UPDATED: Contacts - eMail Cover Sheet BIG Problem

Happy New Year!

This just in from a client:
"Using email merge in CQ has been an absolute nightmare! I'm doing everything
by the book and all my customers (150+) keep getting the customer info from
only one select customer, i.e. ABC Company, DEF Company and etc. keeps
getting the past due info for XYZ. Now a good amount of our first time
customers think we're running a failed fishing scam"

I did an upgrade the week before Christmas and all products are up to date. I just got some more information from the client and it actually the Adagio eMail Cover Sheet in Contacts that is scrambling the information. If he emails a customer individually, it all works just fine. But when he does a scan and generates an email from that scan, it's picking up info from ONE customer and inserting that data into the body of all of the customer emails.

Has anyone had issues with this and if so, how did you resolve?

Many thanks,
Carol

Hi Carol,

Thank you for reporting this to us, and for the additional information that focuses the issue to the Email Cover Sheets. This would be very frustrating.

We will look into what is happening for the next SalesCQ upgrade, to see if we can make this somewhat less nightmarish.

So are you saying this is a confirmed problem in the system --- and that there will not be a hot fix to resolve, until the next release??? When might that be?

I shudder to think of how my client is going to react to this. Please tell me I'm mistaken! Otherwise, watch for a mushroom cloud coming from Maryland.

Can someone kindly reply to yesterday's question? I need to know the following:

1. Confirm that this is bug in Contacts Email Cover Sheets and that there is not a resolution or work around currently
2. Give me a general ETA for a fix - will there be a hot fix / update / or will we have to wait for the next upgrade

I need to get back to my client ASAP.

Thanks in advance,
Carol

Hi Carol,

The report we had was from 7 years ago and had to do with emailing both Customers and Prospects simultaneously. At the time, we were told that the workaround was to email customers and prospects in 2 separate processes, not together. If your client is scanning both customers and prospects, this workaround is what I would suggest.

From the initial description, it appeared that only customers were being emailed, so I didn't want to cloud the situation and say that what was happening could not happen.

As we are currently working on the next upgrade, I do not anticipate a hot fix coming. Especially since the required changes in that report 7 years ago were indicated as difficult and significant.

Thanks for the reply.

No, he is using Sales CQ for collections -- only customers are being scanned. His scan is to pick customers that are over 30 days, over 60, etc. The emails differ based upon how far overdue they are. I don't believe that they even use prospects, but I will confirm.

Do you have a ETA for release? I understand that this could change, I know how that works. As you can imagine, he is pretty unhappy because this screw up made them look pretty bad to newer customers who though they were trying to scam them. I need to give my client something.

I have confirmed that my client has NO prospects, as he has used Sales CQ exclusively as a collection tool for existing customers.

Can you confirm that you have actually tested this recently and can recreate the issue? Do you need me to upload my client data for your testing?

Our point here is that IF there is a work around, we want it now, rather than waiting for a future release which we have no idea of that release date in question.

Thanks in advance,
Carol

What version of Adagio Contacts/SalesCQ is your client using?

I do not replicate the problem your client is experiencing, when using SalesCQ 8.1C to email a Mail Merge. However admittedly, I have a completely different problem where database fields are not translated at all on email cover sheets, though everything works as expected in the mail merge document attachment. This is why I waited for confirmation to the question of using prospects, in case they are using a much older version of Contacts that doesn't do this.

This is all I can provide without more direction from R&D.

With regards to Email Covers, the duplication of field names could be causing problems. For example, a field like <<address 1>> could be coming from the customer or prospect. The quote fields are already uniquely named. This will be changed for the next release.

They are running 8.1C 150226.

To repeat -- this client has NO prospects. They use SalesCQ exclusively for collections. That said, the Prospects has been checked when they do a scan. I'm trying to test this without checking the prospect checkbox.

However.

In trying to troubleshoot this w/ a copy of my client's data, I'm having an issue installing SalesCQ on my laptop. (Can this get any more annoying!?)

I'm getting an error during the install:

VESapiCOM.exe - Entry Point Not Found.
The procefue entry point PrivateCoInternetCanonicalizeUri could not be located in the dynamic link library
c:\windows\system32\urlmon.dll

I figured I'd try to run it anyway and unsurprisingly it did not work. I get that "this workstation needs to be updated" error. Running the WS update does not resolve.

I'm trying to install the current version on a Windows 8.1 laptop.Other Adagio modules have installed w/o issue.

PLEASE HELP!

Hi Carol,

I bet that even having the Prospects checkbox on will trigger the bad results, even though no prospects are to be included.

For the install, if you have a Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 machine, you won't be able to install the vitalEsafe add-on - it's discontinued anyway. Try renaming the \softrak\system\vitalesafe folder and then starting SalesCQ.

I don't expect this to happen, but if workstation setup also fails on the AdagioPDF printer driver install, then a (hopefully unnecessary) step to rename the \softrak\system\AdagioPDF folder might also be needed.

The client is running 8.1C 150226.

