How do I edit an IRIS Date Tag to the desired format in an AutoMail letter?

Article ID

ias-6589

Article Name

Created Date

17th July 2008

Product

IRIS AutoMail

Problem

IRIS AutoMail uses the interface of Microsoft Word to generate correspondence. To create your own Bespoke AutoMail templates you will require knowledge of Microsoft Word to the level of complexity that your bespoke template requires. The IRIS support team are not Microsoft Word experts and cannot provide support, advice or maintenance services with respect to Microsoft Word. However, we have provided some documentation to help you with some of the program features. This knowledgebase article will provide advice for editing an IRIS date tag to the desired format in an AutoMail letter. For example, the accounts period end tag. After generating an AutoMail letter you may realise that you would like the date format of Accounting Period End to be displayed in words rather than figures. For example, the displayed Accounting Period End date is 01/01/08 and the date that you would like to see on a client letter would be 1 January 2008.

Resolution

To change the format of the date:

Open the IRIS Main Menu and log on to IRIS AutoMail.

The letter request Browser will be displayed. Click on the Templates button.

The ‘IRIS AutoMail – Letter Template Maintenance’ screen will be displayed. Highlight the template that you would like to change and click on the Edit button.

Left Click on the document where you would like to change the date. Note: To check your version of Word, Click on Help | About when in the Word Document. For MS Word 2007 or Later:

In this example we will use the Accounting Period End Date tag (LMCLAPEndDate).

In Microsoft Word, toggle ‘Field codes’ on to view the formatting code. To do this, simultaneously press the ‘Alt’ and ‘F9’ keys on your keyboard. (Or click on the Office button | Word Options |Advanced | under “Show Document Content” heading, place a tick on “Show Field Codes instead of their values” | OK)

The Accounting Period End Date will be displayed as: { MERGEFIELD LMCLAPEndDate }

If you would like the date to be displayed as 01 January 2008 rather than 01/01/08, the format you need to add to the above field is as follows \@ dd MMMM yyyy The field should now show: { MERGEFIELD “LMCLAPEndDate” \@ “dd MMMM yyyy” }

Minimize Word and click the ‘Save’ button on the Tag Selection Screen. Below are the definitions which can be used to format dates in word: d = Date (e.g. 1) dd = Date (e.g. 01) dddd = Day (e.g. Monday) MM = Month (e.g. 01) MMM = Month (e.g. Jan) MMMM = Month (e.g. January) yy = Year (e.g. 08) yyyy = Year (e.g. 2008) Examples: 1-Jan-08 use the following d-MMM-yy 1 January 2008 use the following d MMMM yyyy 01/01/2008 use the following dd/MM/yyyy Related articles KB IAS 7078: How do I seutp my own custom AutoMail templates? KB IAS 6864: What Microsoft Word skills may I need to edit AutoMail templates?

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