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donor360:object_configuration:5letter_generation:letter_templates

Letter Templates

Overview

This section will review how the Letter Template is designed to work and guide setup of a letter template.

Create a Letter Template

  • From App Launcher, search and select Letter Template, Click New
  • Add a Name for the template
  • Choose the Template Type (either a letter or email)
  • Choose a Source Object
    • Letter Templates are currently limited to the objects listed
  • Display Letter Review and Edit Screens? field is set based on your organization's preferences for reviewing letters.
    • Select No if no review is required.
    • Select Yes, if your organization wants to review letters in a screen flow before generating the Letter Output
  • Copy your template text from a source document and paste it into the Template Body field. If formatting doesn't look correct, paste the text into Notepad to strip the formatting and then copy/paste from Notepad into the Template Body field. Adjust formatting using the Rich Text tools.
  • Click Save

Notice the fields in the template are not the actual API names of the fields to be merged, just placeholders until the next step.

Create Letter Template Merge Fields

This step uses the field API name and connects it to the objects to generate a merge value that is copied/pasted into the Template Body. You will need access to the objects and field API names and it's easiest to complete when the object is open in another tab.

  • Click New button in the Letter Template Merge Fields related list
  • Along the right side, select the object that is the Source Object on the Letter Template record.
    • If you chose Disbursement as the Source Object, then use the Merge Object-Disbursement field.
  • Select the object where your field is coming from (in the example, it's Funding Request)
  • From another tab, copy the API name of the field to be merged
  • Paste that API field name into the Merge Field API Name field, Save

The record should look something like this before saving.

  • This saves the record and generates the Merge Value to Paste. Copy this value

  • Return to the Letter Template and click Edit
  • In the Template Body field, locate where the merge field should be placed and paste the value into the letter body. If placeholder text was visible, delete the text.

As additional Letter Template Merge Fields are added, the Letter Template Merge Field record list will grow and should look something like the screenshot below. Keep in mind as the fields are added, use the Merge Object field that matches the Source object, and then select the object of the field to be merged. (Traversing through the source object to retrieve a field from another object.)

The Template Body should look something like this:

Other Types of Merge Fields

  • To merge a date field, Click New on Letter Template Merge Field related list
    • In the System Merge Field Select Today's Date, Save
    • Copy/paste the Merge Value to Paste into the Template Body
  • To add a Page break, Click New on Letter Template Merge Field related list
    • In the System Merge Field select Page Break, Save
    • Copy/paste the Merge Value to Paste into the Template Body

  • If a sub-table (bullet list or comma separated values) of data is needed for a merge letter, Click New on Letter Template Merge Field related list,
    • In the Merge Object - Disbursement Multi-Tables field (or use the Oppty Multi-Tables if working with Opportunities) select Fund Expenditures which contains the data to list in the table
    • Select Table in Multi-Table Output Type, Save
    • Copy/paste the Merge Value to Paste into the Template Body

donor360/object_configuration/5letter_generation/letter_templates.txt · Last modified: by judy.otto