Sometimes you need to send a group email to just a section of your membership and the Group Email Report in SAMS needs to be tweaked a bit, so you don't send the email to the wrong people.
When you’re in SAMS, go to reports by clicking on the printer button. Start Crystal. When opening an existing report, map out to Q:\dapps\memb\reports\grpemail and open it.
The report is currently formatted to send to all individuals who have an email address, so you will need to narrow down the criteria based on whom you will be sending your message to. You can define your list based on any field in the individual table. In this example, I am going to use the Mail Code.
Open the Selection Expert . Click new. Select the field you want from the list.
Click OK.
Select the formula you plan to use. For example, if you are using one criterion for the list, choose “is equal to”. If you’re using more than one, choose “is one of”. These formulas are easy to choose because they are written in sentence form.
Enter the two-digit code you will be using. These codes are defined in the Look up codes section of SAMS. Be sure to use ALL CAPITAL LETTERS or the formula will not pull the data. You will also need to capitalize the first letter of any other fields that you want to base the report on since Crystal Reports is case-sensitive.
When you are through selecting your data, refresh your report by clicking on the lightning bolt button. Make sure your report looks correct.
Now it is time to export your data to a text file so you can send your email. Click the export button . Select Character-separated values (.CHR) as the format. The destination is Disk File. Click OK on the next screen. Check both boxes on the next screen and click OK.
Use the SAVE AS function to save your report. Make sure you change the name to reflect what list you are creating. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT because you do not want to overwrite the standard Group Email report! Your report name can be up to thirty characters in length.
You are now ready to send a group email. Click Utilities>Group Email/Fax. Select the file you just saved. Create your message and click send.