Mail-merge file contents for renewal notices and blanket renewal notices

There are four possible mail-merge output formats for renewal notices, named MMERG1, 2, 3 and 4. MMERG4 is the most recently designed format and we recommend that new QuickFill users choose this format. The MMERG1, 2 and 3 formats are increasingly expansive: the MMERG2 format contains everything that the MMERG1 format has plus additional fields that make it possible to do a postal presort on the file. The MMERG3 format contains everything that the MMERG1 and MMERG2 formats have plus it has all of the address fields split out into their individual components.

MMERG1 format

We supply a sample Microsoft Word mail-merge template that uses the MMERG1, 2 or 3 format. It is named Renewal123.dot for publications that use unit pricing and RenewalSteppedPricing123.dot for publications that use stepped pricing; you will find these template files in your QuickFill program directory. Backup read-only copies of the templates are located in the Templates directory within the QuickFill program directory, just in case you want to revert to the original layout.

This field contains a sequential record number.

The entries in these fields depend on whether you selected the 'Print company name on renewals' field on the 'Companies' definition screen. If you left the 'Print company name on renewals' field blank, these first five fields will be blank. If you checked this field, the five fields will contain the data you entered in the company Name field; the two-line Address field; and the city, state, zip, and country fields.

This field always contains the phone number you entered in the 'Phone' field on the 'Companies' definition screen.

Whether you get entries in the next three fields depends on whether you selected the 'Print credit card info block on renewals' field on the 'Renewal Packages' definition screen. If you left the credit card block field blank, these three fields will be blank. If you selected the 'Print credit card info block on renewal field', you'll see the following in these three fields:

The CCBLOCK2 field may not contain exactly the same card names shown above. The text that is displayed depends on what  you filled in on the Companies definition screen.

What you see in these fields depends on the specific order you're renewing, of course. But it also depends on your entries in the following fields:

• The 'Send to ship-to' field on the 'Renewal Series' definition screen.

• The 'Send notice to' field in the "Agency subscriptions" section on the same screen.

These six fields match the mailing label image you see when you use 'Lookup' to get details on a customer.

If you leave the 'Send to ship-to' field blank, QuickFill produces the address of the "bill-to" customer for the order you're renewing. If you select the Send to ship-to field by clicking on it once so that a check mark appears in it, QuickFill produces the address of one of the "ship-to" customers. If you elected to send renewal notices for agency subscriptions to the agency, then QuickFill inserts the agency address you filled in on the Agencies definition screen.

This field contains the code you entered on the 'General' tab of the 'Publications' screen.

The entries in these fields come from the name you entered in the 'Publication name' field on the 'General' tab of the 'Publications' screen. The lines break just the way you entered them. If you do not want the publication name in these fields, clear the Print publication name fields on the "Defining renewal series" screen.

This field contains the Date the renewal notices field that was on the update screen at the time you ran the update. The dates format matches your entry in the 'Date format' field on the 'Preferences' screen.

This field contains the order number of the order you're renewing.

In this field is the number from 1 through 12 of your renewal effort. (The first renewal notice you send is effort number 1, the second effort number 2, and so forth.)

Each renewal effort can include up to nine different offers. On QuickFills standard renewal notices, you can see full pricing details for one offer. (For more information on how QuickFill selects this "detail" offer, see renewal efforts.)

The next few fields vary depending on whether your publication uses unit pricing or stepped pricing. For unit pricing you'll see the components of the "detail" offer in the TERMDESC through MINTEXT fields. For the remaining offers (for which the order you're renewing qualifies), QuickFill produces only summaries of the pricing in the OFFER2 through OFFERTEXT9 fields.

For stepped pricing the TERMDESC through OFFERTEXT9 fields are replaced with 31 fields named PRICE_1 through PRICE_31 and four blank fields (BLANK1-4). Each of the PRICE_nn fields corresponds to one line of the pricing area of the renewal notice. The contents of these fields are not predictable. Because of the many possible variations in price/quantity levels, it is not possible to determine exactly which field will contain the shipping and which will contain the tax. We strongly advise that you always include all of the PRICE1 through PRICE_31 fields in your templates.

