mergefield if contains

[b4nature]

I am trying to do a mail merge where one of my fields may include multiple
data and depending on whether or not it contains particular data I want to
enter specific text.

My field is AWARD_DESC and within that field you may or may not have
Stafford Loan PLUS Loan Unsubsidized Loan. It may contain one, two, three,
or none so I can't set it up as if equals. I want to insert text if it has
Stafford Loan, insert text if it has PLUS Loan, etc...

Is there a way to do that?

Thank you,

 

[Jean-Guy Marcil]

I am trying to do a mail merge where one of my fields may include multiple
data and depending on whether or not it contains particular data I want to
enter specific text.

My field is AWARD_DESC and within that field you may or may not have
Stafford Loan PLUS Loan Unsubsidized Loan. It may contain one, two, three,
or none so I can't set it up as if equals. I want to insert text if it has
Stafford Loan, insert text if it has PLUS Loan, etc...

Is there a way to do that?

If I understand correclty, you have a MERGEFIELD that can have one of three
values. Elsewhere, you want to display text that will be different depending
on that value.

You need nested IF fields.

Use the following construction where ever you want that variable text (Each
pair of {} must be inserted by doing CTRL-F9.):

{IF {MERGEFIELD AWARD_DESC} = "Stafford Loan" "This is a Stafford Loan."
"{IF {MERGEFIELD AWARD_DESC} = "PLUS Loan" "This is a PLUS loan." "{IF
{MERGEFIELD AWARD_DESC} = "Unsubsidized Loan" "This is an Unsubsidized loan."
"This is not a standard loan."}"}"}

When you are done building the IF field, select the whole thing and to
SHIFT-F9 to toggle back to field values instead of Field codes, then do F9 to
update it.

"This is not a standard loan." will be displayed if the AWARD_DESC
MERGEFIELD contains a value that is different from the three preset ones.

Basically, to build an IF nested field, you use the logic of the IF field:

IF "Some condition" "Do this if TRUE" "Do this if FALSE"

For nested IF fields, you just include another full IF field in the FALSE
part...
The last FALSE part of the the nested IF Fields will be displayed only when
all of the preceding TRUE parts are not TRUE.

 

[b4nature]

I am doing someting wrong. Here is my construction

{IF{MERGEFIELD AWARD_DESC} = "Fed Sub Stafford Loan" "â— Federal Stafford
loans require the completion of an entrance interview."
"{IF{MERGEFIELD AWARD_DESC} = "Fed Unsub Stafford Loan" "â— Federal Stafford
loans require the completion of an entrance interview."
"{IF{MERGEFIELD AWARD_DESC} = "Fed PLUS Loan" "â— Federal PLUS Loans require
the submission of a loan request form." ""}"}"}

and here are my results

{IF Fed Sub Stafford Loan
Fed Unsub Stafford Loan
Fed PLUS Loan
UNC Need Based Grant = "Fed Sub Stafford Loan" "â— Federal Stafford loans
require the completion of an entrance interview."
"{IF Fed Sub Stafford Loan
Fed Unsub Stafford Loan
Fed PLUS Loan
UNC Need Based Grant = "Fed Unsub Stafford Loan" "â— Federal Stafford loans
require the completion of an entrance interview."
"{IF Fed Sub Stafford Loan
Fed Unsub Stafford Loan
Fed PLUS Loan
UNC Need Based Grant = "Fed PLUS Loan" "â— Federal PLUS Loans require the
submission of a loan request form." ""}"}"}

I have definately gone wrong somewhere.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

In cases where you have either/or situations based on varying data, it works
just as well to use separate fields instead of trying to nest them. Assuming
that only one of the fields will give a True result, you'll get only the
message in the TrueText for that field.

 

[Jean-Guy Marcil]

In cases where you have either/or situations based on varying data, it works
just as well to use separate fields instead of trying to nest them. Assuming
that only one of the fields will give a True result, you'll get only the
message in the TrueText for that field.

Very true, you can put all the single IF fields next to each other, and only
one of them will be true... But keep in mind that in this case, you cannot
have an overall False text when all If fields are false... But you may not
need this in your case.

 

[Jean-Guy Marcil]

I am doing someting wrong. Here is my construction

{IF{MERGEFIELD AWARD_DESC} = "Fed Sub Stafford Loan" "â— Federal Stafford
loans require the completion of an entrance interview."
"{IF{MERGEFIELD AWARD_DESC} = "Fed Unsub Stafford Loan" "â— Federal Stafford
loans require the completion of an entrance interview."
"{IF{MERGEFIELD AWARD_DESC} = "Fed PLUS Loan" "â— Federal PLUS Loans require
the submission of a loan request form." ""}"}"}

and here are my results

{IF Fed Sub Stafford Loan
Fed Unsub Stafford Loan
Fed PLUS Loan
UNC Need Based Grant = "Fed Sub Stafford Loan" "â— Federal Stafford loans
require the completion of an entrance interview."
"{IF Fed Sub Stafford Loan
Fed Unsub Stafford Loan
Fed PLUS Loan
UNC Need Based Grant = "Fed Unsub Stafford Loan" "â— Federal Stafford loans
require the completion of an entrance interview."
"{IF Fed Sub Stafford Loan
Fed Unsub Stafford Loan
Fed PLUS Loan
UNC Need Based Grant = "Fed PLUS Loan" "â— Federal PLUS Loans require the
submission of a loan request form." ""}"}"}

I have definately gone wrong somewhere.

Probably!

