Correspondence

• Overview
• Setup
• User Rights
• User Preferences
• Correspondence Basics
• Using the Correspondence Menu

Overview

SmartOffice's correspondence features enable users to create and/or send e-mail messages, letters (including form letters), labels, and envelopes. SmartOffice includes a number of templates for creating and sending correspondence, and users can create their own templates (for more information, see Templates).

Watch related training movies:

• Contact Correspondence Course

Setup

User Rights

To send correspondence, a user must have the following user rights (an administrator with the ability to assign user rights can enable these for the user's account):

• Mass Correspondence

User Preferences

See User Preferences - Correspondence Options for information about the preferences that can be configured for correspondence.

Correspondence Basics

Here are the basic steps for creating correspondence in SmartOffice:

in the Custom Button Bar.

1. Search for the contact, business or other record for which you want to create correspondence.
2. Select the record in the list of search results, or open the record.
3. Do one of the following:

- Select Menu > Communication > Correspondence.

- Press the F10 key.

From most records in SmartOffice, these steps launch the Correspondence Wizard, which guides the user through the process of selecting a template and competing the correspondence. For detailed instructions, see Correspondence Wizard.

Note: For policies and pending cases, SmartOffice launches a special correspondence workflow. For more information, see Pending Cases - Additional Pending Case Management Features.

Note the following when sending correspondence:

• Correspondence sent to a household is addressed to the head of household only by default.
• Correspondence can also be initiated directly from the Letters/Documents content link of a SmartOffice contact or other record.

Using the Correspondence Menu

While viewing certain lists and records, the user can access more correspondence options by pointing to the Correspondence button. This displays a correspondence menu.

The menu options are:

• Recent: This section of the menu lists the last few templates the user selected when creating correspondence. Click a template to bypass the template selection step in the Correspondence Wizard.
• Launch Correspondence Wizard: This option opens the Correspondence Wizard as if the user had clicked the Correspondence button.
• Launch Template Creation: This option lets the user create a correspondence template save it to SmartOffice. For more information, see Creating and Deleting Templates.
• Launch Word: This command directly opens Microsoft Word or the SmartOffice Editor, depending on the user's preferred correspondence method (see Setup). If a default correspondence template is specified in User Preferences - Correspondence Options, that template is inserted automatically. Because the Launch Word option bypasses the Correspondence Wizard, it is sometimes faster for sending correspondence to a single contact.

For more information about creating SmartOffice correspondence directly from Word, see Microsoft Plug-in for SmartOffice Help. For help with creating correspondence directly from the SmartOffice Editor, see SmartOffice Editor.

• Launch E-mail: This command directly opens a new, blank e-mail message in the Outlook desktop app or in the Outlook 365 web app (the Launch E-mail settings in User Preferences - Correspondence Options control which app opens).