Welcome to Designing Letters Carol Speckman Columbus City Schools eSIS allows you to write and send customized form letters. This presentation demonstrates how to view, create, and print letters in eSIS for each student with information specific to their student record. eSIS can generate many types of letters ranging from standard preformed letters to letters for a specific occasion. Users will be able to save the created letters to be reused in the future.

Accessing Design Letters To access the design letter function, click on the School Menur>Deign Letters.

Letter Level Letters can be created at the district or school level. Only users with the certain eSIS permissions can enter district-level letters for all schools to be able to use.

View Existing Letters Any user can see any letter at any level.  

View Existing Letters A number of letter templates have been made available, or you may wish to create your own letters. In the Letter Selection screen, any letters previously created display on the screen. To view an existing letter, highlight the line for that letter then click the Select button. You can insert codes in these letters that act as pointers to information in the database.

Print a District Letter When you enter a letter at a particular level (School level), the letter that populates the associated form in eSIS will display with an S: preceding it. District created letters appear with a D: preceding the letter name and Enterprise created letters with an E for those districts using the Enterprise Level. D: Indicates District Letter

Codes Merge into Letter The codes are replaced by words based on each student’s demographic record.

Create a New Letter The ability to add/edit letters is tied to the user’s security. A School level user would not have the ability to add/edit letters created at the District or Enterprise levels. A District level user would not have the ability to add/edit letters created at the Enterprise level.  Today, we will talk about creating a new school letter.

Title the Letter Select the Letter Level Click the Add button to Type a descriptive name for the letter>Select a Category Code which associates the letter with the area in eSIS and narrows down the letters that will display in different eSIS Function areas If appropriate, select an AAL program. This allows you to associate a letter to that particular form. Type a number for the letter. This will be the order in which the letters appear on the various Letter selection forms in eSIS If you want a history of the letter being printed to be saved to STU172 All Student Correspondences, select the Log? button Save your letter identification by clicking on the Save button.

Type the Letter To type in the body of your letter, edit a letter or copy a letter, highlight the letter name and click on the Select button. The Letter Input Window appears.

Or Copy & Paste from MS Word No Formatting Bold Italics Underline You may also copy and paste the letter text from another program.

Add Merge Codes Click on the Codes button to access a list of available Student Codes and Application Codes that you can insert in the letter.

Select Merge Codes &NAME Demographics Different Application Codes Highlight, copy and paste the code you want in the letter. The left side of the codes screen houses codes to pull fields related to student demographics information The right side houses fields related to different application fields in eSIS (i.e. date, principal name, school phone umber, school address, incident date. etc.

Paste the Code &NAME Use the Control Key + V to paste the code in the letter.

Add Additional Merge Codes

Codes Point to eSIS Data You can insert codes in these letters that act as pointers to information in the database.

Test on Your School’s Letterhead Line and Spacing Formatting Can be manually corrected Print a Couple of Copies To test your school’s letterhead

How to Print the Letter To print the letter, access Reports icon on the Start Screen Select the Mailings and Labels Report Group. In Associated Reports, double-click on Letters. The Run Report Window for Letters appears. In the Run Report Window for Letters follow the steps to choose or define an extract described earlier in Running a Report with a Full Extract and Running a Report with a Specific Extract. When you have selected the type of extract you want for the letter, click on the Run Report button. The Parameter Form Window (Report Heading) for Letters appears. Select the letter you want from the drop down list. Click on the Print button.

Mailings and Labels

Select Letter

Run Extracts & Report When you have selected the type of extract you want for the letter, click on the Run Report button. The Parameter Form Window (Report Heading) for Letters appears.

Select the Letter Select the letter you want from the drop down list.

Finished Product

Copy District Letter Text Users can also copy the District Letter text

Into a School Letter And then pasted into a School Letter…

Customize It then customize it for their school. For example, an assistant principal may want their signature line and phone number included below the principal’s signature line in the letter..

Copy School Level Title the Letter Category Code Unique Number Save District Level Open the Letter Select the Text Edit Copy

Paste School Level Click on Letter Title Click Select Paste the Text Letter Input Area Save School Level Edit Text Insert Codes Save

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