I believe I got my workstation running. Not sure how. For some reason, my results are pretty bad too -- i tested a scan and sent 20 emails and the cover sheet comes across with the field names such as:

Account # <<Cust #>>

<<Name>>
<<Address 1>>
<<Address 2>>, <<Zip/Postal>>

Dear <<Customer Optional Text 2>>,

Your account currently has a past due balance in the amount of
$<<Balance Outstanding>>.

etc.

So for some reason, on my system, I am not even getting any fields to merge. Not sure why. I would like to get to the bottom of this so that I can advise my client. Needless to say, he's a little gun shy to go "trying it again" and hope he gets the right results.

Thanks in advance,
Carol

Hi Carol,

Yes, those results are exactly what I have seen as well. As Bob indicated earlier in the thread, there is likely confusion in the program in duplication of merge field names and thus nothing happens. You are not doing anything wrong, nor is your system incorrect.

Also as Bob indicated, it will take renaming those field names in the Email Cover setup to be unique across Customer. Prospect (and Quote if used) in order to get this to work correctly.

If it is at all possible to somehow avoid using field names in the email cover setup, that is really the only way to go until this can be dealt with better.

Good morning,

FYI, when I ran my test, I deselected the Prospects checkbox when I ran my scan.

Please clarify --
>> If it is at all possible to somehow avoid using field names in the email cover setup, that is really the only way to go until this can be dealt with better.<<

So you're saying that we should make the cover completely generic as a work around? That's not going to make my client real happy as he wants the client info (balance outstanding, etc.) to be in the body of the email. I guess he can't have that for now?

Furthermore -- the results that I had gotten (above) is not what my client had gotten. As stated in the first message in this thread, he had over 140 emails go out and it picked data from one of his customers and populated the email cover with this data for ALL of them. You can read the first message to get the details.

Finally - once again, do we have a general time frame for release of the next version??

I look forward to your reply.

Regards,
Carol

Hi Carol,

I'll just remind you that ALL of the functionality that you and your client are looking for is available in Receivables, with the added benefit of automatically attaching unpaid invoices to the emails.

Hi Carol,

To clarify my comments:

If the end result of emailing from the scan list shows <<Name>> or <<Contact>> in the email, due to having these in the Email Cover Sheet, then this is not desirable to use. With what's currently shipping, I cannot devise a better workaround other than removing those fields.

If the end result of emailing from the scan list for your client's version is giving desirable results, when removing Prospects from selection, then by all means continue to proceed as is.

I cannot give an explanation for why your client is getting one set of results, as compared to what you and I have seen using SalesCQ 8.1C (20150226), if your client is using the same version as what you testing with. Because I cannot replicate the exact incorrect behaviour of having customer information from the wrong customer appear in the email body due to the cover sheet, I cannot definitively say what is happening. I do know that what your client saw was found once, 7 years ago in an internal test, not reported by any other client or consultant.

Shipping the upgrade for SalesCQ is at the top of our R&D priority right now. A 'general' time frame may be a couple of months or less - it is not an imminent release measured in days. I cannot get more specific than that, as it all depends on what else pops up, either in R&D for SalesCQ or other problems that may arise is other Adagio programs.

Hello Andrew and all,
I understand all of that and it's a great feature in AR, no question. Absolutely agreed.

HOWEVER, that's not exactly the point. My client uses scans and then sends emails based upon these scans, updating the notes with "email sent" or "letter written" -- he not only sees great value in this functionality, but depends upon it. An AR statement run will not update notes in Sales CQ or fulfill the requirements he has for collections -- which Sales CQ does (almost).

So, basically I'll have to tell him that the feature will not work for now. (I don't think I'll tell him that this bug has been a known issue for 7 years, that will not win either of us any popularity points here.)

Sigh.

In any case, thank you for the additional information. I do appreciate the replies. I also understand that you cannot give me an exact release date, I've been at this long enough to know that. But, it looks like you are targeting for Q1 2017 and that is helpful information.

Regards,
Carol

Hi Carol,

Adagio Receivables will update the Notes with a "Statement sent" note automatically. The option is in the Company Profile for Receivables. This is the same Notes that SalesCQ is referencing for a Customer, so would be available to people accessing the Customer through SalesCQ.

Ok. That's good info and I'll relay that information.

However -- there's always a however, isn't there -- he wants to send different emails based on the scan criteria in SalesCQ.I don't know how many other customers use that feature as heavily as he does.

You can choose the cover sheet and statement/letter format for each run (scan list).

Hi Carol,

SalesCQ 92A (170221) has revisions for Coversheets. From the Release notes:

Fields on Email Cover Sheets, where the same field exists in customers, prospects and quotes, such as the Salesperson, are now loaded as expected. The name of the field from the quote has been changed to include the word “Quote” (e.g. Quote Salesperson). The Prospect Data section has been removed. Use the Customer Data section instead. The fields will be loaded from the Prospect if the quote is for a Prospect.

NOTE: You may need to adjust your existing Cover Sheets.