Documents, Data Sets

A “Data set” is a group of data fields (e.g. address line 1, address line 2, date of birth, phone number, etc), which is sent to Word for automatic inclusion in a document. If the list is big it will take longer to load Word, so fields should be added carefully. In most cases you’ll probably only need the standard set, which unsurprisingly is called “Standard”. Do not remove any of the fields in this set as this may prevent your existing templates from working properly.

Adding Fields to the “Standard” Data Set

To add fields to the “Standard” data set, starting from Durell’s Document Viewer…

• Use the “Data field set” drop-down to select “Standard”
• Click the “Setup” button to the right of the “Data field set” drop-down

• Use the “Select Table” drop-down to select which table to get the data fields from (e.g. the “Clients Details” table)

• In the “Select fields” list, click and highlight the field you require (e.g. “Search Name”)
• Click the “>” button to move the highlighted field into the “Selected” list
• Click the “<” button to remove the highlighted field from the “Selected” list
• Click the “|>” button to select all of the fields in a given table (n.b. not recommended, as likely to be slow and cause Word to crash)
• Click the “|<” button to remove all of the fields in a given table
• Continue selecting other fields from other tables, as required, then…
• Click “Save” to save the revised data set
• Click “Close”

The numbers in red next to “Select fields” and “Selected” respectively show the number of fields still available in the current table and the number of fields so far selected in total.

Ordering Your Data Fields

By default your data fields will be listed in the order that they occur in the Microsoft Access tables used by Durell. If you’d prefer to list them in some other sequence then clear the tick and re-order them via the “Move” buttons, at the end of which you must click the “Save” button.

Multiple Data Sets

Each time you use a new template for the first time a data set is associated (or linked) to it. This is why, having created a new template, you then have to explicitly choose which dataset to use with it. Although not necessary, you can have a number of data sets, and can choose which dataset gets linked to which template.

Creating A New Data Set

To create a new data set, starting from Durell’s Document Viewer…

• Click the “New” button in the “Setup Standard Data Field Set” dialogue
• Enter a name for your new set and click the “OK” button. For example, the name could be “General Insurance”, in which case the dialogue title will then change to “Set-up, Insurers, General & Life”).

• Use the “Select Table” drop-down to select which table to get the data fields from (e.g. the “Clients Details” table)
• Click and thereby highlight the field you want from the “Select fields” list
• Click on the “Right-arrow” button in the middle to shift it to the “Selected” list
• Click the “Save” button after you’ve selected all the fields you require

Using A New Data Set

To use your new data set for the first time, after clicking on the “New Doc” button start a new document…

• Select the template to use with the new data set (e.g. “Letter”)
• Select “Current Record”
• Select your new data field set
• Clear the tick from the box entitled “Tick for normal document…”

Once in Word, use the “Insert Merge Field” button to add your new fields to the template in the correct location, then save the document as a “Document Template” (see Templates, Editing)

See also “Diaries, Word Processor Links”.