Data Fields

For each recipient, AY Mail stores various data that can be used in mail filtering, mail merge and for other purposes. When you create a new project, you can specify what kind of information is going to be stored for each recipient, or you can change this later by clicking on the Recipients tab and then selecting Recipients->Data Fields from the main menu. You can then use the Data Fields dialog to add new data field, change existing ones, or delete those that you do not need.

When you look at the Recipients list, data fields are displayed on the Data Tab on the right hand side of the Recipients Tab. You can freely edit these values.

Data fields are of various types. You can avoid using types if you do not want to by using Text type only.

AY Mail supports 8 data types:

Text is a default data type and the most common one. The fields of this type can hold a single line of the text. You can use it to hold names, addresses, telephone numbers and other textual information. Text fields can be used for whole text or substring matches in filters and macros.

Note: You can also store multi-line text. Use <BR> to separate lines.

Whole Numbers can hold whole numbers from 0 to approximately 2 billion. You cannot store larger numbers. Whole numbers can be negative. Whole numbers can be used for comparisons in mail filters and macros. For example, you can use this to store a number of children of the recipient. Then, you can use this information to send e-mail to all recipients with 2 or more children.

Numbers can hold an arbitrary number. Numbers are not stored exactly and only approximately 15 decimal digits are valid. When used in mail merge, numbers may be formatted for different languages and countries. Numbers can be used for comparisons in filters and macros.

Currency can hold a monetary value. The only difference between currencies and numbers is that they include currency symbol when formatted. Different formats may be used for different countries.

Date can hold a date, for example birthdate. When used in mail merge, date may be formated. For example, the same date 1/7/03 may be formatted as January 7, 2003 or Sun, Jan 7 03 or in any other way. Dates can be used for comparisons in mail filters and macros.

Time can hold the time of the day. When used in mail merge, time may be formatted. For example, the same time may be formatted as 15:00:00 or 3 PM or in any other way. Times can be used for comparisons in mail filters and macros.

Moment is simply a combination of date and time in a single field.

Conditioncan be either on or off. It is well suited for storing gender, married status, payment status etc. When used in mail merge, you can specify what word to use for the "on" state, and what word to use for the "off" state. For example, if the condition represents gender you can use words Sir or Madam.

Each data field has a default format (Text and Whole Numbers do not have a format), which is going to be used if the data field is used in mail merge. This format is also used to display the values on the recipient tab.

Often, data fields are unknown for particular recipient. For example, you may know the first name for most of your recipients, but for some of them the first name may be missing. For such situations, you can specify a default string representation, which will be used in mail merge if the name is unknown. A logical choice for the first name could be Sir/Madam.