About mail merge and nested mail merge

Mail merge is a server-side process. It creates a document using an HTML or Microsoft Word template merged with Sage CRM record details.

Mail merge templates contain Sage CRM merge fields. The available fields depend on the context you're in. For example, to include merge fields from the opportunity table in a merged document, start the merge process in the context of an opportunity. Merge fields are placeholders for information from the Sage CRM database that's inserted during a merge. For example, the merge field «comp_name» is replaced by an actual company name when you perform a merge between the template and the database data.

You can also perform a nested mail merge. This is where a parent entity record has the details of one or more child entity records embedded into it.

Out of the box, Sage CRM supports nested mail merge for the following entities:

Parent entity	Child entity
Quote	Quote Item
Order	Order Item

For example, you can create a nested mail merge template that generates a Quote or an Order document with embedded Quote Item or Order Item records, respectively. To create a nested merge template, you need to insert special nested regions using the Insert Nested Region button when it's available. We strongly recommend that you include the child entities such as Quote Item within the structure of a table.

Sample mail merge templates are stored on the Sage CRM server and are available to all users from the Shared Templates list. See also Example templates for nested mail merge.

You can create HTML templates using the text editor. For more information, see Creating a template using the text editor. You can also create Word templates and upload them to Sage CRM. For more information, see Creating a Word template, Creating a Word template for nested mail merge, and Uploading a Word template or image file.

If you are an info manager, you can create and upload templates that are available to all users. If you are not an info manager and want to share your template with other users, save it locally, email it to your system administrator, and ask the administrator to upload it to the global Shared Templates list.

A merged document can be output in Word or PDF format. If you merge to Word, you need Word (or another program that opens .docx files) on your client machine to view and print the document.

You can create a merged document for all contacts contained in a search list, saved search, or group and view it on the Documents tab. For more information, see Managing documents.