Run a letter merge.

1. Log into your organization's VolunteerMatters Administrative Site 
2. Click on Admin > Letters. 
3. The system will list ‘Recent Merges’ at the top of this screen and just below that, all of the available templates with their names and descriptions to help you select the appropriate letter for a new merge. You are also presented with two icons to the right of each listing: 
   
    Details - allows you view the letter template. This is not a preview of the eventual output but just a view on the settings applied to this template. This can also help you to determine if this letter template is the appropriate selection for you. 
   
    Merge - allows you to generate new letter merges against a template and also see previous merges that were saved in the system. 
4. Click "Merge" to the right of the template you would like to use in your merge. 
5. To create a new Letter Merge, click "Choose Contacts'. This allows you to select individual contacts using the contact chooser to create a letter merge against one or more specific contact records.  With the contact chooser you can also select a previously created List Views from the Admin > Database Contact List to filter your contact records.  For more information on the contact chooser see the article "Working with the contact chooser." and for more information on contact list views see the article "Manage List Views for Contact Lists".
6. Enter in any notes you would like to associate with this run 
7. Select an initial output format (pdf is an Abode Acrobat format, rtf is a Microsoft Word format, and html is for previewing within the web browser). 
8. Enter the date that should be inserted in the letter (mm/dd/yyyy) 
9. Select whether or not you would like to add a communication interaction record for this merge to the selected recipients’ contact records along with a subject for that history record. Add History notes (if desired) and then select if you would like to include the letter template into the communication history record for each individual. Each interaction record has a date, time, subject and description. Depending on the options you choose, an interaction record can be added for each recipient where a) the date and time are set from the date and time of the merge, b) The subject of the communication interaction is set to the “history subject”, and c) the description is set to the history notes plus content the letter template used for the merge (if selected).
10. Click "Run Merge" this will return you to the list of merges run for this letter template. 

You should see the merge you just created with an ‘In Queue’ status. Click the ‘refresh’ ( ) icon to get updates on the merge progress. It will eventually change status to "processing", then finally to "completed". 

There will be a "download" link in the column for the format you initially set as the output format. Click this link to download the report. If at any time you would like the same merge in another format such as html (for previewing) or pdf format you will need to rerun the merge.