
call it
whatever makes sense to you.

If you group by that field, you can quickly populate it by selecting
people and dragging them into that group - see my footer!

Judy Gleeson [MVP Outlook]
Acorn Training and Consulting
www.acorntraining.com.au

Everyone - turn on your Advanced Toolbars and learn how to use the Field
Chooser and Group by Box!!


Mark R Penn said:
Well I did think of that, but already use categories in the folder for other
purposes, so it would be a bit difficult I think.

In fact flags don't work anyway, even if I spend the time manually applying
them to each contact, because there's no way to group contacts by flag
colour - only whether or not they have a flag.

For now I've created a sub folder for each week, and just drag the relevant
contacts to that, but it seams to me there must be a more elegant way to do
it.

Cheers,

Mark
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Yep but that's probably not the best use of Categories. Don't you have
people already Categorised? I would use Categories for the type of person.
Then if I want to email all of a certain type (Category) about something
(outside of the regular campaign) I can.


Judy Gleeson - MVP Outlook
Acorn Training and Consulting
Canberra, Australia


see what Outlook training can do to improve productivity:
www.acorntraining.com.au/pdfdocs/ProductivITwithOutlook.pps

www.acorntraining.com.au/productivit.htm
Charles Kenyon said:
Adding categories would do the same thing without having to add a field,
wouldn't it?
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.


Judy Gleeson MVP Outlook said:
I would add field in the Contacts folder showing the date of each
campaign.

Phone List View | Field Chooser | New Field | make it a Date field and
call it
whatever makes sense to you.

If you group by that field, you can quickly populate it by selecting
people and dragging them into that group - see my footer!

Judy Gleeson [MVP Outlook]
Acorn Training and Consulting
www.acorntraining.com.au

Everyone - turn on your Advanced Toolbars and learn how to use the Field
Chooser and Group by Box!!


Mark R Penn said:
Well I did think of that, but already use categories in the folder
Click to expand...
for
other
purposes, so it would be a bit difficult I think.

In fact flags don't work anyway, even if I spend the time manually applying
them to each contact, because there's no way to group contacts by flag
colour - only whether or not they have a flag.

For now I've created a sub folder for each week, and just drag the relevant
contacts to that, but it seams to me there must be a more elegant way to do
it.

Cheers,

Mark

How about categories rather than flags?
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.


I have about 21000 contacts in a folder in Outlook, and will mail
(physical mail, not e-mail) about 100 of them each week. I know how to
select the contacts in Outlook and do the actual merge, but can't
Click to expand...
find
any
way to keep track of which contacts have and have not received a given
mailing, so that I don't include them the following week.

I was intending to use the journal first, but that would be a manual
process per contact which is too much for 100 contacts, and would still
leave me to read the journal each time.

I then thought of using flags, so red would be for week one, green for
week two etc in whatever cycle I want, and then view by flag, but
although I can use the coloured flags contact by contact, there appears
to be no way to apply a given coloured flag to a whole group of contacts
at once. I can only add flags to a toolbar in e-mail folders, not in
contact folders.

So any ideas? How do people keep track of which contacts have and have
not received a mailing, and when?

Thanks,

Mark
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Yes, but I often have people with multiple categories assigned. You are not
limited to just one.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.


Judy Gleeson MVP - Outlook said:
Yep but that's probably not the best use of Categories. Don't you have
people already Categorised? I would use Categories for the type of
person.
Then if I want to email all of a certain type (Category) about something
(outside of the regular campaign) I can.


Judy Gleeson - MVP Outlook
Acorn Training and Consulting
Canberra, Australia


see what Outlook training can do to improve productivity:
www.acorntraining.com.au/pdfdocs/ProductivITwithOutlook.pps

www.acorntraining.com.au/productivit.htm
Charles Kenyon said:
Adding categories would do the same thing without having to add a field,
wouldn't it?
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.


Judy Gleeson MVP Outlook said:
I would add field in the Contacts folder showing the date of each
campaign.

Phone List View | Field Chooser | New Field | make it a Date field and
call it
whatever makes sense to you.

If you group by that field, you can quickly populate it by selecting
people and dragging them into that group - see my footer!

Judy Gleeson [MVP Outlook]
Acorn Training and Consulting
www.acorntraining.com.au

Everyone - turn on your Advanced Toolbars and learn how to use the Field
Chooser and Group by Box!!


Well I did think of that, but already use categories in the folder for
other
purposes, so it would be a bit difficult I think.

