Would you like to send holiday cards to your customers but find it too time consuming to develop a list? Let Act! make it easier for you with the Groups feature.
The easiest method is to create a dynamic, “always changing”, Holiday Card group. One way to create this dynamic group is by adding “Holiday Card” to the drop-down box in your ID/Status field or create a new field called Holiday Card.
Dynamic Groups
To create a dynamic group:
1. Click the Groups button on the left navigation bar. This will launch the Groups view.
2. Click Groups | New Group.
3. In the Group field, type Holiday Card.
4. Click the Save button. In the list of groups on the left, you should now see a group called Holiday Card.
5. Click the Add/Remove Contacts button on the Contacts tab.
6. Click the Edit Criteria button for dynamic members and complete the dynamic criteria options. For example: ID/Status | Contains | Holiday Card
7. Click the Add-to list button
8. Click the Preview button to review
9. Click OK
Static Groups
If you don’t currently have a field in your database from which Act! can pull names.
To add multiple contacts to a static Holiday Card group:
1. In the Contact List view, click the Enable Tag Mode check box. You’ll find this in the middle of the screen at the top of the Contact List view.
2. Click once on each contact that should be included in your holiday card list. This will tag all of the clicked contacts.
3. Right-click one of the tagged contacts and choose the Add Contacts to Group option.
4. Choose the Holiday Card group.
5. Click OK.
Printing the Holiday Card List
Once you’ve looked up the contacts, you can print mailing labels or envelopes for the subset of your database. It’s also easy to export the list to Excel to send to a mailing house.
To create a lookup of contacts in the Holiday Card group:
1. In the Groups view, right-click the Holiday Card group.
2. Choose the Create Lookup option. Your current lookup is now everyone in the group.
To print envelopes or labels for the current lookup:
1. Perform a lookup of contacts in your Holiday Card group.
2. Click File | Print.
3. From the list of icons on the left, select either Labels or Envelopes.
4. Click Print.
5. Make sure the Current lookup option is selected.
6. Click OK.
Exporting to Excel
To export the Holiday Card recipients to Excel:
1. Perform a lookup of contacts in your Holiday Card group.
2. If necessary, click View | Customize Columns to add fields to the Contact List view. Only fields that are currently showing will export to Excel.
3. Click Tools | Export to Excel.
As always, I’m here to help! Contact me if you have questions or even frustrations with using Act!