I do not understand how you are getting:

IF Fed Sub Stafford Loan
Fed Unsub Stafford Loan
Fed PLUS Loan
UNC Need Based Grant =

There should be only one term next to IF, but you are getting all of them?

In any case, I see that you removed the "All False" text that I had posted:
"This is not a standard loan." and replaced it with an empty string: "".

In that case, as Suzanne suggested in her reply, you do not need nested
fields. If your environmnet is such that {MERGEFIELD AWARD_DESC} is
necessarily one item from a known finite set of entries, then you can place
all the single IF fields next to each other...

 

[b4nature]

Unfortunately it isn't one item from a set. The AWARD_DESC field could
contain multiple items. And if one of the items is the Subsidized Loan then I
need to include text for that item. If it includes the Unsubsidized loan then
I need text for that item. Ultimately the field may or may not include the
Sub, Unsub, or PLUS but I need text specific to the items it does contain.

So in my example the AWARD_DESC field contains 4 items (Sub, Unsub, PLUS,
and Need grant) so I need the text for the sub, unsub and plus.

But for some students they may just have Sub and PLUS so I would just want
text for Sub and Plus. Some may just have PLUS so I would just need the text
for PLUS...and so on.

So I do think it needs to be an embedded IF, but I can't get it to work as
my poor results show!

 

[Jean-Guy Marcil]

Unfortunately it isn't one item from a set. The AWARD_DESC field could
contain multiple items. And if one of the items is the Subsidized Loan then I
need to include text for that item. If it includes the Unsubsidized loan then
I need text for that item. Ultimately the field may or may not include the
Sub, Unsub, or PLUS but I need text specific to the items it does contain.

So in my example the AWARD_DESC field contains 4 items (Sub, Unsub, PLUS,
and Need grant) so I need the text for the sub, unsub and plus.

But for some students they may just have Sub and PLUS so I would just want
text for Sub and Plus. Some may just have PLUS so I would just need the text
for PLUS...and so on.

So I do think it needs to be an embedded IF, but I can't get it to work as
my poor results show!

You only need the nested fields if you need an overall False stement (When
all conditions are not true).

Now, I think you need to take as step back an describe your document in more
details. As far as I know, a MERGEFIELD can only contain one item, but you
seem to be stating that in your case it may contain more than one (You wrote:
"The AWARD_DESC field could contain multiple items" ???).

How is AWARD_DESC populated? Are we really talking about a mail merge here?
If so, where is the data from? How is it obtained?

 

[b4nature]

Thank you for your patience. Ultimately I am trying to merge from a word
doument that has the fields and data generated from our school's software.

So I am merging from a word document that looks like this:

STUD_ID "123-45-6789"
AIDY_YR_DESC., "2008-2009 Academic Year."
AID_YEAR, "0809",
AWARD_DESC, "Fed Sub Stafford Loan
Fed Unsub Stafford Loan
Fed PLUS Loan
UNC Need Based Grant",
BUDGET_DESCRIPTION, "Undergrad/Resident/Off Campus.",

STUD_ID "234-56-7890"
AIDY_YR_DESC., "2008-2009 Academic Year."
AID_YEAR, "0809",
AWARD_DESC, "Fed Sub Stafford Loan
Fed PLUS Loan
BUDGET_DESCRIPTION, "Undergrad/Resident/Off Campus.",

Every student has a record and the AWARD_DESC can be different for every
student.

When I merge into a letter, for the first student here, I want to include
the text for sub, unsub and plus. For the second student I would want just
the sub and plus.

Does that make any sense?

 

[Jean-Guy Marcil]

Thank you for your patience. Ultimately I am trying to merge from a word
doument that has the fields and data generated from our school's software.

So I am merging from a word document that looks like this:

STUD_ID "123-45-6789"
AIDY_YR_DESC., "2008-2009 Academic Year."
AID_YEAR, "0809",
AWARD_DESC, "Fed Sub Stafford Loan
Fed Unsub Stafford Loan
Fed PLUS Loan
UNC Need Based Grant",
BUDGET_DESCRIPTION, "Undergrad/Resident/Off Campus.",

STUD_ID "234-56-7890"
AIDY_YR_DESC., "2008-2009 Academic Year."
AID_YEAR, "0809",
AWARD_DESC, "Fed Sub Stafford Loan
Fed PLUS Loan
BUDGET_DESCRIPTION, "Undergrad/Resident/Off Campus.",

Every student has a record and the AWARD_DESC can be different for every
student.

When I merge into a letter, for the first student here, I want to include
the text for sub, unsub and plus. For the second student I would want just
the sub and plus.

Does that make any sense?

Now it does!

Unfortunately, especially since it is almost "going home time" on Friday...
I can't find an easy way to do this.

If you have four types of AWARD_DESC, then you have at least 16 different
combination... I guess you could write 15 IF fields ({IF AWARD =
Sub...Unsub... PLUS "3 texts" ""}, {IF AWARD = Unsub... PLUS "2 texts" ""},
etc.) (You do not need a field for the 16th possibility which is no AWARD at
all.)

Lots of work!

Ideally, the database would need to be re-organized to create 4 fields:
AWARD_DESC_1, AWARD_DESC_2, AWARD_DESC_3 and AWARD_DESC_4. It was a bad idea
to have such a multiple field... Not just for you, but what if the school
needed statistics on awards...

Good luck!

I hope somebody else comes along with a brilliant idea!

 

[b4nature]

Thanks for your help. Maybe I can convince my higher ups to do some
re-organizing!