The Basic Project
Video Contents
0:00 Introduction
0:28 The Basics Project scenario
0:43 Project layout
1:34 Sort the responses by Program name
2:10 Generate a Review Document
2:17 I'll see you in the next video!
Video Transcript
I assume that you've already checked out the resources and the foundation videos for this course.
By completing the Basics Project, you'll develop the skills to choose the right type of mail merge, connect to the data source, design a basic layout, which includes text, number, date, and hyperlink data, and generate a nicely sorted review document. These skills serve as the foundation for many mail merge projects.
So let's take a look at the Basics Project scenario that you'll be working from. What you're interested in doing here is assessing, one by one, whether respondents seem like a good fit for the program they've chosen, and whether they meet the basic requirements. So you'll break the template up into sections that let you quickly skim through this information. You'll start with the date on which the application was last submitted. Then you'll pull together the information on the program: the name of the program they chose, the eligibility criteria they checked off, and what they listed as what they're struggling with and what they're hoping to gain. So you've got a good start, but maybe, even after reviewing this information, you're still on the fence about whether this person is a good fit, so you'll add a link to the letter of recommendation supplied by the respondent in case you want to easily check that out as well without having to navigate to it separately. You'll wrap this up with the contact information on the application, that is, name, phone number, and email. And that completes the layout of your Mail Merge Template.
But there's one more setting you can add to your Template to make the Review Document even easier to review, and that's sorting the responses in a particular order. By default, Word merges your data in the order in which it appears in the Data Source. In this case, that means all of the applications for all of the different programs will be mixed up together in the order in which they were submitted. But wouldn't it be nicer if you could get those responses grouped by program so you can review all of the applications for each program together? You'll do this by sorting by program name.
As a final step, you'll generate and save a review document.
And that will complete the Basics Project! I'll see you in the next video!