Add Form Letter dialog box

Use this dialog box to create a new form letter that you can save for future use and send to one or more contacts.

Form Name

Enter a name for the form.

Form Type

Click to open the Choose Form Type dialog box to select keywords to apply to the form to identify the trade associated with the form. The types can be used to help categorize and find forms in the Form Letters tab of the Newforma Contact Directory.

Instructions

Enter any instructions that may be beneficial to the form users. The instructions appear in the Generate Form Letter dialog box when the user generates the form letter.

Applies to

From the top field:

Select The Form Applies to a Single Contact. Multiple Forms or Letters May be Generated at Once to generate a new form for each contact.

Select The Form Applies to or Will be Sent to Multiple Contacts. A Single Form will be Generated to generate a single form that is sent to all contacts.

From the bottom field:

Select The Form Does Not Include Information from a Project to prevent users from adding project information to the form letter when they generate it.

Select The Form Includes Information from a Single Project to allow users to add information from one project to the form letter when they generate it.

Select The Form Includes Information from a List of Projects to allow users to add information from multiple projects to the form letter when they generate it.

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Settings tab

Form Template

Select a Microsoft Word document to use as the form’s template. Click the button to locate the file.

Form letter templates are Microsoft Word documents that are stored in a central location on a file server that can be accessed by anyone who needs to generate the form. Project Center form letters reference the Word templates and are stored in the Project Center database.

Edit

Click to open the template document to edit it.

Email Template

Select an optional Microsoft Word document to use as the template for the layout of email messages associated with the sending of the form. Click the button to locate the file.

Email templates are similar to form templates but are used to generate an optional email body. Form templates are used to generate the actual document which would become an attachment if an email template was in use.

Edit

Click to open the template document to edit it.

Output Filename

Enter the name to save the form letter file as. You can use the name from the Form Name field.

Output Defaults

Use this section to specify what the default output will be when generating the form. These settings can be changed when the form is generated.

Format

Select whether to generate an email message, .PDF file, or Microsoft Word file.

Action

Select Do Not Send as Attachment to simply create the document and open it in the native application (Microsoft Word or Adobe Reader)

Select Attach to Draft Email Message to create the document and attach it to a new email message. The email message is opened for the user to complete and send.

Select Attach and Send Email Message to create the document and attach it to a new email message. The message is sent immediately without the user seeing it. It will appear in the Sent Items list.

Select Create and Log Outgoing Project Transmittal to create the document and include it with a new project transmittal. The Create an Outgoing Transmittal dialog box opens so that the remaining transmittal fields can be specified.

Email Subject

Enter a subject for the email message.

CC

Click to open the Choose Contacts dialog box to select the contacts to send the letter to.

 

Additional Fields tab

Use this tab to specify names and types of additional fields that you want to prompt for when the form is generated.  For each new field, the user must specify a field name, a tag used represent the field from within the Word template, a field type identifier to specify the type of data, and an optional default value. For an example on using additional fields, refer to this example.

Name

The field name that appears on the Generate Form Letter dialog box. It does not appear in the actual form letter.

Tag

The tag name is the XML attribute name that corresponds to the mail merge field in the form template. It must match the mail merge field name in the template. (It is not case sensitive.) For example, if the mail merge field name is Temperature, you must enter Temperature or temperature in this field.

Type

The field’s type. The following field types are supported:

Single line text – this will prompt the user for a single line of text.

Multi-line text – this will prompt the user for multiple lines of text.

Single project item – this will prompt the user for a single project item.

Multiple project items – this will prompt the user for multiple project items

Single contact – this will prompt the user for a single contact.

Multiple contacts – this will prompt the user for multiple contacts.

Keyword – this will prompt the user to select one or more keywords.

Yes/No – this will prompt the user to select either Yes or No.

Date – this will prompt the user to select a date.

Any additional fields added will be presented to users when they click the Edit Form Letter task.

Default

The default value for the field, if any.

Add

Click to open the Add Additional Field dialog box to add a field to the letter.

Edit

Click to open the Edit Additional Field dialog box to edit the selected field.

Remove

Click to remove the selected field.

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Test Form

Click to open the Test Form Letter dialog box to go through the steps to test the form letter before saving it.

 

To access this dialog box

Click Add Form Letter from the Tasks panel of the Newforma Contact Directory Form Letters tab.