Mailing Labels and Tracking Mailings-Parameter Queries

[hockey8837]

Hi,
I've got a DB in which we will want to pull contacts out based on a parameter query, create mailing labels for those contacts (either in Access or can export to Word for better editing ability), and then mark in that contact's information that they've received that mailing.


Any suggestions as to how best to do this?

 

[Access_guy49]

Will it be used more than once per contact?
Example:
Mailing list sent out in sept to contacts 1 3 and 5.
Mailing list sent out in Nov to contacts 1 3 4 and 5

or will it only be a one time shot?

If the above applies, i would have a joined table that indicates a date for which they recieved a mailing list item.

 

[hockey8837]

Hi,
Yes, the contacts would be receiving mailings more than once, such as newsletters or occasional postcard reminders, depending on other criteria which would be sorted out based on a parameter query. I went ahead and setup a 'Mailings' table which would store the ContactID and the MailingID as well as the extended mailing info.

What I'm stuck on now is, I want to execute a parameter query based on, say, how recently the contact's tree was planted and pull everyone within the last year. Then, I'll need to either have their contact info show up in a report of address labels or even better create a mail merge with a postcard document. So, how do I then tell access to mark in the 'Mailings' table all of these people who just had a label created for them?

Thanks!

 

[Access_guy49]

Personally, if i understand the relationship correctly, I would do this:

Create a new table that is linked to your existing contact table. The link field could be the contact ID.

The new table will hold a date value for every time that contact ID has been sent a mailing. Therefor it will be a 1 to many relationship.
Your query might be to display all those who have not been mailed within the last year..or 6 months, or something of that nature.

OR

You could just add a field to the contact table which holds the "last mailed" date. Every time you email them, you run a query to update the date field to the current date.

Either of these would work, I actually like the second option best, but that's just me.