Making a Document Tracking System that works with Mail Merge (Word)

[ctackett6407]

Hi,

I thought about doing this in Excel but was curious if I could do this in Access. If I can then I'll work my way through each step to get it done.

I am trying to get away from having to formate columns and rows and have everything presented to me in a nice neat look.

We send letters out to people for various reasons. Mostly we send out membership applications or prepaid service applications. We have to track these ourselves as if the person does not respond within 7 business days we have to send a 2nd notice etc. So I'm trying to find an easy way to track my communications.

I'm also trying to incorporate being able to generate letters for specific types of letters... like the prepaid has a certain letter and the new membership has a specific letter and then when I print them they are on letter head paper that the printer auto sets.

Anyway, right now I am trying to do this on excel but I'm tired of having to go to a new line.. format the line and then do mail merger ..

Is Access a good resource to try to make it a bit user friendly? or is excel able to have input areas that make it user friendly and look nice?

Thanks for any replies.

 

[Micron]

Access is well suited for managing mail lists and sending emails with or without attachments, but it can be a bit daunting for novices if that's your level of experience. However, there is a wealth of examples out there. Suggest you Google with keywords like MS Access mail merge (or similar) and see what you get. Unlikely that you will find any db templates that exactly match your needs, but you should be able to get close, or at least get some ideas. The most important part will be the foundation - properly designed and related tables to suit your business requirements. One thing I would not do is use MS templates for the final product. I poked around with one once and didn't like the implications, which is that the supporting tables are web based, thus are at the mercy of MS. I'm using 365 versions of Office, so I don't know if that is the reason.