This field comes from the entry you made in the Term description for renewal notice field in the Offers definition screen. If you left this field blank, the term description appears as the number of issues followed by the number of copies for example, "12 issues, 2 copies." If either quantity is 1, then it is omitted. If both are 1, then only the words "1 copy" are printed. Note that the number of issues comes from the offer definition, while the number of copies comes from the order being renewed.

The wording of the term is changed slightly if you indicated that the publication is something other than a periodical on the 'General' tab of the 'Publications' screen. For services and memberships, the number of issues is never printed. For conferences the word "issues" is replaced with "sessions" and the word "copies" is replaced with "persons." For memberships the word "copies" is replaced with "members." For online services the word "copies" is replaced with "users."

This field contains the price QuickFill calculates by using the price and term of the detail offer and the quantity of the order you're renewing. The entry in this field is formatted as a dollar amount with a leading dollar sign ($). The decimal point is in the eighth position.

In most cases, the entry in this field comes from the shipping code descriptions on the 'Shipping' tab of the 'Publications' screen.

The exceptions are:

• The order you're renewing is a group order and you've used more than one shipping code with a non zero shipping charge. In this case, this field will contain the entry "Shipping." (That's because there's no room to specify more than one type of shipping for example, "airmail" and "first-class.")

• The order you're renewing uses a shipping code for which you've provided no description. Again, in this case, this field will contain the entry "Shipping."

• Shipping charges do not apply to the order you're renewing. In this case, this field will be blank.

This field contains the shipping charges— if any— for the order you're renewing. QuickFill calculates these charges by using the term of the detail offer and the quantities and shipping codes for each ship-to. The charges are formatted as a dollar amount. If there are no shipping charges this field will be blank.

If you're charging sales tax for the order you're renewing, this field contains "Tax." If not, the field is blank.

If you're charging sales tax for the order you're renewing, QuickFill calculates the tax by using the term and price of the detail offer and the total number of copies for the order. It also looks at the tax jurisdictions for each ship-to. If there is sales tax, this field contains the tax, formatted as a dollar amount. If there's no sales tax, this field is blank.

If there's an overpayment for the order you're renewing, this field contains "Credit." If not, the field is blank.

If there's an overpayment on the order you're renewing, this field contains the credit, formatted as a dollar amount. If not, this field is blank.

If the detail offer has a minimum quantity of 1, this field contains the word "Total." If not, the field contains the phrase "Total for X copies," where "X" equals the minimum quantity.

This field contains the price of the detail offer, plus the shipping amount of the detail offer, plus sales tax for the detail offer, minus any credit amount. This field is formatted as a dollar amount with a leading dollar sign ($).

If the detail offer has a minimum quantity of 1, this field is blank. Otherwise, this field contains the phrase "X copy minimum for this price rate," where "X" is the minimum quantity.

These fields contain the term description for your second through ninth offers. If you left the Term description for renewal notice field blank for an offer, you'll see a term description of "X," where X is the term of the offer. If you made an entry in this description field, that term appears in this field.

These fields contain the per-copy price, calculated by using the second through ninth offers. For single and two-party subscriptions, the per-copy price includes sales tax and shipping charges. QuickFill doesn't include any credit amounts in this price. For group subscriptions, the per-copy price does not include sales tax or shipping charges. The entries in these fields are formatted as a dollar amount with a leading dollar sign ($). The decimal point is in the eighth position.

If the minimum quantity for the offer is 1, this field is blank. Otherwise you'll see this entry in the field: "per copy. Minimum X.," where "X" is the minimum quantity you entered on the Offers definition screen.

The entries in these four fields depend on what you entered in the '1st message field' on the 'Renewal Series' definition screen. Each of the four fields can be 40 characters long. (And each line can be used as a separate message.)

The entries in these four fields depend on what you entered in the '2nd message field' on the 'Renewal Series' definition screen. Each of the four fields can be 40 characters long. (And each line can be used as a separate message.)

This field contains the "expire issue" date of the order you're renewing.

This field contains the number of copies received by the order you're renewing.

For group subscriptions these fields contain the names of the ship-to customers. If there are more than six names then only five names are listed and the words "and others" are in the last field. For agency subscriptions where the renewal notice is being sent to the subscriber (instead of to the agency) the SHIPADDR1 field contains the word "Agency:" and the remaining fields contain the name and address of the agency. For all other subscriptions these six fields contain the complete address of the ship-to customer.

