Communicating with your clients is essential. But sometimes sending a generic message to all your clients at once is not an option. Perhaps you need to include plan details or fees. That’s where Merge Documents can be helpful. Merge Documents are templated Microsoft Word documents that can pull in client-specific data from PensionPro, allowing you to generate customized communications with ease.
The following linked articles include details about creating Merge Documents: Merge Document Templates and how to create a Merge Document. Below you’ll find additional tips for Merge Documents and Microsoft Mail Merge for use with PensionPro data.
Did you know the available Merge Fields differ depending upon the Source you select for the Merge Document Template? It’s true! If you select the “Plan” Source, for example, your Merge Field options will be limited to only Client, Plan or Sender fields. However, if you select “Project” or “Distribution” as the Source, you’ll find more fields.
Merge Document Filters
Some Merge Fields may reference more than one piece of data. For example, you may want to populate a specific Plan Contact Role into the document. To ensure you’re pulling in the correct Contact Role, you should apply a filter to the Merge Document Template. This filter will tell PensionPro to populate the correct Plan Contact Role (such as the Main Contact) into the Merge Document. To do so, navigate to the Merge Document Template, then open the Filters view.
Formatting Merge Documents
Another useful trick in Merge Documents is the ability to set a particular Merge Field to appear in a particular way. For example, you could set a date to appear as “January 1, 2026” or “01/01/2026”. This will require setting the Format within the Template File before uploading it to PensionPro.
Alternatively, you can use one of several pre-programmed styles within Word to indicate that the text should appear in all capital letters or title case. To do so, while pasting the Merge Field into the “Field” dialogue window in Word, select the applicable style in the “Format” section.
Merge Documents can even be created to include conditional values, allowing content to appear only when certain conditions are met. This can be especially useful for specific plan conditions. For example, if the Safe Harbor status is “Yes” for the plan year when the Merge Document is created, then a paragraph about Safe Harbor can populate into the document automatically.
Navigating Merge Document Limitations
Despite all the functionality Merge Documents provides, there are currently a cfew limitations to the feature. Notably, only one Merge Document can be created at a time. This can be time-consuming if you need to send a document with client-specific information to multiple recipients, such as notices. However, there is an alternate method allowing you to generate multiple documents at once using Microsoft’s Mail Merge feature and Fetch reports. In short, you can create a custom Fetch query, then export the results to Excel. The Excel sheet can be used to populate data into Microsoft’s Mail Merge feature, creating multiple custom documents with data from PensionPro. Please note you will need to rerun the Fetch report and update the Mail Merge source if you choose to use the same document again in the future.
In summary, PensionPro offers flexible options to pull client-specific data into customized documents.
Rachel Eby
Software Support Specialist