In fact flags don't work anyway, even if I spend the time manually
applying
them to each contact, because there's no way to group contacts by flag
colour - only whether or not they have a flag.

For now I've created a sub folder for each week, and just drag the
relevant
contacts to that, but it seams to me there must be a more elegant
way
to do
it.

Cheers,

Mark

How about categories rather than flags?
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version
of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.


I have about 21000 contacts in a folder in Outlook, and will mail
(physical mail, not e-mail) about 100 of them each week. I know how to
select the contacts in Outlook and do the actual merge, but can't find
any
way to keep track of which contacts have and have not received a given
mailing, so that I don't include them the following week.

I was intending to use the journal first, but that would be a manual
process per contact which is too much for 100 contacts, and would
still
leave me to read the journal each time.

I then thought of using flags, so red would be for week one, green
for
week two etc in whatever cycle I want, and then view by flag, but
although I can use the coloured flags contact by contact, there
appears
to be no way to apply a given coloured flag to a whole group of
contacts
at once. I can only add flags to a toolbar in e-mail folders, not in
contact folders.

So any ideas? How do people keep track of which contacts have and
have
not received a mailing, and when?

Thanks,

Mark
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Thanks Judy. I've become so conditioned to NOT adding any custom fields
because just about every item in Outlook gets synced with my Pocket PC, and
custom fields don't sync, that that idea didn't even occur to me - I was
literally thinking "why the h*££ doesn't Outlook have a Mailed Date field,
forgetting I could just make my own!! I'm not syncing those contacts, so it
works fantastically well.

Charles, the issue with using categories is that I already have the contacts
grouped by category (to help me decide who to include in each weeks
campaign), so can't then also group by category to see who got mailed in a
given week. In other words I could see a group for "mailed on 17-02-2006"
OK, but then wouldn't see any category groups within that. With Judy's idea
I can group by the new field, and then ALSO by category, and the two retain
different uses.

Mark

Charles Kenyon said:
Yes, but I often have people with multiple categories assigned. You are
not limited to just one.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.


Judy Gleeson MVP - Outlook said:
Yep but that's probably not the best use of Categories. Don't you have
people already Categorised? I would use Categories for the type of
person.
Then if I want to email all of a certain type (Category) about something
(outside of the regular campaign) I can.


Judy Gleeson - MVP Outlook
Acorn Training and Consulting
Canberra, Australia


see what Outlook training can do to improve productivity:
www.acorntraining.com.au/pdfdocs/ProductivITwithOutlook.pps

www.acorntraining.com.au/productivit.htm
Charles Kenyon said:
Adding categories would do the same thing without having to add a field,
wouldn't it?
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.



I would add field in the Contacts folder showing the date of each
campaign.

Phone List View | Field Chooser | New Field | make it a Date field
and
call it
whatever makes sense to you.

If you group by that field, you can quickly populate it by selecting
people and dragging them into that group - see my footer!

Judy Gleeson [MVP Outlook]
Acorn Training and Consulting
www.acorntraining.com.au

Everyone - turn on your Advanced Toolbars and learn how to use the Field
Chooser and Group by Box!!


Well I did think of that, but already use categories in the folder for
other
purposes, so it would be a bit difficult I think.

In fact flags don't work anyway, even if I spend the time manually
applying
them to each contact, because there's no way to group contacts by flag
colour - only whether or not they have a flag.

For now I've created a sub folder for each week, and just drag the
relevant
contacts to that, but it seams to me there must be a more elegant
way
to do
it.

Cheers,

Mark

How about categories rather than flags?
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version
of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.


I have about 21000 contacts in a folder in Outlook, and will mail
(physical mail, not e-mail) about 100 of them each week. I know
how to
select the contacts in Outlook and do the actual merge, but can't find
any
way to keep track of which contacts have and have not received a given
mailing, so that I don't include them the following week.

I was intending to use the journal first, but that would be a manual
process per contact which is too much for 100 contacts, and would
still
leave me to read the journal each time.

I then thought of using flags, so red would be for week one,
green
for
week two etc in whatever cycle I want, and then view by flag, but
although I can use the coloured flags contact by contact, there
appears
to be no way to apply a given coloured flag to a whole group of
contacts
at once. I can only add flags to a toolbar in e-mail folders, not in
contact folders.

So any ideas? How do people keep track of which contacts have and
have
not received a mailing, and when?

Thanks,

Mark
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
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