If you entered a name in the 'Checks payable to' field on the 'General' tab of the 'Publications' screen, this field contains "Check payable to:". If not, this field is blank.

This field contains the entry you made— if any— in the 'Checks payable to' field on the 'General' tab of the 'Publications' screen.

If you made an entry in the 'Federal tax ID number' field on the 'Companies' definition screen, this field contains "Fed tax id # :"; if not, this field is blank.

This field contains the entry you made— if any— in the 'Federal tax ID number field' on the 'Companies' definition screen.

This field contains whatever phone number you entered for the customer to whom you're mailing this renewal notice. This field is useful if you use telephone sales for one of your renewal efforts. You can create a mail-merge document with the telephone number. Then you can give this document to your telephone salespeople as a lead.

If you entered a salutation in the Salutation field of the customers record, you'll see that salutation in this field.

If you left the salutation field blank and entered a last name for the customer, QuickFill enters in this field the prefix you entered in the Prefix field of the customers record, plus a space and the last name for example, "Mr. Smith".

If you left the salutation and prefix fields blank, QuickFill enters "Subscriber" in this field.

If you left the salutation, prefix, and last name fields blank, QuickFill enters "Subscriber" in this field.

*Indicates customer and addressee fields that are either blank or contain zero when a renewal notice is for an agency subscription and is addressed to the agency.

MMERG2 format

If you select the MMERG2 format code in your renewal package definitions, each record in your mail-merge file will include all of the MMERG1 fields listed above plus the following ones:

This field contains the information entered on the first line of the address for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the city in which the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent lives.

This field contains the state in which the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent lives.

This field contains the zip or postal code for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the delivery point code for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the carrier route for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the country code for the country in which the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent lives.

This field contains the CASS certification date if there is one for the address of the customer to whom you're sending the renewal notice. If the customers CASS certification date is not in QuickFill, this field is blank.

These fields contain the cell phone number and fax number of the customer to whom you are sending the renewal notice.

These fields contain whatever e-mail addresses you entered for the customer to whom you're sending the renewal notice. These fields are useful if you use e-mail to send renewal notices for one of your renewal efforts.

This field contains the customer number of the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent. If a renewal notice is for an agency subscription and the renewal series definition is set up to send notices to the agency, this field contains the agency code instead of a customer number.

This field contains the purchase order number if there is one for the order you're trying to renew. If there's no number, this field is blank.

The external order ID for the order that is being renewed. This field may be blank if the order has no external order ID.

This field contains the renewal series code for the renewal series to which the order belongs.

This field contains the renewal package code associated with the renewal series and effort number of the renewal being sent to the customer.

*Indicates customer and addressee fields that are either blank or contain zero when a renewal notice is for an agency subscription and is addressed to the agency.

MMERG3 format

If you select the MMERG3 format code in your renewal package definitions, each record in your mail-merge file will include all of the MMERG1 and MMERG2 fields listed above plus the following ones:

This field contains the company for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the department for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the prefix for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the first name of the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the last name of the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the suffix for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the title for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the information entered on the second line of the address for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the name of the country in which the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent lives.

This field contains L or R to indicate whether the postal code should go to the left or to the right of the city name for the country in which the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent lives. (Please note, this field will contain "R" for the United States and Canada. For agency subscriptions where the renewal notice is being sent to the agency, this field will be blank.)

This field contains the entry in the Sex field for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

These fields contain the entries in the demographic code fields (A, B, C, D, 1, and 2) for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains up to eight digits, each of which represents one of the selection flag check boxes on the customer address screen.

This field contains the external customer ID, if any, for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the entry in the user ID field for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the entry in the password field for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

*Indicates customer and addressee fields that are either blank or contain zero when a renewal notice is for an agency subscription and is addressed to the agency.

MMERG4 format

The MMERG4 format arranges the offer information into a series of 31 lines, with a type field, a description field and an amount field for each line. Unlike the MMERG1-3 formats there is no specifically identified field for the price, the tax, and the shipping. Instead there is simply an array of descriptions and amounts, which if arranged in columnar fashion will present all of the offer details. You do not need to worry about shifting fields up to avoid blank lines when the tax or shipping is not present.

