Creating Letter Templates

Lydia Reyes

Hello, I am brand new to BB and need to create acknowledgement letters, but am getting an error message, No criteria matching. can I not go somewhere to upload a bunch of letter templates? Or does it have to somehow be linked to a gift? Or something else? 

Elizabeth Johnson

Welcome to the world of BB Lydia Reyes‍. 


If you have no gifts in need of acknowledgement you would certainly get that error. If you do have gifts in need of acknowledgement in your system then sharing some screenshots of your criteria will help us help you.


If it is the former you can add a gift that needs acknowledging to your system. I have a demo record in my system that I use for this purpose. Before I created that record I would simply use my own record. Just remember to delete the gift. (Or ask someone that has deletion privileges should you not have that permission.) Since I'm a regular donor to my org (I would never work somewhere that I would not want to donate to) I would just take one of my gifts and make it fit my criteria - logging the original information in a saved screenshot and adding the information the gift reference field so it could be returned to the original state.


Once you have a gift then you can upload your letter templates. Blackbaud University has some great classes on this topic and many other. They are worth their weight in gold (as is the community).


I hope you find this helpful.

 

Lydia Reyes

Thank you so very much for your
response. I will try this again.

 

Lydia
Reyes

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Becky Jones

Hi Lydia,

I don't usually generate thank you letters directly from the constituent record, because we never seem to get just one or two.  I usually create a consistuent query (using criteria something like 'gift date = today').  Then use that query to run through export where you can limit all your parameters.  That spits out an excel for me and I merge that with my form letter to personalize each letter.  Hope this helps.  Becky

Lydia Reyes

Thank you Becky.

 

Christine Cooke

Yes, if you do not have letters that need an acknowledgement then you will get that No Criteria message.  


You need to Open Donor Acknowledgments in Mail and then use the Word Wizard button to load your letters.
https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Knowledge/46298?_ga=2.126223247.306286309.1579190175-682731356.1579190175


 

Lydia Reyes

Thank you!