Custom Mailing Labels

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
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lbhales
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Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2010 7:07 am
Location: SLC, Ut USA

Custom Mailing Labels

#1

Post by lbhales »

Is it possible to create mailings labels that include the husband and wife's names and addresses for Elders only?
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aebrown
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#2

Post by aebrown »

lhales wrote:Is it possible to create mailings labels that include the husband and wife's names and addresses for Elders only?
Yes, although it might not be as straightforward as you would hope. Here are the steps:
  1. Go to Organizations > Elders
  2. In the "Show" dropdown in the upper right corner, choose "Members"
  3. From the menu, choose File > Print Mailing Labels
  4. Click the "Show Head of Household" checkbox; this will include the spouse name.
At this point, you might think you just can print the mailing labels. But unfortunately, if you try to do so, the spouse name will not be included (you can do a quick Preview to verify this). I'm not sure why MLS shows the spouse name in the list of mailing labels, but then doesn't actually include the spouse when it prints.

To get around this, you have to do more work:
  1. Click on any name in the list of mailing labels
  2. Press Ctrl+Shift+C to copy the entire list to the clipboard
  3. In a spreadsheet (OpenOffice Calc or MS Excel), open a new spreadsheet and then press Ctrl+V to paste. Save the spreadsheet.
  4. Use a word processor to generate mailing labels, using the saved spreadsheet as your data file.
If you're wondering why you need to use the Mailing Labels feature, rather than just including the various address fields in the custom report, note that MLS doesn't give you access to the actual mailing address fields in a custom report -- the address fields listed there are for the residential address. So if the mailing address is different from the residential address for any of your members, you have to use the Mailing Labels feature to access it.

An alternative approach is to create a custom report:
  1. Create a custom report by going to Reports/Forms > Custom Reports, then Add Report, and give the new report a name.
  2. For the Criteria, select "Organization Class" "is" "Elders" (by using "Organization Class" you get everyone assigned to the Elders Quorum, which may include some prospective elders or seventies -- if you are interested in the priesthood office of Elder, choose "Priesthood Office" instead).
  3. For the Format, choose "Head of House and Spouse"; remove the default "Preferred Name" field by double clicking it (counterintuitively, this step is actually unnecessary, since the Mailing Labels list with "Show Head of Household" checked will include the spouse name).
  4. Save and Close the custom report.
  5. From the list of custom reports, click the name of the newly created report.
  6. Click the "Print Mailing Labels" button.
  7. Continue the steps above from step #4 in the first section.
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.
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kh_design
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mailing labels from custom reports, show head of household

#3

Post by kh_design »

Yes, I am also having the same issue of mailing labels not printing Head of Household, I have posted here http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?t=4966
Alan_Brown wrote:To get around this, you have to do more work:
  1. Click on any name in the list of mailing labels
  2. Press Ctrl+Shift+C to copy the entire list to the clipboard
  3. In a spreadsheet (OpenOffice Calc or MS Excel), open a new spreadsheet and then press Ctrl+V to paste. Save the spreadsheet.
  4. Use a word processor to generate mailing labels, using the saved spreadsheet as your data file.
lbhales
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Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2010 7:07 am
Location: SLC, Ut USA

#4

Post by lbhales »

Thanks Alan - I'll give it a try. Lynn
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