The contents of each line is not fully predictable— it will depend on how many offers are linked to the renewal effort, on whether tax or shipping is included, on whether the subscription is for a single copy or multiple copies and on whether the publication uses unit pricing or stepped pricing. Because of all of these variations you should include all 31 offer lines in your document or risk cutting off information and making the renewal notice incomprehensible. If the final document does not have space for 31 offer lines and you are currently using less than nine of the available offers on the renewal effort definition then you can limit the number of lines that QuickFill will use by changing the "max offer details lines on renewal notice" field on the Preferences screen.

Each line of the offer block contains a type code that indicates what is on that particular line. This may be useful if you need to programmatically pick out the lines containing the price, tax or shipping amounts from the other lines.

We supply a sample Microsoft Word mail-merge template that uses the MMERG4 format. It is named Renewal.dot and you will find it in your QuickFill program directory. A backup read-only copy of the template is located in the Templates directory within the QuickFill program directory, just in case you want to revert to the original layout.

This field contains a sequential record number.

This field contains the code you entered on the 'General' tab of the 'Publications' screen.

This field contains the renewal series code for the renewal series to which the order belongs.

This field contains the renewal package code associated with the renewal series and effort number of the renewal being sent to the customer.

This field contains the renewal effort code associated with the renewal series and effort number of the renewal being sent to the customer.

What you see in these fields depends on the specific order you're renewing, of course. But it also depends on your entries in the following fields:

• The 'Send to ship-to' field on the 'Renewal Series' definition screen.

• The 'Send notice to' field in the "Agency subscriptions" section on the same screen.

These six fields match the mailing label image you see when you use Lookup to get details on a customer.

If you leave the Send to ship-to field blank, QuickFill produces the address of the "bill-to" customer for the order you're renewing. If you select the Send to ship-to field by clicking on it once so that a check mark appears in it, QuickFill produces the address of one of the "ship-to" customers. If you elected to send renewal notices for agency subscriptions to the agency, then QuickFill inserts the agency address you filled in on the Agencies definition screen.

The entries in these fields come from the name you entered in the Publication name field of the 'General' tab of the 'Publications' screen. The lines break just the way you entered them. If you do not want the publication name in these fields, clear the 'Print publication name' fields on the "Defining renewal series" screen.

This field contains the date in the Date the renewal notices field that was on the update screen at the time you ran the update. The format of the date is specified by your entry in the 'Date format' field on the 'Preferences' screen.

This field contains the order number of the order you're renewing.

In this field is the number from 1 through 12 of your renewal effort. (The first renewal notice you send is effort 1, the second effort 2, and so forth.)

In these fields are codes that indicate the contents of the corresponding description and amount fields. The codes are as follows: 1 = term description, 2 = shipping, 3 = tax, 4 = credit, 5 = dotted line, 6 = amount due, 7 = other.

These fields contains the descriptive text for each line of the offer area of the renewal notice.

These fields contain the amounts for each line of the offer area of the renewal notice.

This field contains the price of the detail offer, plus the shipping amount of the detail offer, plus sales tax for the detail offer, minus any credit amount. This field is formatted as a dollar amount with a leading dollar sign ($). The decimal point is in the eighth position.

This field contains the number of issues for this order.

This field contains the number of copies this order receives.

In most cases, the entry in this field comes from the 'Shipping' tab of the 'Publications' screen.

The exceptions are:

• The order you're renewing is a group order and you've used more than one shipping code with a non zero shipping charge. In this case, this field will contain the entry "Shipping." (That's because there's no room to specify more than one type of shipping for example, "airmail" and "first-class.")

• The order you're renewing uses a shipping code for which you've provided no description. Again, in this case, this field will contain the entry "Shipping."

• Shipping charges do not apply to the order you're renewing. In this case, this field will be blank.

This field contains S for single subscriptions, 2 for two-party subscriptions, and G for group subscriptions.

The entries in these two fields depend on what you entered on the first line of the 'Document descriptors' field on the 'Format' tab of the 'Renewal Series' definition screen.

The entries in these four fields depend on what you entered in the '1st message' field on the 'Renewal Series' definition screen. Each of the four fields can be 40 characters long. (And each line can be used as a separate message.)

