Batch operations

Batch operations, such as batch printing or batch emailing, are actions that you perform on a group of contacts, households, companies, or users at the same time.

Batch printing or emailing streamlines the creation and distribution of documents by allowing you to automatically personalize and generate them for a number of entities at one time.

Use batch operations to:

• Print personalized documents for entities by using merge fields.
• Send batch emails in NexJ CRM to your entities in bulk. Format the content of a batch email with the rich text editor, which offers various formatting options. 
• Personalize the body of an email and the attached documents for each of the selected entities by using merge fields.
• Include attachments with your email by selecting files from your computer.

Batch printing

You can batch print Microsoft Word and PDF documents for one or more entities.

Batch printing of documents can be based on any Microsoft Word template that makes use of NexJ merge fields. You can add these fields to a Word template by using NexJ Add-In. During the batch print, these fields retrieve the entity information from NexJ CRM. A merge field is an object that references a specific piece of information, such as a contact's first name. They are used in Microsoft Word and NexJ CRM to personalize documents and emails for several entities at once.

For more information, see Using NexJ Add-In with Microsoft Word.

To print documents for multiple entities at one time, on the Contacts workspace, use the checkboxes to select one or more records in the data table, or select the Select all checkbox to select all the records currently displayed in the table. Selecting records with checkboxes reveals a different set of actions in the data table toolbar. Click Print in the data table toolbar and provide the required information.

You can also print a document for a single entity by clicking the More Actions button

for the entity data record and selecting Print Document .

When performing a batch printing process, the New Print Job dialog includes the following tabs and fields:

Tab	Field or checkbox	Description	Required field
Detail	Add Attachment	Document templates that you want to print. Supported file types are Microsoft Word (.doc and .docx) and PDF. Click the Select button  and browse to find your document templates. To preview a document template after you select it, click on the document name in the Add Attachment field. For more information about using the Document Manager to store, organize, modify, and share documents, see Managing documents.	Yes
Follow-Ups	Not applicable	You can add multiple follow-up activities to a batch printing process and assign them to yourself, another user, or to a selected coverage role. If you assign a follow-up activity, a task is added to the assignee's Tasks workspace for each recipient of the email. For example, if you assign a follow-up activity to yourself for an email with three recipients, three tasks are created on your Task workspace. In addition, if logging is enabled, a task is added to each recipient 's Activities tab. To add a follow-up, select a template from the Add menu and fill in the required information.	Not applicable
Logging Options	Create an activity record for each recipient with personalized copies of the specified documents	Creates an entry on the Activities tab for each selected contact. This checkbox is selected by default.	No
	Log Item Description	Description of the activity record.	Yes
	Add File Names	Appends the file names with the log item description.	No
	Related fields	Associates the print job with a related item. Depending on your configuration, you might be able to specify a related opportunity, product, campaign, or service request. Click the Select button in a related field and select the item you want to associate with the print job.	No

To start creating the documents using the attached document template, click Print Document in the New Print Job dialog and Yes in the confirmation dialog.

After your batch process request is submitted, you can choose to close the confirmation message or to view the status of your batch print job on the Batch Processes workspace by clicking the View My Requests button.

You can also access the Batch Processes workspace at any time:

• Click the User settings button in the application toolbar and select the Batch Processes option from the menu.
• Click the Batch Processes icon

  

  or workspace name in the navigator sidebar.

To open and print hard copies of the documents created during the batch process or to save them locally, open the Batch Processes workspace, locate your print job in the data table, and click the View Report button

The records in the batch print report are sorted in alphabetical order. Contact records are sorted by last name and first name. Company records are sorted by company name.

If the number of entities selected for printing exceeds the threshold established by your system administrator, the system prints the documents in the background and notifies you when background printing is complete.

In addition to the report file, the batch process prints a document to each selected entity. You can access the created document for a specific entity in the entity's Activities tab.

It is important that you know where to find the printed documents.

Use the All items filter and the text search field to filter the data table for print activities. To open and review the document, hover over the data record for the print activity in the activities data table and click Edit. In the edit dialog, click the attached document file to open it. To email the created document to the entity from the Activities tab, click the More Actions button for the print activity and select Email.

Batch printing birthday mailers

Build relationships by quickly batch printing personalized birthday mailers for your clients. For example, you can use the filter provided in the contacts panel to find clients with birthdays in the next seven days and print birthday mailers for all filtered contacts using a single command.

You can print a birthday mailer for a single contact by clicking the More Actions button

for the entity data record, and selecting Print Birthday Mailer .

Before you can batch print birthday mailers, your administrator must have enabled the Birthday Mailer feature, imported birthday mailer templates with assigned matching criteria from NexJ Admin Console into the Document Manager for you to select from, and assigned you the BirthdayMailerView privilege, which enables you to print birthday mailers, and enables the Contacts - Upcoming Birthdays filter. You administrator should have also provided you with the folder name that contains the birthday mailer templates in the Document Manager, and where you can view the matching criteria used by the system to match contacts with templates. For example, if you have selected a contact for a batch print whose gender is male and age is greater then 50 then the system would match that contact to a template that has the matching criteria of "gender is male and age is greater than 50."

