For help with using Shana, go to the Shana User Guide
For help with Shana installation and setup, go to the Shana Setup Guide.

Export

Use File, Export to create a tab delimited text file containing Shana data. You can export all of just some of it. You can export just one record or all the records (a collection). The names of the fields are created from the Shana form field names.

Field Names

If you want to see what the field names are, you can view the field list (also called cells) while in the Export function noted above (File, Export). Another way to see the field list is, after creating the text file (the .txt), open it with Notepad, and the top of the file will have the field names listed. Or import it into Excel and the 1st row will be field names.

Import

Much like above, use File, Import to import data from a tab delimited text file. If the field names match, like above, then the Shana form will be populated with the imported data.

Mail Merge using Word

One useful example to illustrate is how to take form data out of Shana and use it to generate a form letter. Assuming you know how to use Word's Mail Merge functions already, this is rather easy. The steps are as follows:

1. Create a mail merge document as one normally would. Use the Shana field names (see the tip above on how to get the list of Shana field names). Click here for a sample .doc.
2. Export the data from the Shana form to a tab delimited text file (as noted above). Call the file a name of your choice, but by default, its the name of the Shana-file-name.txt. You can export just one or a collection of records. Click here for a sample .txt.
3. To create the form letter, simple. Just open #1 above in Word, then select Tools, MailMerge, then select the file from #2 as the data source, then press Merge. All this is normal Word functions by the way.

You can have many letters (as created in step #1) each use the same data source as created in step #2 (the .txt file). For example, 12 letters can all use the one .txt file. Then use any of the letters you need. Click here for another sample .doc that uses the same .txt above.

A tip, to easily create new letters, rather than reenter word mergefields, one can either: make one letter #1 and revise same and save-as letter #2, or start a new letter #2 and copy/paste in parts or form fields from letter #1.      

More Info

For more information, contact the ministry Forms Office using this Feedback link.

Revised: October 31, 2001, fb