How To Mark Contacts In Progress

This document discusses how to mark contacts In Progress. This is useful, for instance, after having a printer jam in middle of printing batch letters and having marked the contact completed.

Method A

The simplest method may be used if you have roughly 1-100 contacts to process. This method uses the Search feature to find all the contacts concerned and then manually changes the Completed/In Progress radio buttons. It is similar to the way you would manually change a contact back to In Progress.

Searching For Contacts To Mark In Progress

1. Select BROWSE from the top menu bar and a drop-down menu will display.

2. Select CONTACTS from the drop-down list and a list of Contacts will display.

3. Press F6 or the FIND icon on the top toolbar (a set of binoculars) and the Edit Search Criteria - Contact dialog will display.

4. Highlight the TYPE field by using the UP/DOWN arrow keys.

5. Press F2 in the FROM field and the field's pick list (if applicable) will display.

6. Select LETTER (for example) from the pick list, and Collect! will return the selection automatically in the FROM and TO field.

7. Highlight the DONE DATE field by using the UP/DOWN arrow keys.

8. In the FROM and TO fields, press F2 and a calendar will display.

9. Select the appropriate DONE DATE of the contacts and select OK. The selected DONE DATE or range will be displayed in the FROM and TO fields.

10. Press F8 or select SEARCH to run the search.

11. Select YES when asked to tag records returned by the search function.

The displayed TAGGED list will now be limited to those records which match the contents of the 'From' and 'To' fields you filled in. An S (in yellow) will appear in the Status Bar at the bottom of the screen to indicate ' Search Criteria' is active and the list that you are viewing is filtered. Note that you can use as many fields for selection as you wish. Some fields are indexed, making very fast searches.

Marking Contacts In Progress

1. Select the first contact from the list by pressing the F5 key or the ENTER key and the contact will display.

2. Click on the In Progress radio button by using the mouse to make the correction.

3. Press PAGE DOWN to move to the next record. If you click OK at this point Collect! will take you back to the contact list. Just select the top contact from the list and continue.

4. Press the SPACEBAR to move the cursor to the In Progress radio button.

5. Press PAGE DOWN to move to the next record.

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until all records are completed.

Method B

This method may be used if you have hundreds, thousands or tens-of-thousands of contacts to process.

This method uses the Macro feature which is slightly more difficult, if you have never created a macro before. Macro is simply a greatly sped up sequence of steps. When a macro is created, the series of steps is recorded. When the macro is executed, it runs automatically, making whatever changes you recorded in the macro's steps. So, before you record a macro, you need to step through the procedure you want to automate, so that you know each step that you will be recording.

When working with macros it is advisable that you have a recent backup of your database, as a safety precaution. (Just ask yourself how long it will take to fix an error!)

The macro we need is very, very simple. It just automates clicking the In Progress radio dot. However, you need to know how to record and execute a macro. This is explained in the Help topic, How To Use Macros. We will go through the steps briefly.

1. Select the contacts that you want to process, just as you did in Method A.

2. When you are viewing the list of tagged records, select the first contact to open it.

Next, follow these steps to create and run a macro on the whole list.

3. Select Tools from the top menu bar and then select Macros from the drop-down choices.

4. Select Record Macro. Every stroke is now being recorded, so be careful.

5. Click the In Progress radio button with your mouse and press the PAGE DOWN arrow once.

6. Press F11 to bring up the Macro Menu and select Repeat to List End.

7. Say YES to loop to list end.

8. Select Tools, Macros again and select Execute Macro.

This simple macro should motor through and mark all of your selected, tagged contacts In Progress.

Method C

This method is a batch process to unmark an entire batch. You can choose contact type, operator, date and time. Please refer to Batch Processing and to Undo Completed Contacts.

Method D

This method is to create a report to write back to the database, marking the contacts in progress. Please refer to Writeback Feature in the Help Topics.