To print birthday mailers for multiple contacts at one time, on the Contacts workspace, use the checkboxes to select one or more records in the data table, or select the Select all checkbox to select all the records currently displayed in the table. Selecting records with checkboxes reveals a different set of actions in the data table toolbar.

To easily find contacts with birthdays in the next seven days, click the Select Favorites button

, select Contacts - Upcoming Birthdays, click OK, and click the filter to view the results.

To find contacts with birthdays for a specific date range, click the Filter options button

, select the Add filter fields option, select the Birthday filter to add the Birthday filter chip, select between in the Operator field and provide the From and To dates.

Click Print Birthday Mailer in the data table toolbar, and provide the required information.

When performing a batch printing process, the New Birthday Mailer dialog includes the following tabs and fields:

Tab	Field or checkbox	Description	Required field
Detail	Folder	Select the Document Manager folder containing the birthday mailer templates you want to use. By default, the Document Manager folder specified in your user preferences is selected. You can click View Matched Templates to display the list of birthday mailer templates that have been matched by the system using the matching criteria provided by your administrator. The following screenshot shows an example of a birthday mailer matched templates list that displays after clicking View Matched Templates: Matching criteria for birthday mailer templates displays in the Matching Criteria column in the documents data table in the folder created for these templates by your administrator in the Document Manager. You can also view the matching criteria for a selected template from the folder by clicking the Edit button for it in the data table and viewing the Matching Criteria field value.	Yes
	Create an activity record for each recipient with personalized copies of the specified documents	Creates an entry on the Activities tab for each selected contact. This checkbox is selected by default.	No
	Log Item Description	Description of the activity record.	Yes
	Add File Names	Appends the file names with the log item description.	No
	Related fields	Associates the birthday mailer with a related item. Depending on your configuration, you might be able to specify a related service request or campaign. Click the Select button in a related field and select the item you want to associate with the birthday mailer.	No
Follow-Ups	Not applicable	You can add multiple follow-up activities to a batch printing birthday mailer process and assign them to yourself, another user, or to a selected coverage role. If you assign a follow-up activity, a task is added to the assignee's Tasks workspace for each recipient of the email. For example, if you assign a follow-up activity to yourself for an email with three recipients, three tasks are created on your Task workspace. In addition, if logging is enabled, a task is added to each recipient's Activities tab. To add a follow-up, select a template from the Add menu and fill in the required information.	Not applicable

To start creating the documents using the attached document template, click Print Document in the New Birthday Mailer dialog and Yes in the confirmation dialog.

After your batch operation request is submitted, you can choose to close the confirmation message or to view the status of your batch print process on the Batch Processes workspace by clicking the View My Requests button.

You can also access the Batch Processes workspace at any time:

• Click the User settings button in the application toolbar and select the Batch Processes option from the menu.
• Click the Batch Processes icon

  

  or workspace name in the navigator sidebar.

Sending batch emails to entities

You can use batch process and merge fields to send personalized emails to an entity or group of entities, without creating unique versions for each individual recipient. A merge field is an object that references a specific piece of information, such as a contact's first name. They are used in Microsoft Word and NexJ CRM to personalize documents and emails for several entities at once. When sending a batch email you can use merge fields to personalize the email text. You can also attach documents that include merge fields, so that they are customized when you send them.

The NexJ CRM merge functionality only works with PDF, DOC, and DOCX attachments. Merge fields in any other file type will not be resolved and updated when you send the email.

For more information, see Using NexJ Add-In with Microsoft Word and Using tokens.

Sending batch emails

To send a batch email, navigate to the Contacts workspace, use the checkboxes to select one or more records in the data table for entities that you want to email, or select the Select all checkbox to select all the records currently displayed in the table. Click Email in the data table toolbar.

When performing a batch email process, the New batch email dialog includes the following tabs and fields:

