CollateBox Blog

Combine two lists and feed it to a single mail merge data source

Mail Merge is the de-facto way of sending emails to a set of contacts. There are multiple tools out there to enable this task but that’s not the issue we are going discuss here. The biggest concern people have is finalizing on that list of filtered email Ids to whom they want to send the email. Yes, spreadsheets can be used for this purpose but it requires quite a lot of manual intervention.

Recently, Mike from Dublin, Eastern California took advantage of Combined Lists. He realized this can be quite handy to get his contacts sorted before he can go about with his standard Mail Merge.

Mike, who is an event coordinator wanted to send out an invite for his latest event to all the registrants who have earlier attended his event in Dublin and are below the age of 26.

Mostly dependent on spreadsheets, Mike wanted something better and easier this time. He already had two spreadsheets, one with his online registrations details and the other being the event attendance sheet. Both had Email ID and Name common in them. Mike brought these lists inside CollateBox and made use of the “Combined Lists” option to create a new view of his registrations list combined with the event names and location from the event attendance list.

Once this new list was ready, he just applied a filter on location and date of birth to select only the registrants who are below age of 26 and had attended the earlier event in Dublin. That’s all; he then exported the view, fed the contacts into Outlook and sent out the invites using standard mail merge function.

As Mike used Combined Lists, he saved a lot of time and energy from dribbling between multiple spreadsheets. Moreover, we realized CollateBox has more potential than we’ve ever thought and our users are already exploring few of them.

Check out our Forum post and see How to combine data lists using CollateBox?

Also share how you are making use of Combined List; we’ll be happy share your story here.

More for later…

 

- Santa

 

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Creating a basic Master Detail using CollateBox

Creating a basic Master Detail using CollateBox

Working with a single list has its own limitations. As the business grows the capability to work with multiple lists together becomes more and more crucial. Let us take the example of an Order & Dispatch scenario.

I have been working with two different lists, a Customer List and an Order List. Now, that I have already aligned my orders I want to make a delivery list quickly and send it to the dispatch team. Having both lists in separate spreadsheets the only option is to manually match the order numbers with the customer details and create a separate sheet.

If I were to go for an application this would be a classic case for a master-detail relationship, but I’m not ready for that yet. CollateBox provides a rather elegant way to achieve this. Something it calls “Combined Lists”.  I only have to tell it whats common between the Order List and Customer List (the order number) and it does the rest. I now have a Delivery List (view) without repetitive data.

Wondering how we did it? Check out how to create a basic Master Details using CollateBox. We have written a detailed post for you in our forum.

This Order Delivery list can be further used to do multiple analyses and find out the count of orders per location, which customer is giving us more business, and much more. Well, this is just the beginning. I’ll expand more on this on my subsequent posts on this subject.

Tada for now,

- Santa

 

 

How do you simplify data sharing while being secured?

As business data has evolved, so have the methods of data protection. From multinationals focusing on administration and network level security to individuals depending on simpler methods, data security has become an integral part of our business lifestyle. Plus, when there is “big data” involved the level of security is much more complex. But most businesses run on simpler data. 

They have shared repositories or servers where individuals share their documents, spreadsheets and other files to be accessed by others. But here too the level of security is quite complex and requires system administrators, managers and users. Most often it is limited to intra-networks and is difficult to share data with the outer world such as vendors, customers, etc.

What if, I want to have a control over my own data, share with whom I want, share what I want and remove the share when I’m done?

Let’s say, I have a list of Inventories. I would like to share only the due items with my vendor (A), ‘A’ can then share the items he requires to two of his sub-vendors (B & C). This creates a chain of security where the one who shares the data has control over the shared data. You can also call it a hierarchical system of sharing data. ‘A’ has the control to revoke a share from any of the sub-vendors ‘B’ or ‘C’ but not from me. But, if I revoke a share from ‘A’, both the ‘B’ & ‘C’ shares are automatically revoked and they will not be able to see any data. Now this would make life much easier where every user is responsible for what he shares. Isn’t it?

Data Sharing Hierarchy and Control

 

Well, how do you secure your shared data and who is responsible for shared data in your business? Will love to have your thoughts on the subject and know more about methods of sharing which others follow today…

 

Best,

Santa

We are building more tolerance, come and give us more feedback!

For those who have been thinking about  -“my data is not clean” there is good news. We are working towards adding more tolerance in the system. 

From now onwards, a single column of data does not have to be in text or numbers format for CollateBox to get you started. You could bring in a combination of things inside CollateBox via a simple copy and paste. We know how your shared users would have added data in a column and so, collateBox takes a more open approach to data and helps you to move forward to the next step.

Though we might only allow you to see your data as numbers or text inside CollateBox, you will soon have the flexibility to change the data types as per your needs or merge/split and bring in a bit more structure. We think this is only the beginning to many interesting ways to start working with not so clean data.  

We would like to know your thoughts on the subject and what are those things you especially need and miss today. Drop us a line and tell us what you think...

 Best, 

 

Sunny

What Customers Hope & What Customers Get

There is a gap between what customers hope & what they get. And, this gap can define satisfaction levels of your customers. While firms & marketers try to sell hard on first one (What customers hope), they disregard second one (What customers get); this leads to dissatisfaction.

P.S.: Selling yourself short on second one over first one can give you an edge, positive or negative, manner is time bounded.

The reason for us to write this is, to give our customers a bird’s eye view of what CollateBox offers, so that we don’t overhype and make false promises.

 

CollateBox allows you to collaborate on lists without creating and e-mailing copies. It significantly reduces bytes of storage, effort, cost and time. 

We have spoken a lot about the core product, now let me just share with you some augmented benefits.

• Attach files, images, and comments on every record-  Your team members get to open and view the files and even add comments for others to discuss 
• Data collection using cool online forms- You can click & generate white-labeled online forms and share it with your customers, partners and employees instantly
• Track changes made on the data- See WHO changed your data, WHEN did the change occur and WHAT data was changed in your existing data
• Data summary and visualization - painful to create pivots and write complex macros to analyze data? Work your way out with just a click

There is more which is not mentioned here, all up to you to figure it out.

Now if we go back to where we started, I will say this is what we give to our customers.

You have all heard WYSIWYG "what you see is what you get", but CollateBox has tweaked this to WYGIWYS “what you get is what you’ve seen”.
Picked it from DEMO Conference last year where we launched.

Enjoy collating with us!!!

Share your experience…

 

- Athar Ankalgi

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Good and going forward...

Night is darkest before the dawn and I promise the dawn is coming!

Sharing crumbs of data easier than sharing crumbs of bread!!!