Customizing Thank-you Letters

Submitted by admin on Mon, 03/27/2006 - 9:16pm.

Quick thank-you letter printing is one of the most popular features of ODB. You can select a list of recent donors, then print letters that automatically merge the donors’ addresses, salutations, lastgifts, and lastgave dates.

Thank-you letters will use the title and suffix (if turned on in settings) in the address at the top. The default salutation is the first name. You may define custom salutations on an individual basis by enabling the showtitle? field and choosing a title from the pull-down menu. This will automatically make the salutation field visible with a formal salutation using the title chosen. You may edit the salutation (to a nickname or anything you choose).

Note: If you decide to only use a salutation and wish to exclude the title (which appears on address labels), then you must change the title pull-down back to the choice. You must then type a custom salutation into the field.

For cases when you wish to formally address doctors, you should either use the title field (Dr.), or the suffix (M.D.) but not both. If you wish your letters to use the suffix in the address, but the title in the salutation, you must enable the salutation field by selecting Dr. from the pull-down title menu, and then disable titles by selecting the choice.

If you want to completely suppress the title from all labels in a particular mailing, you must turn off showtitle? in settings while you print labels. The titles for each record will not be deleted, only suppressed.

The lastgift and lastgiftdt merge fields used in the thank-you letter will automatically default to the most recent gift for each donor. If someone has given more than once recently, you must generate a thank you note right after you enter each gift, from the New Payment screen. If you have already entered the gifts, you just need to double-click the gift entry in the payment history screen, check the Print Thank You box (if you have enabled the thankyoucheckbox? in Modify Settings), and click Save. The letter will print immediately. ODB will match different thank-you notes to a particular Donation Category (also called Ledger Category). To set it up, you must modify the ODB setting called thankyoudefs to tell ODB which thank-you note to use for each category.

For example, if you had a thank-you note called webthank.txt for Web donations and mailthank.txt for Mail-in donations, you would also need donation/ledger categories of W and M. Then to match them correctly, you would type into the thankyoudefs setting (exactly as below):

W-webthank.txt M-mailthank.txt

After this feature is set up, ODB will include a thankyou note pull-down menu in both the Add Gift and Print screens. These menus allow you to print the default thank-you note for all selected records, the “category default” (which will match each gift to the assigned thank-you note for that category), or any other special note (whatever you have put into the mergetext folder). The default thank-you note must be named thankyou.txt.

Note that if you are using the giftcategory setting in ODB, it will not let you print thank-you notes for non-giftcategory payments. For instance, if you make a ledger category called Fee-For-Service and exclude it from the giftcategory setting (because it is not a donation), you will not be able to print thank-you notes for these payments. If you leave the giftcategory setting blank, ODB will let you print thank-you notes for payments in all 32 categories.

Please also note that ODB has three settings, leftmarginpoints, topmarginpoints, and rightmarginpoints, which define the margins to use on your letterhead when printing thank-you notes. If you use 72 (points) as your margin, this is equivalent to one inch.

‹ Reference for Customizing Settings and PromptsupCustomizing ODB for Membership Management ›

Comments

This is pretty helpful, but

Submitted by Linda of pgff on Fri, 05/29/2009 - 10:36am.

This is pretty helpful, but I'm still having a problem with getting ODB to recognize two of the new notes I have tried to add. I'm not sure what else to do.

I set the "code changes" setting on in ODB. I clicked on the button to see where my database is located, verified it was where I expected it to be.

I created several new text files there:

defensethx
sponsorthx
yardthx

I had previously customized the content of thankyou and it remains there along with these new files in the .mergetext subdirectory and they all look alike in terms of properties and settings.

In ODB's Settings, I specified the codes to be considered as gifts, and entered the string telling ODB which file to use for which gift code's thank yous.

I've closed and restarted ODB.

Then I brought up a donor record for someone who has given to our Legal Defense Fund. But ODB tells me this thank you is missing; it insists on using the default file instead.

I turned "code changes" on again, and returned to the payment I was trying to acknowledge. In the dropdown for thank you note choice, sure enough, ODB claims that several of the files are "".

Aside from manually modifying the "default" file each time I want to generate a thank you note, does someone know how to get this to cooperate? I'm (clearly) not really sure what is going on!

Prince Georges Feral Friends, SPCA
Supporting People with Compassion for Homeless Cats

Found the answer to my

Submitted by Linda of pgff on Sat, 05/30/2009 - 4:09pm.

Found the answer to my questions in the February 2005 archive of the support list!

Prince Georges Feral Friends, SPCA
Supporting People with Compassion for Homeless Cats

Thanks for sharing this

Submitted by miilee1000 on Sun, 12/04/2011 - 6:42am.

Thanks for sharing this information. I really like your way of expressing the opinions and sharing the information. It is good to move as chance bring new things in life, paves the way for advancement, etc. But it is well known to everyone that moving to new location with bulk of goods is not an easy task to move or shift from one place to other place because I have experienced about that and I face the problem like that. There I go to village near to my city faced that problem there.

outdoor cooking equipment|

That is genuinely helpful. I

Submitted by XDavid on Thu, 01/26/2012 - 2:23pm.

That is genuinely helpful. I would like to ask if it would be Okay if I mentioned some of that on my own internet marketing strategies blog. Of course, I would credit you, and link back here also. generique
Your concepts were simple to understand that I wondered why I in no way looked at it prior to. Glad to know that there’s a blogger out there that certainly understands what he’s discussing.
Thank you for another fantastic blog. Where else could I get this kind of information written in such an incite full way ? I have a project that I am just now working on, and i am sure this will help me a lot..and I have been looking for such information since from few days....Thanks !!!!! kaufen

Indeed, the lastgift system

Submitted by Dervish on Mon, 02/27/2012 - 1:46pm.

Indeed, the lastgift system seems to be one of the most efficient out there. It share a lot of similarities with the psprint gift code and makes lots of things significantly easier to handle.

There are about a dozen

Submitted by eavedrop44 on Tue, 04/03/2012 - 3:29am.

There are about a dozen additional fields that can be turned on: a fax number field, title and salutation, date of birth, occupation, an additional value list, a region field, a long value list, two user-defined fields, and two additional payment categories
lafashionreview

this is a great way to

Submitted by jogos on Sat, 04/07/2012 - 4:34pm.

this is a great way to customize Thank-you Letters
jogos de vestir

Patch this may seem equal a

Submitted by yulandarohe on Mon, 04/09/2012 - 12:07pm.

Patch this may seem equal a lot pacquiao vs bradley hbo 24/7 of info to traverse in, shopping for a ceremonial change is definitely a lot of fun. Protect an give nous and a optimistic noesis, and you should happen the one special embellish sooner than you reckon. While you may compliments pacquiao vs bradley to solitary out predestinate members for specific commendation, your amah of have and physiologist man for example, accomplish careful you do traverse the reading to convey everyone as vessel, not slightest essay your parents.

Recently i have heard about

Submitted by mathew4517 on Mon, 04/16/2012 - 5:43am.

Recently i have heard about James Koehler. As i have never heard about him. I have gone through his site that was just too good. He has done just amazing impressive work. Its really good job of him. Everyone can inspire from him.
mulberry outlet -
mulberry bags

Kind of amusing post.

Submitted by JoshuaJones on Wed, 04/25/2012 - 2:38am.

Kind of amusing post. information that given are relevent. It also give us some resource to think far more. A truly likely post. The explanations are perfect. Seems the topic is well-known to the writer. i have really learnt those things which were behind the curtain! copy editors

12next ›last »