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Before exporting:
Choose a field in the Customer database to use for email addresses. The Customer database does not currently include an email field; however, one of the other fields can be used for that purpose. In most cases, either the Phone2 or the Comment field [Shift-Enter] will work.
The Phone2 field may be more convenient, since it is always visible, and since it may be more practical to reserve it for email addresses only. It can only hold a maximum of 30 characters, however, which will truncate some long email addresses.
The Comments field can hold longer email addresses; it may, however, already be in use for other purposes.
Do not use the email address field for any other purpose, if possible.
Use one field for email addresses consistently.
In Keystroke:
Go to the Configuration Manager.
Select Export from the File menu.
Select Customers from the pop-up menu.
Select Quote/Comma Delimited from the Customers pop-up menu.
Select the sort order or accept the default order.
In the Range dialog box, either enter Start and End Strings, select a Filter, or accept the default settings.
With the default settings, Keystroke exports all of the Customer database records.
The appropriate filter conditions may allow Keystroke to export only email addresses, if they are mixed with other data in the same field.
Select Ok. The OutPut File dialog box is displayed.
In the OutPut File dialog box, enter the name of the file to which the data will be exported. The default file name is EXPORT.TXT.
Select Ok. Keystroke will export the customer data and save it to the file.
Use Windows' Notepad (or a similar text editor) to open the file CUSTOMER.HDR in the KEYSTROK\DOC directory. It contains a comma-separated list of all of the field names from the Customer database, in the same order that they appear in the export file.
Select all of the text and copy it.
Close CUSTOMER.HDR and, still using Notepad, open the file containing the exported Customer data. If the file is too big to be opened by Notepad, Windows will automatically switch to Wordpad to open the file.
Position the cursor at the beginning of the first line of the file, before the first character.
Press [Enter] to create a blank line at the beginning of the file.
Move the cursor up to the beginning of the blank line and press [Ctrl-V] to paste in the list of field-names.
Save the export file and exit Notepad (or Wordpad).
Separating email addresses from other data:
If the Phone 2 field contains email addresses in some records, and phone / fax numbers in others, export only the records containing email addresses:
In the Range dialog box, select Filter and press [Enter].
In the Filter dialog box, select Field 1 and press [Enter].
Select Phone2 from the list.
Type [*@] in the Condition field.
Select Ok and press [Enter] to continue with the Export process.
The Filter Condition *@ tells Keystroke to export only those records in which the selected field (Phone2) contains the character @. The * means that the @ could be anywhere in the field. It could be the only character, or it could be anywhere in a string of characters. Since all email addresses include the character @, and since it is not usually included in phone numbers, *@ should serve to export only those Customer records containing email addresses.
If the Comments field contains email addresses, but also includes other text in some records, isolating the email addresses may take a little more work.
In the Range dialog box, select Filter and press [Enter].
In the Filter dialog box, select Field 1 and press [Enter].
Select Comment from the list.
Type [*@] in the Condition field.
Select Ok and press [Enter] to continue with the Export process.
This method exports all of the records in which the Comment field contains email addresses, but may also include records which contain other comments along with an email address. Outlook Express will not be able to import these records properly. The Comment data must be "cleaned up" before it can be imported.
Outlook Express:
Importing Data
Select Address Book from the Tools menu.
Select Import from the Address Book's File menu.
Select Other Address Book from the Import pop-up menu.
In the Address Book Import Tool dialog box, select Text File (Comma Separated Values).
Click on the Import button.
In the CSV Import dialog box, enter the name and path of the file to import, or click on the Browse button to find the file.
After entering or selecting the file, click on Next.
The dialog box displays a list of fields used in the Customer database (which it gets from the first line of the import file). To match a field with one of the fields in Outlook Express, click on the checkbox to the left of the field or select the field and click on the Change Mapping button.
It isn't necessary to map (match) all of the fields. For an email list, the only field that it is absolutely necessary to map is the one containing the email address (i.e., Phone2 or Comments), although most users will want to map at least the following additional fields: FirstName, LastName and Name (mapped to Outlook Express' Company field).
In the Change Mapping dialog box, select the appropriate Outlook Express field from the pull-down list. For email addresses, it should be e-mail Address. The "Import this field" box should be checked.
Repeat steps the previous two steps for each field to be mapped.
Click on the Finish button. Outlook Express will import the data.
Adding the Customers to a Group
Select New Group from the File menu.
In the group Properties dialog box, enter a name to represent the group.
Click on the Select Members button.
The Select Group Members dialog box displays a list of contacts in a box on the left-hand side. Select the contacts that should be members of the new group. Use [Ctrl+Click] and [Shift+Click] to select multiple entries.
Click on the Select button to add the selected contacts to the new group.
Click on OK to exit the Select Group Members dialog box.
Sending a Message to the Customers
Recommended Method:
We recommend that you use the following procedure to send mass emails from Outlook Express. This method protects the identity of the recipients because it does not allow others to view the email addresses.
From the File menu in the Address Book, select New Contact. Name the Contact something descriptive relating to the Customer Group (e.g., "Valued Customers", or "Frequent Shoppers Club"). Enter your email address in the E-Mail Addresses field and click on [Add], then OK.
Setting yourself up as the main Contact sends a copy of the email to your email address, providing a verification that the email was sent.
From the main Outlook Express window, click on the New Mail button, or select New from the File menu and Mail Message from the pop-up menu.
In the new message window, type (or paste) the text of the message.
Click on the [To:] button (just below the Send button in the New Message window). In the Select Recipients dialog box, select the Contact that you just set up. Click on the [To:] button to place the selected Contact in the list of message recipients. This places the descriptive text in the [To:] field on every email message.
In the Select Recipients dialog box, select the group that contains the imported Customer list (you can also select individual Customers from the list). Click on the [Bcc:] button to place the selected group(s) or Customer(s) in the list of message recipients for a Blind Carbon Copy – this prevents others from viewing their email addresses.
Click on OK to return to the New Message window. The descriptive text for the Contact you set up will be listed in the [To:] field.
Click on the [Send] button. Outlook Express will send the message.
Optional Method:
If you are not concerned about security (allowing others to view your Customers' email addresses), follow the setup below:
In the main Outlook Express window, click on the New Mail button, or select New from the File menu and Mail Message from the pop-up menu.
In the new message window, type (or paste) in the text of the message.
Click on the [To:] button (just below the Send button in the New Message window).
In the Select Recipients dialog box, select the group that contains the imported Customer list (or select individual Customers from the list).
Click on the [To:] button to place the selected group(s) or Customer(s) in the list of message recipients.
Click on OK to return to the New Message window. The group(s) and/or individual recipients will be listed in the To: field.
Click on the [Send] button. Outlook Express will send the message.
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