Sharing Student Information from Data Director Using the Microsoft Office Mail Merge Feature

1. Sharing Student Information fromData DirectorUsing the Microsoft Office Mail Merge Feature St. Clair County RESA Data Director Institute August 19, 2010 Cynthia Compton, District Learning Coach, Marysville Schools

2. Student Data • Data Director stores many types of student data pulled from multiple places. • You can create a report for a class, a school, or a district. • You can pull a complete individual profile for a student. • Data Director has the built-in capability to compile this type of information easily.

3. Sharing Student Data • Why not use the data and technological capabilities provided to make individual student reporting easier? • Use the data to automatically fill out required forms, letters, and reports.

4. Student Data In Data Director • Address & Phone Number • School & Teacher • Class Schedule • Attendance • Participation in Federal/State Programs • Demographics • Grades • MEAP scores • MME/ACT scores • District Assessments • Classroom Assessments • Anything else you would like to input…

5. Possible Uses for Mail Merging Data • Enrollment Forms • Parent Letters • Address Labels • Program Invitation Letters • Individual Monitoring Forms • Individual Score Reporting • Student Evaluation Forms • Custom Reporting Forms

6. Examples • Title I Parent Labels • After School Program Invitations • Summer School Material Requests • FLEP Student Forms • K-2nd Grade Literacy Profiles • PLAN/EXPLORE/ACT Parent Reports

7. Getting Started… • What information do you want to share? • Who will be receiving the information? • What will your Microsoft output will be? • Letter • Labels • Form • What Data Director Information will you need?

8. Let’s Try It… • We will go through the steps of the process together. * Slides 9- 21 of this presentation have step by step instructions for you to refer back to later. • First, let’s look at our information in Data Director www.achievedata.com/sccresa

9. 1. Build a Custom Data Director Report For detailed instructions on how to build a custom report go to the “Tools for Schools” section of the St. Clair County website and choose “Data Director”. http://www.sccresa.org/toolsforschools/datadirector/

10. 1a. Save the Report Choose to save the report as an Excel file.

11. 1b. Save the Report Choose the location to which you want to save the report. Rename the file something easy to identify.

12. 2. Create Your Microsoft Word Document Open Microsoft Word. You can choose to create the document first begin with the merge wizard or, use a previously save document

13. 3. Start the Mail Merge Process Go to the "Mailings" tab in the toolbar. Click on “Start Mail Merge”. Go down to the “Step by Step Mail Merge Wizard”.

14. 3a. Choose the Document • At this point you can choose to: • Use the current document • -or- • Open another document Choose the type of document you will use then click "Next: Starting document" at the bottom right of the page. Choose the document then click “Next: Select recipients”.

15. 3b. Select Recipients • You will use the Excel file saved from Data Director, so you want to “Use an existing list” and click “Browse…” • This will open up a "Select Data Source" box. • Find your previously saved Excel document. • Then "Open".

16. 3b. Select Recipients Click “OK” for both pop-up boxes. *If you want to delete any students or sort the list, you can do it here.

17. 3c. Select Recipients ·Then click "Next: Write your letter" at the bottom right of the page. *The type of document you are creating will show here…i.e. “labels” instead of “letter”

18. 4a-b. Insert Data Into the Document A. In the Word document, click the place you want to insert data. B. Then click "More items..." from the right Mail Merge menu. This will give you a box with a list of data fields.

19. 4c-d. Insert Data Into the Document C. Choose the fields you want to put in the spot where you placed the cursor. D. Click "Insert". *You will repeat steps 4 A - D for each piece of data you want to insert into the document.

20. 5. Preview Your Merged Documents Once you have inserted all of the data fields that you need, click "Next: Preview your letters" from the bottom right of the page. You will be able to preview the letters. As you change the recipient, the information (student name and scores) will change.

21. 6. Merge & Print From the bottom right of the page, click on "Next: Complete the merge". You are ready to print your merged documents. *You can even add notes to individual students by clicking "Edit individual letters...".

22. Time to Apply… • Think of one, simple thing you could apply this to for this year. • Student information cards for grouping or substitutes. • Parent letters • Student Labels • Follow the same steps to practice.

23. For More Information… Cindy Compton You can find this presentation at: www.protopage.com/ccompton “Data Director” tab • District Learning Coach, Marysville Schools • ccompton@marysvilleschools.us • (810) 455-6212 Resources for using the MS Mail Merge Feature: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/294683 (letters) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/294684 (labels)