Fear Not the New GP Email Feature! – Streamline Processes and Save Time
If you are like most GP Users on a 2013 R2 (or greater) version of GP, you were excited to use the promising new email feature! Then, you might have heard, that you will need to populate every vendor or customer card with an email address to make it work… Have no fear, we can help!
If you are able to load email addresses in an Excel file with the appropriate vendor (or customer) ID, you can easily create and run a GP macro – saving yourself time and future hassle.
To start with, you’ll need a basic Excel file with two columns. In this example, we’ll use a vendor, so we’ll need the Vendor ID and the email address(es). It’s important to note, that the Vendor ID must exist in GP prior to running the macro.
Next, we will log into GP and record a macro. Once in the “Vendor Maintenance Window,” go to “Tools > Macro > Record.” Choose a destination and name for your macro.
Now, go through the process of manually updating one vendor’s email information (be sure to remove this vendor from the Excel file after it’s updated, so that you do not receive an error later).
Once saved, you’ll want to stop recording at Tools > Macro > Stop Recording.
Open the .mac file you created above in Microsoft Word. Yes, it’s going to look like a lot of mumbo jumbo (similar to that below), but stay with me here.
In Word, go to the “Mailings” tab and choose “Start Mail Merge” and “Step by Step Mail Merge”.
Select “Next: Starting Document”.
Choose “Select Recipients” and “Browse”.
Navigate to your Excel file created above and select “Open”.
Select the correct tab of the spreadsheet with the data and make sure the “First row of data contains column headers” box is marked, then click “OK”.
Next, you’ll want to confirm that all vendors from the Excel file are included and click “OK”.
Still with me? Good, we are almost there, I promise! Next, select the Vendor ID you manually entered and click the “Insert Merge Field” button and “Vendor ID”.
Click “Finish and Merge” and “Edit Individual Letters”.
Select “All” and “Ok”.
Now save this document as a Plain Text (*.txt) file and click “Ok” with the defaults in the File Conversion window. Then close the Word file.
Now, we’ll want to switch it back a to .mac file so GP will be able to read it as a macro. Right-click on the .txt file and rename it to a .mac extension.
And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for… Go back to the “Vendor Maintenance” window in GP and “Tools > Macro > Play Macro.” Select your .mac file and sit back and watch!
You will receive a message when it’s complete and you will be able to start emailing directly from GP. Depending on the number of records in your original file, the time for it to run will vary, but if you have a number of records to update this can certainly be a huge time saver.
Macro’s can be used for other fields or updates as well – the possibilities are endless! Give it a try and see what process you can streamline with them. It’s always a good idea to try in your “test company” first when you are updating data. And as always, your GP professionals are standing if you need any assistance.
Good luck and happy Macro’ing!
