Thank You Letters

When you receive donations, you send a thank you letter to reaffirm your appreciation for the contribution.

Determine who should receive letters and how often you want to send letters. To do this, create a query. For example, if you send letters at the end of each week, create a query that includes all donations for that time. If you want to send specialized letters for a specific fund or campaign, create your query accordingly.

We recommend you set up letter values so that when a you receive a donation, your data entry person can select the type of letter that should be sent. Next, create a query that uses the Letter field. To determine what the letters should say and how they should look, create a template. Generate thank you letters on a regular basis, so you can send them promptly. Then use a mass update to mark the accounts and transactions, so you can track that letters were sent.

  1. From Management, click Letters.

  2. Under Tasks, click New Letter.

  3. Enter a name for the letter, such as Basic Thank You Letter.

    Note: When you create the letter template, we recommend you enter the same name so you can easily track the template to use for each letter.

  4. Enter a description.

  5. To save the letter, click Save and.

  1. From Management, click User Defined Fields.

  2. From the Base category, click New Defined Field.

  3. On Step 1: Basic Information, enter a name for the field, such as "Letter Sent?"

    1. Enter a description.

    2. In the Data Type field, select Text. Under Navigation, click Next.

  4. On Step 2: Field Application, in the Journal Type row, select Transactions.

  5. On Step 3: Field Attributes, select whether the field should be required.

    1. Select whether the field should be visible in eTapestry Mobile.

  6. On Step 4: Display Type, select Selection from a set of Values.

  7. On Step 5: Security, you can control how users view and use the new UDF when your organization uses Advanced Security.

  8. On Step 6: Values, in the Name field, enter the value "Yes" for the UDF. Click Add Value.

  9. Under Navigation, click Save and Finish.

Determine who should receive letters and how often you want to send thank you letters. After you enter transactions, create your query based on how often you want to generate letters. For example, you may plan to generate letters once per week.

  1. From Queries, select the category for your query.

  2. Under Tasks, click New Query.

  3. Enter a name for the query. We recommend you enter a name that is the same or similar to the name of the Basic Thank You Letter.

  4. Enter a description. For example, you can enter how often you plan to generate letters.

  5. Under Starting Criteria, select your criteria. For example, in the Category field, select Constituent Journal Entry Date. Then in the Query field, select All Constituents.

  6. Under Data Return Type, select Journal Entries. This enables you to filter specific information from the transactions into the letters that you will run using this query.

  7. Under Available Fields, select Defined Fields.

  8. Click Letters. Letter options appear on the left.

  9. Under Criteria, select the type of letter you want to send.

  10. Under Tasks, click Save And to save the query and navigate to the page you select in the drop down field. To review the query results, select "Preview" in the field.

  1. From Communications, click Manage Communications. The Communication Categories page appears.

  2. To store the template in a new category, under Tasks, click New Category. If the category already exists, click the name of it.

  3. From the category page, under Tasks, choose New Document or Classic Email Template. The Communication Template Wizard appears.

  4. On Step 1, enter the basic information for your template.

    • In the Name field, enter a unique name. We recommend you enter a name that is the same as or similar to the thank you letter field. For example, you can name the communication template Basic Thank You Letter.

    • Enter a description to help identify the template. We recommend you indicate the query to use with this template and when to generate the letters.

    • To prevent other users in your organization from editing the template, select Read Only.

    • To make this template a favorite, select Favorite Communication Template. Favorite templates appear in the Favorites tile on your Home dashboard.

    • If you intend to send this communication as an email, enter a subject for the email.

    • To include a link for recipients to forward the message to a friend, select Include "Forward to a Friend" Link within. Select whether you want the link in the header or footer of the email.

    • To include a link for recipients to open the message in a web browser, select Include "View as a Web Page" Link.

    • To include links to share the communication in social media, select Include Sharing Links.

    • If you intend to print the document or create a PDF, select the page size, orientation, and margins.

  5. Click Next.

  6. On Step 2, select the Documents category. Next, click a template to select it. You can select a pre-defined template or a blank one. When you select a pre-defined template, you can change the colors, layout, fonts, and images.

  7. On Step 3, edit the content of the template. For information about how to use the TinyMCE HTML Editor, refer to TinyMCE HTML Editor.

    • To change the colors, click Quick Formatting.

    • To preview the text version of the template, click Text Version.

  8. Click Next to save the template and use this same template every time you send this thank you letter.

  1. From the Communication Categories page, select the category for your letter.

  2. Under the template for your letter, click Create Documents.

  3. On Step 1, enter who should receive a letter.

    • In the Category field, select the category for your query.

    • In the Query field, select your query.

    • Select the personas to export.

  4. Click Next.

  5. On Step 2, select how to print the letter.

    • Select whether you want to save the letters as a PDF or Microsoft Word file.

      Note: You cannot edit or modify PDF files that have been generated by eTapestry.

    • In the File Name field, enter a name for the document.

    • Under File Management, select whether you want to combine the letters into one file or leave each letter as its own file. If you select to combine documents, select how to sort them.

    • Under Grouping, select how to group letters to reduce duplicate mailings.

    • Under Upgrade/Split Transactions, select Treat each upgrade/split as its own transaction to display each split as its own line. Select Roll up related upgrades/segments into one transaction to display them as one single line for the entire split transaction.

  6. Click Next.

  7. On Step 3, a notification reminds you that the SEPA Pre-Notification template does not include Generated Receipt Number.

