Mailing notification schema

[pmaril]

Hi everyone, I am new on this forum, so I hope this was the correct plac for my question.

First of all, I am from Argentina, so excuse my english.

My problem is this:

I have a designed database for contact information for the attendees of a conference, so, what I need is to send this info for everyone in the database, but for the people with 2 or 3 participations, sent just 1 e-mail with all the info.

I have made my layout with a self related table, so when the Last Name is found, is displayed on a portal, with all the info of that particular participation with the date, hour, subject and what kind of activity will be hold.

I used to do (and I am still) that on a basic combination of Excel/Word/Entourage, but I am tired of those tedius programs.

I make my database on excel, with the fields (Columns) Name, date, hour, theme, etc. and on the word document I put a Letter on the "Data Merge Manager" with all the text I need to send, and as a last step, combine the database to e-mail, and get de 190 emails I need, but I get for those wo participate twice, 2 different e-mails.

The problem here is that in most cases, the people does not even read the second e-mail, so imagine on the fourth they receive.

If I could sent everything from filemaker, with the info on my portal as a field on the mail body, formated like this (I will mark on colors the Fields I have on the database):

---

Dear [color:red]Dr. [color:green]John [color:red]Doe:

We have great pleasure on....

Your participation will take place as follows (Here is the data on the portal):

1. [color:red]November, [color:green]21, [color:red]2006. On the [color:green]Round table: brain decease; with the subject: "[color:red]Antibiotics".

2. (Here continues the portal)

Hoping to coun with your...

---

An so on with the formal text to end the letter.

I am breaking my minth on two.

I can´t figure out how to do that, I have tryed many things, and I want to avoid sent an attached PDF becouse most people says that "the machine detects a possible infected file attached", and they delete the e-mail.

If anyone has a workaround, please let me know.

If there is no way I can do that, I will have to be chained to the Microsoft products to the end of time.

Thanks everyone.

Pablo

[Lee Smith]

Create a blank layout, and use the Text Tool to create your letter.

In the places where you want to personalize your letter, use the Merge Field function (Layout Mode [color:blue]>> Menu [color:blue]>> Insert [color:blue]>> [color:red]Merge field) Cmd + M on a Mac.

Dear <> <> <

We have great pleasure on....

Your participation will take place as follows <> <>: portal data fields.

1. November, 21, 2006. On the Round table: brain decease; with the subject: "Antibiotics".

2. (Here continues the portal)

Hoping to coun with your...

---

An so on with the formal text to end the letter.

I am breaking my minth on two.

HTH

Lee

Edited May 23, 2006 by Guest

[pmaril]

Sorry, that does not works for me.

I am sending the "primitive" layout with the fields and on the layout format.

In the Layout you could see the portal and the related data.

[Lee Smith]

Sorry, that does not works for me.

doesn't tell me anything either.

There is an example file at John Mark Osborne's site that shows what my approach.

http://www.databasepros.com/resources.html and search for Custom Merge Letters

HTH

Lee

[pmaril]

Thanks, but what I need is to put the several items that figures on the portal, and the files you point have no portals.

I can do a Merge for and make PDFs but I want plain text e-mails, with the:

1. << Mesa >>, << Tema >>

2. << Mesa >>, << Tema >>

That figures on the portal, with the portal row number, so we could have as a reference this number, and all the info goes on a single e-mail.

Thanks a lot for your help.

[Lee Smith]

I made you a sample where there are portal data, see attach

HTH

Lee

MergeFields.fp7.zip

[pmaril]

Srry Lee, but I think I am not clear enoght.

I mean, what I need is to merge on the text field or a calculation every row of the portal.

So, in the merge layout, I get all the conferences.

If you take a look at my layouts, you will see that on the browse mode, you have 3 conferences with the same last name, so, I whant those 3 conferences combined into 1 single calculation or text.

I have been looking over the functions, but can´t found one that meets my needs, but I will keep looking.

I am trully sorry for disturb you, and whants to thanks you for your patience.

I am attaching 2 snapshots of what I want, and you could see why I don´t want to use PDF, becouse of all the empty space.

Pablo

Edited May 24, 2006 by Guest

[pmaril]

Here I post the FILE. Please take a look, and you will see that I have a lot of parameters.

Sorry is in Spanish, but the fields and portals are the problems.

Thanks a lot.

-__Logins_del_Congreso_2006_CV_Converted.fp7.zip

[Lee Smith]

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you, I had to earn a little money. I looked at your files and your screen shots.

I don't speak Spanish at all, so your English is a whole lot better than my Spanish.

After reading your posts again, I think all you need to do is to create a Summary report. Take a look at the file by John Mark Osborne Here

for inspiration, as it seems to do what you are wanting.

HTH

Lee

[pmaril]

Lee:

thanks a lot, I am looking at the file, and figuring out how to apply to my needs.

Meanwhile, I am forced to get back to the usual Excel-Word-entourage schema, becouse I am running out of time.

But since this is my real work (find better ways to do things), I will keep coming back, becouse I think FileMaker has a lot of potential on my work.

Thanks a lot, I will post when I break the barrier, and get the database as I whant.

See you soon.

Pablo