MailMerge Plugin - How to create letter & document templates for properties in VIA
- Elliott Rowland (Unlicensed)
The MailMerge feature within VIA allows you to easily create letters & documents that automatically pull in the details of any property using Microsoft Word. At the click of a button, you can create specific documents for a property and automatically pull in the relevant information such as the vendor's name, address, and more.
Utilising Microsoft Word's native MailMerge functionality, VIA makes every field against a property available to be used within Word, so that generating all types of letters and documents becomes a breeze.
Creating your own MailMerge document templates
Step 1. Download our template
Download the Microsoft Word template directly from VIA. This template must be used to create any letter documents you want to use within VIA. To do this:
Login to VIA
Go to the top menu tab called CRM (this tab may also be called Lead Manager or Property Editor depending on your software edition)
Select the MailMerge Documents tab
Click the Download Template Files button. This will initiate a zip file download.
Open your downloaded zip file, and open the mailmerge_template Word Document
You may need to click the Enable Editing button followed by the Enable Content button if security pop ups appear in your Word document
Save the document in a location of your choice
Step 2. Create your document
Open your newly saved Microsoft Word template from wherever you have saved it. You can then start to build your letter template.
Simply create your word document in the usual way, adding your header, footer, and the body of text. If at any point you wish to insert the details of a property or contact from VIA, simply copy and paste the relevant MailMerge fields into your document.
For a full list of available MailMerge fields, please contact our Customer Services team on helpdesk@webdadi.com who can provide you with a comprehensive MailMerge guide.
Once you've completed your document, save it in a location of your choice.
Step 3. Upload your document to VIA
Once you've completed your document, you can upload it to VIA and enable that document to be created at the click of a button for any property or multiple properties.
To upload your document:
Login to VIA
Go to the top tab called CRM (this tab may also be called Lead Manager or Property Editor depending on your software edition)
Select the MailMerge Documents tab
You can categorise your documents in whatever way you choose. You can create a storage area to hold multiple documents of a certain type. For example, you could create a storage area called Landlord Letters that contains all of the letters you need to generate for a Landlord.
To create a storage area
Click Add List
Under the Page URL section, give your storage area a name, eg “Landlord Letters”
Click the visible box
In the Type field enter the word Property
In the SubType field you can choose the name of the storage area that appears when you click the MailMerge options against any property. You can see in the example below, 4 different storage areas have been created. The SubType for each of these storage areas was Landlord Letters, Potential Vendor Letters, Tenant Letters, and Test Documents. Multiple documents can then be added to any storage area to help you categorise your documents.
In the Media section, you can upload your newly created document. Once your media is uploaded, hover your mouse over the newly uploaded document and give it a name. In the example below, you can see the document was called Landlord Renewal Letter and was uploaded to the Landlord Letters storage area.
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