[SalesForce] Mail merge into Word template including child objects

Is it possible to use standard Salesforce Mail Merge (with a Word template) from a Master object in a Master-Detail relationship to include information from the related Detail records, for example in a table?

I believe the answer is no; however, I'm curious because it seems possible to do this with Opportunity Line Items, and wondered if it is possible it can be applied more generally? If not, does anyone know the reasoning?

I know this can be done with Conga, Drawloop and other similar products, and I know Visualforce templates are also an option, but I am just wondering about standard, Word based templates.

Best Answer

Matt is right. Oppty is treated as a special object in standard mail merge for the purposes of generating proposals or invoices. You could potentially roll-up your detail data into fields on the parent object, but otherwise I'd recommend Conga.

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] Mail Merge Button

Inspect the input fields and buttons on the emailAuthor.jsp page and experiment with the URL parameters.

From what I remember:

Fields:

p3_lkid = WhatId / Related To Id (one of hidden fields in the lookup) - required if you habeis must if the merge fields are there in template
p3 = Related to name (visible input text)

p26 - from
p24 - additional to
p5 - BCC

p6 - Subject (if you don't use an email template)
p7 - plaintext body

Buttons:

template_id - Email Template Id (to preselect the template)
new_template - if your Email Template has attachments they might not load the first time, use new_template=1 to force it

Construct an URL, use the merge fields syntax to pull data from "this" Task...

Now at the very least you know what keywords to Google for ;)

send email button from custom object

Sending email with javascript on custom button

URL Hack Button to send email

[SalesForce] write if/else condition for mail merge template

Fourq,

Historically, we have solved this in one of two ways:

Replace your word templates with VisualForce Templates, in which case JimRae's comment is applicable.
Creative and judicious use of Formula fields. Using this method, you'll be merging in your formula field, not the actual contact_salutation field. Essentially, your Formula field, say fContactSalutation__c uses

IF(isEmpty(contact_salutation), 'replacement text', contact_salutation)

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] Mail Merge Button

[SalesForce] write if/else condition for mail merge template

Related Topic