  8. Click Next.

  9. On Step 4, select how you want to receive the letters.

    Under Receiving, select how you want to access the documents.

    • Download documents - This option saves letters to your computer. As this processes, you cannot use other eTapestry features until the documents complete and the download window appears.

    • Place documents in My Drop Box - If your eTapestry Drop Box is under its 10MB limit, you can save the letters in it. As this processes, you can navigate to other areas of eTapestry and perform data entry tasks.

    • Email documents to me - This options emails the letters to you as a file attachment. As this processes, you can navigate to other areas of eTapestry and perform data entry tasks.

    Under Auto-mailing, to send the document to the constituent by email, select Automatically email documents to accounts with email addresses.

    Warning: Constituents will receive communications you select to auto-mail, regardless of their opt-out preferences.

    • Use the document's contents as the body of the email itself - We recommend this option for thank you letter communication because it reduces the size of the email, the download time for your recipient, and the chance of it being blocked as spam.

    • Include the document as an attachment on a separate email - When you select this, eTapestry generates documents based on the contents of your template and sends them as attachments to an email.

  10. Click Next.

  11. On the Tracking step, you can select how to track your document. Under Tracking - Interactions, select the check box next to Track interactions for each account.

    Enter a subject for the Mass Interactions page entry in the Subject field. Select the method in the Method drop down menu.

    A shared Mass Interaction appears on the Mass Interactions page for each account.

    Note: If you wish to create Journal contacts with marked defined fields, you can do so through a mass update. For more information, see Mass Updates.

  12. If you selected to automatically email documents to accounts with email addresses on the previous step, you can now select whether you want to create a separate query of accounts that don't have an email address. If so, select a category and enter a name for the query.

    You can use this query to identify which constituents to contact in other ways or which constituents to ask for email addresses.

  13. Click Next.

  14. On Step 6, preview your summary of options and the number of documents you are about to create. To make changes, under Navigation, click Back.

  15. To generate the thank you letters, under Navigation, click Run.

  16. After the letters generate, save the file and print the letters to send to constituents.

After you send thank you letters to a group of transactions, you can update the Letter Sent user-defined field (UDF) for each transaction to track the letter has been sent.

  1. From Management, click Mass Update.

  2. Under Update Existing Items, click Update Existing Transactions.

  3. On Step 1, select the query you use to generate letters.

    • Under Update Type, select Assign.

    • Under the Base UDF node, click Letter Sent and select the Yes checkbox.

    Under Navigation, click Next.

  4. The preview shows the details and the number of transactions to update. If the number of transactions does not match the number of letters you generated, click Back to make changes.

  5. To process the mass update, click Run.

After you mark the Letter Sent user-defined field (UDF) as Yes, you can create queries to make sure a letter was sent to each donor. You can also create queries to identify additional constituents that need to be acknowledged.

First, create a query to confirm a letter went out to each donor.

  1. From Queries, select the category of your letter.

  2. Under Tasks, click New Query.

  3. In the Name field, enter "Letter Sent."

  4. In the Data Return Type field, select Journal Entries.

  5. Under Criteria Options, select UDFs - Transactions.

  6. For the Letter Sent UDF, select Yes.

  7. Under Tasks, click Save And with View Queries in the drop down field.

Next, create a query of all transactions that typically receive thank you letters:

  1. From Queries, select the category of your letter.

  2. Under Tasks, click New Query.

  3. In the Name field, enter "All Transactions."

  4. On the Data Return Type field, select Journal Entries.

  5. To include a journal entry date range, click Commonly Used Fieldsand select Journal Entry Date. Under Criteria, enter start and end dates. To view included transactions regardless of when they were made, do not select dates.

  6. Under Commonly Used Fields, select Journal Entry Type.

  7. Select the transactions types for which you send thank you letters.

  8. Click Save and View Queries.

Finally, create a query to locate donors that have not been sent thank you letters:

  1. From Queries, select the category of your letter.

  2. Under Tasks, click New Compound Query.

  3. In the Name field, enter "Letter NOT sent."

  4. For the data return type, select Journal Entries.

  5. For the combination type, select Subtract.

  6. For Query 1, select the category of your letter and then select your "All Transactions" query.

  7. For Query 2, select the category of your letter and then select your "Letter Sent" query.

  8. Click Save and Preview.

Tip: You can also set up your Thank You Letter query to exclude transactions that are already marked as "Letter Sent?" = Yes. To so do, create a compound query which subtracts your "Letters Sent" query (query 2) from your "Basic Thank You Letter" query (query 1). Use this compound query to prevent printing duplicate thank you letters.

  1. To group accounts and their transactions, first create a query for the time period or use a predefined query based on constituent journal entry date.

  2. From Reports, click System.

  3. Click Thank You Letter.

  4. Review the list of predefined fields.

    • To remove a field, click X.

    • On the Browse Fields tab, select any additional fields you want to include.

  5. Click Save and Run. The Launch page appears.

  6. Select your query category and query.

  7. If an account's address in your query has a persona type other than primary, such as Seasonal, select the type under Personas Reported. The program uses the primary address for accounts that do not have the type you select.

  8. Select a delivery method.

    • To receive the file as an email attachment, select Email Export File and enter your email address, and click Submit. After you receive the email, save the attachment to your local computer.

    • To download the file, select Download Export File, click Submit, and save the file to your local computer.

    • To save the file to your drop box within eTapestry, click My Drop Box, and click Submit. After the file is in your dropbox, save it to your local computer.

    The file exports so you can create your mail merge in Microsoft Word.