The entries in these four fields depend on what you entered in the '2nd message field' on the 'Renewal Series' definition screen. Each of the four fields can be 40 characters long. (And each line can be used as a separate message.)

This field contains the "expire issue" date of the order you're renewing.

For group subscriptions these fields contain the names of the ship-to customers. If there are more than six names then only five names are listed and the words "and others" are in the last field. For agency subscriptions where the renewal notice is being sent to the subscriber (instead of to the agency) the SHIPADDR1 field contains the word "Agency:" and the remaining fields contain the name and address of the agency. For all other subscriptions these six fields contain the complete address of the ship-to customer.

The entries in these fields depend on whether you selected the Print company name on renewals field in the 'Companies' definition screen. If you left the Print company name on renewals field blank, these first five fields will be blank. If you checked this field, the five fields will contain the data you entered in the company 'Name' field; the two-line Address field; and the city, state, zip, and country fields.

This field always contains the phone number you entered in the 'Phone' field on the 'Companies' definition screen.

This field contains the entry you made— if any— in the C'hecks payable to' field on the 'General' tab of the 'Publications' screen.

Whether you get an entry in this field depends on whether you selected the 'Print credit card info block on notice' check box on the 'Renewal Packages' definition screen. If you do check this box then you'll see the text that you entered in the 'Credit cards accepted' field on the 'Companies' definition screen.

This field contains the entry you made— if any— in the 'Federal tax ID number' field on the 'Companies' definition screen.

This field contains the purchase order number if there is one for the order you're renewing. If there's no number, this field is blank.

The external order ID for the order that is being renewed. This field may be blank if the order has no external order ID.

This field contains the customer number for the person to whom the renewal notice is addressed.

This field contains the customer number of the bill-to customer for the order.

This field contains the customer number for the customer receiving the publication; it is blank when the ship-to customer is the same as the addressee and the bill-to customer.

This field contains the agency code when the order being renewed is from an agency.

If you entered a salutation in the Salutation field of the customers record, you'll see that salutation in this field.

If you left the salutation field blank and entered a last name for the customer, QuickFill enters in this field the prefix you entered in the Prefix field of the customers record, plus a space and the last name for example, "Mr. Smith".

If you left the salutation and the prefix fields blank, QuickFill enters "Subscriber" in this field.

If you left the salutation, prefix, and last name fields blank, QuickFill enters "Subscriber" in this field.

This field contains the prefix for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the first name of the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the last name of the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the suffix for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the title for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the company for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the department for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the information entered on the first line of the address for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the information entered on the second line of the address for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the city in which the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent lives.

This field contains the state in which the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent lives.

This field contains the zip or postal code for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the delivery point code for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the country code for the country in which the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent lives.

This field contains the name of the country in which the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent lives.

This field contains the carrier route for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the CASS certification date if there is one for the address of the customer you're renewing. If the customers CASS certification date is not in QuickFill, this field is blank.

This field contains L or R to indicate whether the postal code should go to the left or to the right of the city name for the country in which the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent lives. (Please note, this field will contain "R" for the United States of America and Canada. For agency subscriptions, this field will be blank.)

This field contains the entry in the Sex field for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

These fields contain the entries in the demographic code fields (A, B, C, D, 1, and 2) for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains up to eight digits, each of which represents one of the selection flag check boxes on the customer address screen.

This field contains the external customer ID, if any, of the customer to whom you're mailing this renewal notice.

This field contains whatever phone number you entered for the customer to whom you're mailing this renewal notice. This field is useful if you use telephone sales for one of your renewal efforts. You can create a mail-merge document with the telephone number. Then you can give this document to your telephone salespeople as a lead.

This field contains whatever fax number you entered for the customer to whom you're sending the renewal notice. This field is useful if you fax notices for one of your renewal efforts.

This field contains the cell phone number you entered for the customer to whom you're sending the renewal notice.

These fields contain whatever e-mail addresses you entered for the customer to whom you're sending the renewal notice. These fields are useful if you use e-mail to send notices for one of your renewal efforts.

This field contains the entry in the user ID field for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

This field contains the entry in the password field for the customer to whom the renewal notice is being sent.

*Indicates customer and addressee fields that are either blank or contain zero when a renewal notice is for an agency subscription and is addressed to the agency.