Word Templates and Word merge in Business Central

Word Templates and Word merge in Business Central

Mail Merge in Business Central

You can use the mail merge functionality in Word to use data from Business Central to add a personal touch to bulk communications.

When you want to send a document to a lot of recipients (for example, to your customers and contacts as part of a sales campaign), you can use Word’s mail merge capability to personalize each document by pulling data about the recipients from Business Central.

Scenario

For example, you can create brochures to alert customers about a sales campaign, letters to inform vendors about a new purchasing policy, or invitations to attract contacts to an upcoming event.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365-release-plan/2021wave1/smb/dynamics365-business-central/enablement-word-merge-business-central-

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/ui-mail-merge

How the System Works

On the Word Templates page, you can use an assisted setup guide to download a ZIP file that contains a DataSource.txt and a Word template file for an entity. After you set up the template and add merge fields, you use the same guide to upload the template.

You can only use the Word template and data source files that you download from Business Central, and you must store the files in the same location; you can use Word templates only on devices with Microsoft Word 2019.

Testing Word Merge

Let’s start by looking for Word Templates from Search

At this point the system asks us to create a new word template based on the existing entities, or to activate other entities

We can now download the templates to be used in word to manage the word merge; it is a pair of files to be used together

These are the 2 files:

This file allows mapping between Business Central and Word

Edit file in Microsoft Word, insert and use Word Merge fields from Fields List

When you have finished editing from Word, you can load the modified word template, activated to manage the mail merge.

Upload and create a template ready to use

Once loaded will be visible in the model list

Example

Apply Word Template

With Apply Word Template, the modified word template is applied to the template associated with the entity

You can select the required Output format (there are several possibilities)

After applying, the system proposes the expected result, how many records will be extracted and in what format; it’s also possible to perform Split on documents (e.g. one document for each customer).

Files created

At the end the word merge files are created in .ZIP format

“The Final result”

Example

ALMOST THERE!

How to add New Entities

The functionality can be expanded by adding other unmapped entities

How to add other entities (existing but not mapped)

Add New Entities Example

Select the entity from the entities list

Word Templates can be called up from the Customer List and from Customer Card and from other pages.

Example