Using Remembered Lists

Over the past two months we have looked at how to create, edit, maintain and search Remembered Lists. Once you have created a subset of documents by saving them to a Remembered List you can do much more than just search and browse through them. You can use Remembered Lists as part of a Stored Search, as the selection for a report or to send a Mail/Email Merge letter. Here's how:

Using Remembered Lists

In review: Remembered Lists allow you to save subsets of Documents from your database and work with them separate from the rest of your data. You can create a Remembered List by searching your askSam file and storing the results or selecting individual Documents - from your database or from a search request - and placing these in a Remembered List. To know more about the basics of Remembered Lists, read the January tip.

Each askSam file contains a default remembered list but you can create as many remembered lists as you need. For example, in a database of news articles about the Internet, you could have a Remembered List containing articles by specific authors, a Remembered List of articles containing a certain phrase, or a Remembered List of articles by date, etc.

When you are looking for an article in any of these areas, you can switch to the appropriate Remembered List and work with just the specific Documents you require. To know more about Multiple Remembered Lists, read the February tip.

Once you have created a subset of documents by saving them to a Remembered List you can do much more than just search and browse through them.

This month will see how to...

Ÿ     Use a Remember List in a Stored Search

Ÿ     Use a Remembered List as the selection for a Report

Ÿ     Perform Mail or Email merges to a Remembered List

Continuing our example from last month, in the sample file T-Client.ask, we have created a Remembered List of clients who are located in Florida and involved in the cruise industry in some way. This Remembered List was created from a search (FL in STATE[ and CRUISE*) and by adding individual items to the list. See the Last Month's Tip for how to create a Remembered List.

Remembered Lists and Stored Searches

Now that we have built a Remembered List it is possible to create searches over your Remembered Lists that can be saved for easy access over and over again. This will allow you to continue to add to or take away from Remembered List but still be able to search it at the press of a button. You can store your Remembered List search by name for easy retrieval whenever needed, and  you can even use prompts that will allow you to enter in a new search each time you run the Stored Search over your Remembered Lists.

To create a Stored Search to access your Remembered items...

1. Choose ACTIONS -> STORED SEARCHES

2. Give your Search a name and click CREATE

3. Choose the REMEMBERED button on the left of the Stored Search Dialog

4. Select your Remembered List and click the SELECT button

5. Now you can add additional searches to your Stored Search

For example, let's say we would like to be able to quickly search our Florida Cruise list for cruise offered in different Florida cities. We could add a prompt to our search that will allow us to enter a new city name each time we perform a search.

a. Click on the Prompt button

b. Type in the phrase "Enter a City..." and Click OK

   c. Choose OK on the Search Dialog box.

Now, at any time you can select your Stored Search by choosing Actions -> Search, selecting your Search from the list and clicking RUN.. Each time you run the search you will be prompted to enter a city name. Each time you run the search you will be searching only your Florida Cruise Remembered List for the city you enter.

Only the documents containing the word MIAMI from your Remembered List will be retrieved.

Remembered Lists and Reports

You can also include Remembered Lists as part of a search. You can create a report using a Remembered List as the search or include the Remembered List Stored Search as part of the report. Either way askSam will use only the items from the Remembered List as the basis for your report output.

For example, lets say we needed contact information for all of our Clients in the Tourism industry who have spent more than $50,000 with us. We already have a Remembered List created from last week containing our $50,000 Clients. All we have to do now is use that list, narrow it down to those in the tourism industry and use that selection to create our report...

1. Choose TOOLS -> REPORTS

2. Enter the name for the Report "$50,000 Tourism Clients" and click CREATE

3. Choose REPORT -> SELECT DOCUMENTS -> SEARCH

<<<REM REPORT2.JPG>>>

4. Choose REBREED and select the "$50,000 Tourism Clients" Remembered List. Click SELECT

5. Choose FIELD and type TOURISM in "Find Word or Phrase" and select INDUSTRY[ from "In Field"

6. Click OK on the Field Search Dialog then OK on the Search Dialog

7. Build your report using the Report Layout Screen

8. Choose REPORT -> RUN

Remembered Lists and Mail Merge

You can also use your Remembered Lists to send personalized letters or emails to individuals in your database. Once a group of documents are included in a Remembered List you can attach it to a Mail Merge or Email Merge (just as you attached it to a report). The Mail Merge or Email merge will then use the Remembered List as it's selection and create letters or emails only to the people in that group.

For example, if we wanted to send a thank you letter or email to our clients who have spent more than $50,000 we could do the following...

1. Choose TOOLS -> MAIL MERGE

2. Type in the name of your letter (i.e. "Thank You Letter") and click CREATE

3.Choose MAIL MERGE -> SELECT DOCUMENTS -> SEARCH

4. Select REMEMBERED from the Search Dialog

5. Select your REMEMBERED List from the list

6. Compose your letter

5. Choose TOOLS -> MAIL MERGE

6. Select your letter from the list

7. Using the buttons on the right you can select to PRINT, EMAIL or PREVIEW the letters

    This Mail Merge will print or email letters to everyone in the selected Remembered List.

    Below is a sample of a preview of the mailmerge...

I hope you find the Remembered List feature useful.

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