How do I make an editable letter that stores data in Excel?

Question

My boss came to me with an idea and wants me to make it happen.

The problem? I have no idea how to make this happen or where to look. My background is Psychology not IT so I'm lost when it comes to this type of thing.

Here is the idea he wants me to figure out how to do.
(He said Excel or Access and I know even less with Access) I've actually went to the Microsoft website and looked into taking little courses to help teach me how to use these software's, but I've gotten to a point where I can even think about doing the above.

Here is what he's wanting to do.

He wants to take a letter that we mail out and find a way to be able to take information we get about customers and store it in a database of some type and it auto populate in the fields on the letter. He wants to have a section where we can let customers know if they are missing information and I thought if there was a way you can have standard items that are missing that can have a check box and those items would auto populate in the "missing information" section.

I'm also thinking that there be a way where I can enter several locations in a database and when I direct the customer where to go I can just select one of those options and it will auto populate the contact information of that location into the letter.

He's then wanting the letter to be able to be printed as a hard document and emailed?

Is this even possible or do I need some type of computer programming degree to make this happen?

Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

Not sure I have a totally clear understanding of what you want to achieve, but maybe this will help a bit if I've recognized anything.



It seems you will have some sort of data entry and database (either Excel or Access) to enter some customer information to, and then you want to generate a form letter with things filled in from your data or auto-calculated.



Yes, this is possible but it isn't extremely easy. You might look into the "Mail Merge" feature of Word (or other popular word processor you might be using), which will accomplish this. You create your document and put placeholders where you want data to be filled in from your data source. You can also put tags there that will fill in things like the current date, and you can use some VBA macros to do some of the calculations, or have your database do the calculations on the fly.



You then run a wizard which will allow you to identify your data source, and then map elements from that data to the placeholders on your form.



This isn't extremely difficult, but it isn't basic either. Hopefully this will send you in a productive direction in your research of the solution.

Answer 2

In Access you would design a report with the Dear so and so. The report is bassed of your table data of Customer name, Address, Store, Phone. You should use a form to enter your table data you can use the auto generated after you make the table with the customer info. Then create a report use the label field for basic typing format it just as you do in word. Use the text box for the auto filled information (it will also add a label field which you can use or delete). For the source of the text box chose the ... and find your table and field you want such as the customer name. You can also make it bassed not on a table but a querry where you can make it select all customers that live in a certain city or customers who have called in the last 30 days. Access takes a while to figure out but it is a nice specialty.



Your list of wants sounds like what people order a custom database for. And all your demands can be met in Access. You can contact me if you wish for me to create it. or go to my website http://theinfosheets.com

Answer 3

!! DISREGARD ALL OF THIS; WROTE BEFORE READING ALL THE WAY !!!

I think this is beyond what these programs can handle









I would personally ask your boss if he would be willing to use Google Spreadsheet because it seems like that is exactly what he is looking for. Google Spreadsheet has the same features as Excel and you can have as many people edit it at the same time as you want. You can even set restrictions on other editors such as view only.