Extracting customer info from orders

[stampingmad]

I am trying to extract my customers names, postal addresses, etc. from their orders placed in actinic so that I can add them to my members list in Outlook 97 (to inform them of members only special offers).

Is there an easy way of doing this? I've tried to have a play with crystal reports but I don't seem to get any usuable data. I am a bit stupid when it comes to databases.

Can anyone give me any guidelines?

Thanks in advance, best wishes
Helen

[Jan]

If you export your orders you a file called persons.csv will be created, this contains all of the address and email details for your customers (alternately open up access, select the persons table and export that). You can import this to outlook but I would suggest using an email distribution package rather than outlook.

I recommend one called groupmail, it is free (see my website for more details - http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/Email_Marketing_s.html), it will be able to load up the details from the export file you have created, as it loads them it will remove duplicates (outlook will create multiple entries). You can then use group mail to write and send personalise emails to your customers. There is an addon that allows you to manage email lists but it is only available in the version of groupmail that you buy and it is a bit limited - it is apparently under development though.

Regards,

[Mike Hughes]

Just to add my support to what Jan says. I use Groupmail myself and would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to send out mailshots.

There's a free version and a paid for version. Jan's site has a link you can follow.

Mike

[stampingmad]

Exporting the orders doesn't remove them from actinic, does it? Thanks for your help

Best wishes
Helen

[Jan]

They will stay in Actinic but the print status for the packing list and the invoice will change to exported. This might stop orders from being included in the 'outstanding' report prints and I think that they might also move over to the completed tab (if they are not already there).

If you don't want to have any effect on Actinic and you have a copy of Microsoft Access the best thing to do would be to open up the database, select the persons table, right click and then select the export option to create the file. There will be no side effects anywhere then.

Regards,