Tab	Field, button, or checkbox	Description	Required field
Detail	From	Email account used for sending the batch email. Select your own email account or a group email account that you have access to.	Yes
	Rich text editor toolbar	The toolbar enables you to format email text as rich text with styles such as bold, italic, and bulleted list. You can also copy and paste formatted text into the body of the email. When you are editing emails in the rich text editor, you can access the native menu in the text body field by pressing Ctrl+right-click, and you can select your spell-check settings. You can also press Ctrl+right-click on misspelled words and select from the list of suggested corrections. To undo all spell-check corrections at one time, press the Ctrl key while selecting all corrections, and when finished click the Undo toolbar button. Spell-check corrections will all be saved as one undo state until the Ctrl key is released. If separate states are desired because you want to undo corrections separately, release the Ctrl key in between corrections. In Microsoft Internet Explorer, spell-check corrections are not detected by the undo or redo unless there are prior text modifications. When you are using Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome, NexJ recommends that you enable the Basic spell checking assistance setting. You can find these settings in the Languages settings under "Use writing assistance" in Microsoft Edge or "Spell check" in Google Chrome. NexJ cannot control where the browser sends text, and is not responsible for this action. The same action applies for any mobile phone applications that may be monitoring the clipboard, keyboard, or text.	Not applicable
	Insert Merge Fields	Allows you to personalize the email by inserting merge fields. For example, the ${firstName} merge field personalizes the email with the recipients' first names.  To insert a merge field into the body of the email, click Insert Merge Fields and select a merge field from the list.	No
	Add Attachment	You can include multiple documents in batch emails. Documents created outside of NexJ CRM containing merge fields are populated during batch processes or when they are associated with a contact. For more information about using the Document Manager to store, organize, modify, and share documents, see Managing documents . NexJ CRM supports the following file formats: Microsoft Word (all formats provided by Word except XPS), Excel file formats (all formats provided by Excel except SLK and DIF and those listed below as not supported), BMP, CSV, GIF, JPEG, PDF, PNG, TIFF, and TXT. The following file formats are also not supported: BAS, BIN, COM, CMD, CRT, CSH, DLL, EXE, HTA, HEIC, HTM, HTML, HLP, INS, ISP, JS, MDB, MHT, MHTML, NWS, SCT, SH, STM, VPS, WSC, XHT, and XHTML. The maximum file size that is supported is 7839744 bytes (7.47 MB).	No
	Include Email Signature	When selected, adds your email signature to the email.	No
	Manage Email Signature	Opens the Add a user preference dialog to the Email Signature tab, where you can create or modify your email signature and choose to include it in all outgoing emails.	No
Follow-Ups	Not applicable	You can add multiple follow-up activities to a batch email and assign them to yourself, another user, or to a selected coverage role. If you assign a follow-up activity, a task is added to the assignee's Tasks workspace for each recipient of the email. For example, if you assign a follow-up activity to yourself for an email with three recipients, three tasks are created on your Task workspace. In addition, if logging is enabled, a task is added to each recipient 's Activities tab. To add a follow-up, select a template from the Add menu and fill in the required information.	No
Logging Options	Add Subject	Appends the subject of the email to the log item description. This checkbox is selected by default.	No
	Create an activity record for each recipient with personalized copies of the email message and attachments	Creates an entry on the Activities tab for each selected contact. This checkbox is selected by default.	No
	Log Item Description	The name that you want to use for logging the record.	Yes
	Related fields	Associates the email with a related item. Depending on your configuration, you might be able to specify a related product, opportunity, service request, or campaign. Click the Select button  in a related field and select the related item you want to associate with the email .	No
Recipients	Not applicable	If your administrator enabled the optional Email Recipients feature, then you can use the Recipients tab t o view, add, and remove message recipients. Click the Add button  and choose one of the following options: Select individual recipients to add and remove recipients. Select recipients from a list to select a previously saved list of contacts to add to the message recipients. If you select a large number of recipients, you may receive a message stating that the Recipients tab is taking longer to load than expected and asking if you want to continue. Click Yes to continue.	No

After your batch operation request is submitted, you can choose to close the confirmation message or to view the status of your batch email process on the Batch Processes workspace by clicking the View My Requests button.

You can also access the Batch Processes workspace at any time:

• Click the User settings button in the application toolbar and select the Batch Processes option from the menu.
• Click the Batch Processes icon

  

  or workspace name in the navigator sidebar.

Creating an email signature

You can create and use an email signature when sending batch emails to entities and when sending emails from the Document Manager workspace.

To create an email signature, click the  User settings button

You can also create an email signature directly in the New batch email dialog by clicking the Manage Email Signature button.

You can click the Image button

in the toolbar and upload images from your computer to use in email signatures. The images cannot exceed 2MB in size. The images must be in JPG, JPEG, or PNG format. To specify additional image settings, navigate to the Advanced tab. For example, you can specify the size of an image and its alignment.

Viewing batch process status and details

You can view the status of your batch process on the Batch Processes workspace.

To open the Batch Processes workspace do one of the following:

• Click the User settings button in the application toolbar and select the Batch Processes option from the menu.
• Click the Batch Processes icon

  

  or workspace name in the navigator sidebar.

Use the text search field and filter chips to search for records in the data table.

For example, to search for batch emails that were sent successfully during the previous week, you can specify the following values:

• In the Status filter, select Completed.
• In the Request Time filter, specify the correct date range.
• In the Type filter, select Send Email.

To view the details of the batch process, click the batch process description in the data table. If this information is available, the detail view for the batch process is displayed, including information about each affected record.

To download and view the actual documents created by a Print Document batch process, click the View Report button

If any batch processes are still ongoing when you open the Batch Processes workspace, you can click the Refresh button