Losing OBDC connection when replacing strings

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Eyez
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Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2006 1:30 am

Losing OBDC connection when replacing strings

Post by Eyez »

Hi there,

Hope you can help me with this one....
I am maintaining a set of documents and subdocuments that are linked through an OBDC connection (Mail Merge) to an MS Access DB, which in turn is linked to an ASP page in our CRM tool, where analysts can fill in information before sending out a document to a customer.

When I am evaluating this application to replace text strings in bulk, the revised document however no longer has these ODBC connection.
So even though I can replace text strings in bulk, I would have to go back in each document to recreate the link.

This happens both when making a replace in one of the document's field codes, as when replacing a simple text string in the MS Word document.

The backup document does keep the ODBC link once resetting it to a .doc file...
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Post by DataMystic Support »

Was this with WordPipe? Which version? Which version of MS Word are you using?

What search/replace settings did you use?
Eyez
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Post by Eyez »

Indeed with Wordpipe, v4.9. Evaluation pack

Using MS Word 2003 (11.6568.6568) SP2

Settings applied:
Normal Search
Search location: Body Headers and Footers

Inside Field Codes = ticked
No other setting changes.
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Post by DataMystic Support »

It's impossible to tell without seeing the document and the actual search/replace performed. Can you please email them to us?
Eyez
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Post by Eyez »

Hi Simon,

I sent you 2 test scenarios to clarify the problem.

1 set trying to replace a text-only document

1 set trying to replace a string in a document including field code.



The bak files are the originals, when renaming them to doc and opening them you will notice they try to link to a data source.

The .doc files are obviously the replaced ones and as you can see they no longer have this connection.



Hope this will help to clarify.
Eyez
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Post by Eyez »

I also have now provided you with some screenshots on the steps I have when opening the original document, which has an ODBC data source connection to an MS Access DB on a remote server.

Since you do not have access to this remote server, the message you will get however will offer you the options to re-define the data source connection or to remove merge info.

As you can also see the replaced docs no longer attempt to make this connection.

I have an important project rolling out end of this month for which I need this kind of software, so I would appreciate if you can tell me how to circumvent, or whether or not it is worthwhile for me to purchase this Wordpipe version to this end.
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Post by DataMystic Support »

Ah - mail merge! Sorry, for some reason I thought you were embedding linked data somehow and I couldn't find it.

WordPipe doesn't change any of the mail merge settings (although an old version did try to do this). If WordPipe encounters a mail merge data source that does not exist, Microsoft Word will prompt you for it before continuing.

We provide a document in WordPipe's install folder called 'dummy mailmerge data.doc' that can be used for this purpose.
Eyez
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Post by Eyez »

Hi Simon,

Not sure to understand what you are explaining...

Indeed mailmerge field codes are maintained, however it is the data source connection that is being lost.
You can see this from the examples I have sent you...the original (.bak) file is trying to recognize a connection, the replaced (.doc) file no longer attempts this.

Without this connection, the document cannot import the values from the Access mdb.

Here's how it works.
Our agents are sending documents through an ASP page in our CRM tool.
In this ASP page they can fill in certain fields for some templates.
This data + fixed data relating to a specific customer's problem case in our SQL DB is filled in an Access DB.

This Access DB has both the parameters described above, as information on which templates are available and which parameters are related to which templated.

This Access DB in turn is linked to a Fulfilment Service on a remote server which processes all documents being sent out by the agents, and the Word documents have a data source connection to this same Access DB.

Step1 : Linking to the required document and merging the DB data into the document mailmerge fields
Step2 : Processing the document, either through our exchange server (email), faxination server (fax), or spooling it on our local printer (letter)

Losing the data source connection disables the possibility for the fulfilment service to perform these operations as no data can be imported.

I am not sure what I am supposed to do with this dummy mailmerge data.doc file.
I am talking about +1000 documents being sent out on daily basis to customers, while the documents are composed of IncludeText fields and tens of parameters being merged from the Access DB
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Post by DataMystic Support »

Hi Peter,

You’re exactly right.

We’ve added a new option to display alerts from Microsoft Word – this has the by-product of allowing mail merge data sources to be opened, rather than removed.
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