This section contains instructions on how to use the Mail Merge Feature within the Business Leads service of Interactive:

To Begin:
Go to our website www.barbour-abi.com and enter your unique username and password in the quick login box.

This is the main Customer Area. Here you can choose which Active Service you require. Choose “Business Leads ” from the control panel to view projects.

As illustrated below you can select which roles you wish to mail merge.

In brackets after each of the role titles is a number, this indicates the number of contacts in your selection matching each role.

Select your roles for the mail merge by ticking the boxes next to the roles you wish to merge. If you wish to make changes to the projects you have tagged you can click the "return to summary" button.

Alternatively, once you have selected your roles, click on the next button to continue.

You will be shown a list of all the contacts that you are about to mail merge. If you wish, you can remove individual contacts from this list by removing the tick from the check box next to their name; they will then not be included in the mail merge.

You also have the option to remove multiple contacts for a role on a project. For example if a housing development has two people listed as Client, selecting the "Remove multiple contacts per role" will remove all client contacts for this project after the first client contact.

Click on the "next button" to continue with the mail merge.

Upon creating your mail merge file, you will be presented with a screen similar to the below.

At the top of the page there is a link saying “Click here to download Mail Merge CSV file”.

Upon selecting this link you will need to save the file to your computer rather than opening it.

Select a location to save the file on your computer and click on the Save button.

We have also provided some mail merge templates for you to use in preparing your correspondence with your contacts. The templates are:

• Introductory Letter
• Follow up Letter
• Avery Labels
• Business Fax

To use any of these templates click on the link at the top of the page. E.g. Introductory Letter.

A message window opens – you must choose to save the introductory letter template to your computer in order to be able to use it.

Select a location to save the file on your computer and click on the Save button.

To carry out your mail merge within Word 2003, please follow the steps below.

Open the intro_letter_mm.doc file you have saved to your computer.

* Remember to delete the text in red and complete the body of the letter before starting the mail merge.

Go to - Tools > Letters and Mailings > Mail Merge…

The mail merge wizard will open at the right of the screen. Ensure the letters option is selected in the mail merge wizard panel. Click Next.

Select to use the current document as this is the template you have opened. Click Next.

Click on the browse button to select your data source. This will be the mail merge CSV file you saved from the Interactive website earlier.

The Select Data Source window opens, locate the file you saved earlier and select to open it.

The Mail Merge recipients window opens, you do not need to make any changes here unless you wish to remove people from the mailing. Click OK to continue.

Here you can edit your letter to add more detail to the template we have created. Once you have made all the required changes click Next to preview your letters.

You will see a preview of all the merged letters to complete the mail merge and allow you save or print your letters, click on Next to complete the mail merge.

You will then see the completed letters and have the option to print the letters or edit individual letters prior to printing.

If you wish to use the labels template to perform a mail merge then you will need to follow the steps outlined above.

Please note that when you open the labels template and start to carry out the mail merge you must choose to create a letter in the Microsoft Mail Merge Wizard. Do not choose to create labels as this will not work using the template Barbour ABI has provided.