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Accelerator ships with the Accelerator Macro Suite which provides the ability to merge any data field in Accelerator to a document in Word or WordPerfect by creating and saving it as a reusable and sharable template.  In addition to the standard merge fields available from the Accelerator menu in your word processor, you can include up to 160 additional custom merge fields. 


Microsoft Word 2007

 

Mapping Custom Merge Fields
Custom merge fields are set by an Accelerator user with admin rights.  To set the merge fields, do the following:
 

1. Open Accelerator and select |File|Administrator|Macro Custom Fields|.  The following screen will appear:
   
   
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2. To change the number of custom fields, click |Set Number| and enter a value of less then or equal to 160, click |OK| to save your settings.
   
   
   
    
3. To assign an Accelerator field to a custom field, click the field on the right that you would like to assign, for example click 'Custom 1 ='.  Now, from the "Available Fields" section of the left, select a field and click the |Change| button.  
   
   
    
4. To save your settings, click the |OK| button.
    

You can export and print your custom mapped fields, here's how:

• To export your 'Custom Merge Field Mappings', selecting the |Export Mappings| button, your custom merge field mappings will be saved as mappings.txt in c:\officea.
   
• To Print your 'Custom Merge Field Mappings', see the following URL:
  Printing 'Custom Merge Field Mappings'  
  
   

Using Custom Merge Fields

Once you have mapped custom merge fields, you can use them to create a reusable and sharable merge document.  The following is an example of how to do that using Microsoft Word 2007. 

Important
Since we will be creating a public/shared document that uses our new custom merge fields, we first need to ensure that we have a public document location.  This is only necessary if you are an Accelerator network user, if you are a single user you can ignore this note.  Public formats are typically saved in a shared folder e.g. on a server. The public folder location is set within the Accelerator phone book by selecting |Preferences|Public Document Path|.  The public document folder must be named 'Public.acc' and users must have both Read and Write permissions to this folder.  You may need to consult your administrator for assistance creating a 'Public Documents Folder', or entering the path to the existing 'Public Documents Folder' location.  Each Accelerator network user should have identical paths (typically a UNC as opposed to a logical drive letter) to the public documents folder and each path is set within each individual Accelerator client by selecting |Preferences|Public Document Path|.  It is possible in a network environment to globally change all Accelerator client public document paths using group policy scripting, for more information about this please send inquiries to support@baselineconnect.com . 


 

1. Open Microsoft Word 2007 and click |Add-Ins|Accelerator|Create/Edit|Letter Format|.
   
   
    
2. From the |Create or Edit a Letter Format| dialogue box, highlight 'Full Block' and click |Create New|.
   
   
    
3. Enter a new name for your letter format and select the |Public Format| option.  Click Continue.
   
   
   
   
   By selecting 'Public Format' you are making the template available to all Accelerator users on your network.  If you prefer to keep it at as a personal format, select the 'Personal Format' option. Typically personal formats are saved in the c:\officea\word6 directory*.  Public formats are typically saved in a shared folder e.g. on a server. The public folder location is set within the Accelerator phone book by selecting |Preferences|Public Document Path|.  The public document folder must be named 'Public.acc' and users must have both Read and Write permissions to this folder. 
   
   *By default templates are saved as follows:

   MS Word Default Personal Format Template Directory	c:\officea\word6
   MS Word Default Public Format Template Directory	\\accnet\acc\docs\public.acc\word6
   WordPerfect Default Personal Format Template Directory	c:\officea\wp60
   WordPerfect Default Public Format Template Directory	\\accnet\acc\docs\public.acc\wp60

    

4. Click |OK| to the following message and the Accelerator merge document will be displayed. 
   
   
   
   
    
5. The Accelerator merge document contains default merge fields that tell Accelerator where to put data on a merge.  You can delete and add default and custom fields to this document.  In fact, since this is a Word document you can customize the document just as you would any Word document, adding clipart, spreadsheets, graphs, etc.  Once you have completed the customization of your document, it can be re-used and shared an endless number of times to merge thousands of contacts from Accelerator to create newsletters, invoices, faxes, etc. 
    
6. To add additional fields to the Accelerator merge document, place your cursor on the document in the location where you would like to insert the the merge field, now click the insert merge field button and select the appropriate merge field to add to your document.  In the example below, we have highlighted the existing merge fields, position <<Pos>> and company <<Comp>>, and will replace them with the 'Custom1' merge field that we had mapped to 'Date of Birth' in the example above.
   
   
   
    
7. To save this document for re-use, close the |Insert Merge Field| dialogue box and click |Save|.  DO NOT change the name or location of the document.   Click |Yes| to save the document in the latest Word format.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
    
8. Now Close the document and open a 'new' Word document.
    
9. To use the document we just created above, from the 'new' Word document click |Add-Ins|Accelerator|Multiple Letters|.
   
   
    
10. Search for a contact, or group of contacts and click |Continue Letter|. 
    
    
     
11. Select the template we created "My Letter Format' and click continue
    
    
     
12. Finally, select to display the merged data to your word processor and click continue. 
    
    
     
13. If you are not satisfied with how the data merged to the document, or just want to add something else, you can re-edit the merge document as many times as you would like. 
     
14. To Re-Edit a merge document open word, and click |Add-Ins|Accelerator|Create/Edit|Letter Format|.
    
    
     
15. Select your document to Edit, and click the |Edit| button. 
    
    
     
16. Click the |Continue| button.
    
    
     
17. Click |Yes| if presented with the following message. 
    
    
     
18. Click |OK| to begin modifying your Accelerator merge document.  Once done, click |Save| (Do Not Rename the Document), and exit the document before use.