Reusing Your Business Data
Your company spends a great deal of time and money collecting valuable information about customers, vendors, projects, internal resources and other data to help you run your business effectively and efficiently. This business data is essential for creating invoices, reviewing reports and monitoring balances. Having business systems with integration tools makes this data collection easy and controlled.
However, what about the other business tasks you need the information from your business software to complete and analyze? Do you find yourself collecting the same data again so you can use it for these other purposes? Keeping, maintaining and synchronizing this second set of data often takes additional time and resources your company doesn’t have or can not afford.
Did you know that your Microsoft Office suite holds many tools to help you “reuse” your business data directly from your business software eliminating the need for this second set of data? Tools include:
- Mail Merge
- Email Merge
- Excel PivotTable
Mail Merge Example
Microsoft Word has mail merge functionality where you can create documents based on your business data. In addition, Word contains a number of preconfigured document templates, envelope sizes and labels, such as Avery, that can be used for the mail merge.
Let’s say you need to send a new product launch invitation letter to all your customers who live in Illinois. In this example, we are reviewing a customer table from our business software for merging with a Word document. Once the data source is selected, you can edit the recipient list to filter out customers with a billing address outside of Illinois. The data source fields can then be inserted, where needed, in your template document. Once you have finished configuring your template document, select Finish & Merge to review the finished product before printing.
Keep in mind, the mail merge tool is not limited to addresses. It is just one way to take your business data and pull it into documents that you have already preconfigured. You can also create and save vendor name labels for your Accounts Payable files by tapping into your master vendor data and filter only vendors who have been active in the last year. The possible uses are endless.
Email Merge Example
In addition to the mail merge, Word also has email merge functionality. With Word, you can create a document and email it to selected Outlook contacts. In our second example, it is nearing the end of the year and you want to send a Holiday party invitation to all your employees and subcontractors.
First, create the document you would like to email. You can use one of the many downloadable templates available on the Microsoft Web site or use one of your own creation. If you want to use a Microsoft template, click New and it will let you review preloaded templates or query the Microsoft site for the one you want.
Second, go to the Mailings Tab and click Select Recipients. You can point to your Outlook contacts or another data source if your email list is not in Outlook. You can filter the list to include only the contacts you need and exclude those you do not have an email address for or don’t wish to send the invite.
Last, click the Finish & Merge to send your email
Excel PivotTable
Another powerful tool is the Excel PivotTable. The Excel PivotTable tool allows you to directly access your data in the format and structure you need and define how the data should be displayed. The PivotTable function is accessible through:
- Insert Menu – PivotTable on the ribbon in Excel 2007
- Date Menu – PivotTable in the drop down menu in Excel 2003 / XP / 2000 / 97
Let’s say you want to see your summary sales figures with the customers running down the left and the fiscal period running across the top.
In Excel 2007:
- Select the Insert menu and the PivotTable from the ribbon.
- Select a table or range on the spreadsheet for the PivotTable wizard.
- Build your report by choosing fields from the PivotTable Field List and choose the location of the results.
In Excel 2003 / XP / 2000 / 97
- Select the Data menu and the PivotTable from the drop down menu.
- Choose where you want to view the data.
- Build your report by choosing the data range.
- Drag the fields that you want to appear in the Page, Row, Column, and Data sections of the PivotTable.
For each Excel version, the next time you open the spreadsheet you should refresh the data from the data source and it should automatically be updated in the spreadsheet.
To Learn More
The Microsoft Office Web site offers a wide variety of how-to’s, templates and solution articles to help you reuse your business data. The site also provides free topic Web training and Webcasts on the Office Suite.
Other Tools
If you are looking for a more powerful tool to analyze large amounts of data, the best option is Business Intelligence Tools (BI). BI is a more robust tool designed to perform data analysis in more advanced environments. BI will be discussed in more detail in upcoming Omnios IMPACT features.
If you would like to learn more about BI now, please contact Shawn Osland with Omnios at 847-459-8500 ext 159.
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