When you are editing a message you can also embed personal details for each recipient in your target Group. To do this click on the Merge menu on the Main Group Mail screen. Every field that is available when you are adding a recipient is also available on this menu. Just click the field menu item you would like to embed in the message and it will appear in the message in wrapped with the following characters: !* and *! - please do not edit these manually or they may not function correctly when it comes to sending. You can also embed personal information in the subject line. To do this click on the Subject area first then click on the merge menu and select the field you would like to embed.
If you include a HTML Message it can also host merge fields. However you have to enter them into your message manually (or you can use the GroupHTML plug-in). We suggest that you copy them from the Group Mail Message Edit area and paste them into your HTML Message.
TIP: Preview your message before sending it to make sure it appears as your expect. The preview function is available on the Prepare to Send screen which is presented before you do a mailing.
Please note the following:
If you enter a field
in the message and the corresponding Recipient field in blank then nothing
will show in that field when the message arrives with your Recipient.
In other words, If you embed the First Name field in the message but
some of your recipients don't have First Name Information stored in their
entries in the Target Group then nothing will show for each instance of
that field name. e.g. "Hi !*FIRST_NAME*!," for
each recipient that doesn't have a First Name entered in the Target Group
they will just receive "Hi ," when they get their message from
you.
You can stop people receiving messages if they don't have all the required
fields filled out in the Group by setting up Send Filters.
If you wish to use the merge fields as part of a web link or URL like http://www.mysite.com/process.asp?Name=!*ADDITIONAL_FIELD1*! you must use the URL Friendly version of the field. Otherwise if the field contains a space or other illegal characters (illegal for web links like $%&* etc.) they will not function correctly. At the end of each section on the merge menu in Group Mail you will see a URL Friendly section. Each field listed as URL friendly will automatically be encoded by Group Mail during transmission to make sure that it will be passed correctly to the target web server. An example of a URL Friendly link would be http://www.mysite.com/process.asp?Name=!*URL_ADDITIONAL_FIELD1*!
You cannot send in Bulk Mode if you use Merge Fields.
If Then Else Scripts
Make parts of your messages conditional using If Then Else scripts. Using the contents of one field you can further customize your messages on the fly.
Example:
Dear <IF(!*FIRST_NAME*! = Nothing THEN Customer ELSE !*FIRST_NAME*!)ENDIF>,
What this will do is write out the contents of the First Name field if it contains any information ("Dear Joe,"). If it is empty it will write out the word Customer - giving you an opening line of "Dear Customer", (as opposed to something like "Dear ,")
To build an If Then Else script you should use the Script builder option that is available on the Merge Menu.
Things to look out for when building such a script.
If you use >, >=, <, <= you should be aware that they only work on fields that contain numbers.
Output phrases can take up multiple lines.
You cannot nest scripts inside each other at present
Number Formatting
Each of the additional fields can be formatted using named number formats. These formats are locale dependant. Currently two are made available through the menus - FNUMS (standard) and FNUMC (currency). However two others are available - FNUMP (percentage) and FNUMD (datetime).
These functions will only work with the additional fields (1 thru 4). They must be used like this:
FNUMC(!*Additional_Field3*!)
Case Formatting
Make sure field information such as names is presented in the correct case using the Fixcase function (see the Script Builders menu). The Fixcase function will turn text like jOe bLoGGs into Joe Bloggs
This function will work with all fields. The function must be presented like this:
<FIXCASE(!*COMPLETE_NAME*!)ENDFIX>
Please note that this function can work with text that wraps onto multiple lines - however you should be careful with it as the first letter in each word will be capitalized. TIP: Preview before sending
Custom File Attachments
With Group Mail each recipient can have up
to 4 unique files linked to them. These files can then be sent as custom
attachments just for those recipients that have such files related to
them.
To specify a custom attachment for a recipient
you should enter the file name with the full path into any one of the
additional fields (4) available (in that recipients listing in the Group).
To do this manually just select the recipient from the Group Setup tab
and click Modify - then double click in any of the additional fields and
select the file that you wish to attach/specify as custom.
Please note that this information can also be imported when you are also importing recipients. Another important note is the fact that the file name (and path) can only be 50 characters long at maximum.
Custom file attachments are also disregarded if you select to send in Bulk Mode.
Each of the additional fields can be used for this purpose.
When you go to do your mailing you will see a Custom File Attachment tab on the Prepare to Send Screen. On this tab you can if you wish to include custom attachments. If you select to do so then you can choose which Additional Fields you wish to use.
Custom file attachments can also be used in conjunction with regular attachments.
It is recommended that you compress any files you send using a PKZip compatible tool before attaching them. This will make sending them a lot faster and your Recipients will be a lot happier to download smaller files.
With the release of version 3.4.045 you can now also personalize the sender details (to a certain degree). For more information please see this section.
related links