Letter Writing is used for generating automatic letters to your customers via email or postal service. MotilityAnywhere does not restrict you to a small number of letters. You can create an unlimited number of customized letters to suit your dealership.
Open the Letter Writer
To open the letter writer screen, select the Letter Writing quick link on the main CRM screen. This will open a new browser tab to allow you to continue to use the program while creating letters.
The Letter Writing Screen
There are several parts to the letter writing screen.
Quick Links Letter Tree
The letter tree area of the screen displays all existing letters grouped by the letter type. Expand or contract the group by clicking over the group name. View a letter within a group by clicking once over the name of the letter.
Letter Preferences
The letter preferences section is where you can set up the letter by designating the letter type, letter name, choosing the data path to the letter if its an email designating the subject/reply address, picking which company the letter applies to if you have multiple locations, choosing the default send method, setting up reprint times, and activating or deactivating the letter.
The Letter Type selected will determine where the letter appears in the Letter Tree on the left side of the screen and which conditions will be available in the Conditions area.
Text entered in the Letter Name textbox will serve as a reference to find your letter in the Letter Tree.
The Company dropdown will determine which customers are pulled during the search based on the company location assigned to the entity in the CRM. If you want the letter to apply to multiple locations, leave the company selection blank.
If you are sending the letter through email, you will want to give it an Email Subject. If you are sending the letter in the mail, you will not need to fill this line in.
If you select the Send Method to mail the letter, you will have the option of printing envelopes or labels with the name and mailing address of the recipient customers. If you have set an After Print option, you will be prompted as whether or not you want to print the envelope/label after printing the letters. If you choose to, you will need to insert the envelopes or labels into the printer and select the printer you are using to print them.
Optionally, you can choose the Upload Letter button to upload a full HTML letter.
Letter Scheduling
In this section, you can set up your letter to send one time or on a recurring basis.
Schedule your letters as one-time or recurring. Any resend occurrences for this letter by setting the ‘Allow Reprint After Days’ will prevent the letter being reprinted is the time from the last print date is less than the days designated. Additionally, you can set a ‘End By Date’ for this letter which will not allow any reprints of it after the set date.
Conditions
The conditions section allows you to set up the filters to narrow your results to the specific customers you want to receive the letter.
Field
The field selection is used to select which attributes of the entity we want to filter for, like Customer Last Name, Entity Number, Vehicle Sold Date, etc. The selections available in the Field selection will vary upon the Letter Type selected so you will want to try to match your letter type up to the best possible selection.
Operator
The operator selection is used to set search criteria. The options here will vary based on the field selection.
- Equals – looks for an exact match
- Begins With – search for matches containing the selection in the beginning
- Ends With – search for matches containing the selection in the end
- Contains – search for matches containing the selection anywhere
- Days Before (Reoccurring) – searches for events occurring in the future (e.g. before an anniversary or a birthday). Used for reoccurring events.
- Days Before (One Time) - searches for events occurring after the letter is to be
printed (e.g. a future service reminder or a birthday letter) Used for one time
events. - Days After (Reoccurring) – searches for events that occurred before the letter was
printed (e.g. Thank you and follow up letters) Used for reoccurring events. - Days After (One Time) - searches for events that occurred before the letter was
printed (e.g. Thank you and follow up letters) used for one time events. - Greater Than – searches for values higher than the stated value, this can be used
for numbers, values, and dates - Less Than – searches for values lower than the stated value, this also can be used
for numbers, values, and dates. - Between – searches for all values falling between two stated values. This is
entered by placing a comma between the stated values (e.g. xxx,yyy) - Between Days Before (Reoccurring) – searches based off date for all values
falling between the two stated values occurring after the letter is printed. Used for
reoccurring events. - Between Days Before (One Time) - searches based off date for all values falling
between the two stated values occurring after the letter is printed. Used for one
time events. - Between Days After (Reoccurring) - searches based off date for all values falling
between the two stated values occurring before the letter is printed. Used for
reoccurring events. - Between Days After (One Time) - searches based off date for all values falling
between the two stated values occurring before the letter is printed. Used for one
time events.
Value
The Value selection is where you will set the specifics to your filter conditions, like specific entity numbers, last names, date ranges, etc.
Control Buttons
These buttons at the bottom of the screen will allow you to perform various tasks in letter printing, such as viewing the search results of the conditions, previewing a letter (note you can not preview .html format), reprinting letters, editing existing letters, creating new letters, and deleting existing letters.
Show Results
The ‘Show Results’ button will display a list of all customers returned that match the
conditions currently set in the CRM Letter Setup.
Additionally, this customer list is capable of being exported to Microsoft Excel. To do so,
first create and save a blank Excel spreadsheet. Then click on the ‘…’ button on the
Export File Name search box on the bottom of the Show Results window, this will allow
you to browse and select your Excel file. Once you have selected the file, click on the
‘Export’ button next to the ‘…’ this will export the results to the Excel spreadsheet.
New Letter
Will create a new blank letter, which you will have to go through and set up all setting on
it (assigning a letter type, name, file, delivery method, conditions, etc.)
Print Preview
The ‘Print Preview’ button will display a preview of what your letter will look like when
printed out, filling in any merge functions with information from returned results in the
Show Results. Note, currently this can not be used with .html file types.
Reprint Letters
Once a letter has been printed for a customer they are taken out of the print cycle for that
letter unless it is a reoccurring letter. In order to reprint a letter for those customers, you
will need to use the Reprint Letter Selection feature. You can base your selection based
upon the Salesperson, the Letter ID, or a date range.
Edit Letter
The Edit Letter button will allow you to edit/modify existing letters. Note, if you
currently do not have a letter selected in the ‘File Name’ field above, you will be
prompted to create a new letter from scratch in the Letter Editor.
Delete
Selecting a letter from the tree on the left side of the screen and clicking the ‘Delete
Letter’ button will delete that letter and its settings from the letter editor. Note, this will
not delete the letter file assigned to the letter.
OK
Used for approving and closing editor.
Cancel
Will cancel any changes you have made to a letter without saving it.
Save
Will save any changes you have made to a letter or new letters you have created.
Print Letters
You can print pre-existing letters by selecting the ‘Print Letters’ button.
The ‘Letter Printing’ screen will allow you to print/e-mail letters by specific letter,
company, or employee.
- Letter Name – Will list all created letters marked as active, allowing you to select a
specific letter to print. - Company – Will list all company locations, if you have multiple locations, and allow you
to print all letters for that location. - Employee – Will list all employees and allow you to print all letters associated with that
particular employee - Send Method – Will allow you to choose which letters you want to print/send based upon
the send method. - Group By – will determine how your letters are grouped when printing out, you can have
them be grouped by zip code, employee, or letter type. - Zip Code – will group all letters printed by the Zip Code assigned to the entity in the
CRM, grouping like zip codes together. - Employee – will group all letters printed by the employee associated with them.
- Letter Type – If you are printing batch letters, all letters printed will be organized by the
letter type, grouping all letters with a similar letter type together. - Preview First – preview first will allow you to see the letter(s) before printing them to
insure that the letter will print the way you want it to. Note that this will only work for .rtf
formatted letters, not .html.