Set-up, Field Names

The twelve data fields at the bottom of the address set screens, just above the final block of comment lines, may be set-up with prompts of your own choice, then used for ordering your records on screen (see “Clients, Searching and Sorting”), for selecting records for mail shots, e.g. to select by the client’s religion or some other criteria not included elsewhere (see “Mailshots, Bulk Selection of Clients”), and for analyses (see “Reports, Client, Mailshot Analysis”).

There are six user-definable fields where the answer must be selected from a drop-down (e.g. “New entrant?” – select “Yes” or “No” from a list of pre-defined answers), two free-format ones (e.g. where the answer can be anything, such as a house name), two numeric fields and two date fields (e.g. “Last review”, but most commonly used for your clients’ “Next contact” and “Last contact” dates).

For example, you could change one of the option prompts to “Smoker”, then set-up pre-defined answers in a drop-down (e.g. “Yes”, “No” and “Occasional”) and a help message at the bottom of the screen (e.g. “Is this person a smoker? ”).

To set-up your field names, starting from the Set-up Field Names screen…

• Use the drop-down at the top right to select the address set that you wish to edit
• Use the drop-down at the top left to select whether to set-up the basic fields or the additional 42
• Click one of the tabs which displays the sets of data fields
• Edit the screen description (e.g. to “Smoker” – try to keep this as short as possible)
• Edit the usage comments (e.g. to “Does this client smoke?” – try to make this clear as possible)
• Type in the first of your optional answers. As you do so an “Add” button will appear
• Click the “Add” button to add the new option to the drop-down list
• Repeat until you’ve added all your drop-down options
• Click the down-arrow button to the right of the drop-down and check your list
• If any item is wrong click on it, then either edit it or click the “Delete” button to remove it
• If you edit an option and click the “Change” button, all matching client records will change too

The revised set-up will apply to all address sets based on that fundamental type. For example, if you have used the fundamental address set type for “Clients, Individual” to create another set called “Clients, Fred’s”, then whatever fieldnames you set-up for “Clients, Individual” will also appear on the “Clients, Fred’s” screen.

Additional Mailshot Fields

If these twelve user-definable fields are not enough, another forty-two (i.e. 10 drop-downs, 10 free-format, 10 dates and 12 numerics) are available on an additional screen (see “Clients, Additional Mailshot Fields”). To make this screen appear, starting from the flat view of any address set screen…

• Click the “Signpost” button
• Click the “Additional screens” menu option
• Click and thereby tick the “Show 42 additional fields” menu option
• Subsequently, click the black “Curve right” button or press the “PgDn” key

Changing Mailshot Data

To change the existing mailshot data held by a large number of client records see “Mail Shot, Bulk Change Mailshot Data”.