14 of 31  (c) 2008

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The Merged RISC Form Letter to Send to Parents

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We had Phillip Brown's contact record on the screen in RISC and selected the Student Work Contract Letter that we created earlier.  This is the end result: a professional quality, fully addressed letter to the parents that they would never pick as being a form letter, and it all happened with just a few clicks of the mouse.  The Contact Action field has been merged in from RISC and has automatically been set as blue italics because that's how we formatted the field when we created the form letter mask. 

Once the form letter is in MS Word, we can make any changes we like to it before we print it.  You can correct simple errors or change the whole thing if you like, or just add a personal note somewhere that may only be applicable to this particular letter.  The Form Letters Module is not only efficient, it's flexible too!

Notice at the top right, the RISC Controls Toolbox.  While it contained several tools when we were designing the form letter mask, there are only three tools needed now:  Print RISC Form Letter, Save This Letter and Close MS Word & Return to RISC.  But because this is MS Word, you also have full access to every other aspect of MS Word if you need it.  For example, MS-Word has detected that we made a typo on the Contact Action field and has underlined it in green for our attention.  It should say "Phillip understands..."  Any spelling mistake or poor grammar in the text typed into the Contact Description and Action fields in RISC would come across into the form letter.  But with MS-Word, you can always use the Spelling and Grammar Checkers to correct your letter before printing! You can even e-mail the letter directly from MS-Word, (providing you know the parent's e-mail address) - Now that might be handy!  The Save This Letter option was new in v7 of RISC and is perfect for keeping electronic copies of actual letters sent to parents.  They are saved with the filename being the Contact number, so they can be easily retrieved for reference purposes if required.

Let's now assume that we clicked the Print RISC Form Letter and we have a nice, crisp form letter in our hands ready to mail off.  What happens now that we've finished with the Form Letters Module?