The 'Non Mailable Records' functionality is designed to search for, flag and report specifically on records containing 'mail exclusion' words. The user can add, remove or edit mail exclusion words as required. In addition, mail exclusion words can be grouped together where they represent similar exclusion types. For example, "HMP" and "Prison" can both be added to the same group, as could "Goneaway" or "Moved".
mDesktop performs the search for mail exclusions during import, or when re-generating keys on a pre–imported DBF file. All input fields are searched.
When mail exclusion words are found in a file, they are listed and counts of each are displayed in mDesktop’s standard Data Summary report.
The user can browse the records containing mail exclusions by the type of exclusion, from mDesktop’s 'Import Details' dialog. So, using the previous example, the user could choose to browse all 'Prison' exclusions, which may display records containing words such as 'HMP', 'Prison', etc.
Adding/Removing Mail Exclusion words
All mail exclusion words must be added to mDesktop’s mail exclusions table; 'mail_exclusions.dbf'(located in the mDesktop’s DAT sub-folder). The easiest way to do this is to browse the table via View>View Table, from mDesktop’s main menu. Upon selecting mail exclusions table, it will be displayed on screen and can be edited as required. Of the five fields displayed, each field (except the 'COUNTS' field) must be populated by the user when a new mail exclusion word is added. A description of each field is as follows:
- EXCLUSION
Contains the actual mail exclusion word that mDesktop will search for in the input data. All entries here must be upper case. Limited to 10 characters.
- DESCRIPTIO
Contains a description specific to the exclusion word. This will be displayed in the Data Summary report. Limited to 40 characters.
- XTYPE
Contains a code, which will be copied into exclusion records within the working DBF file. Limited to 2 characters. Must be unique to each group/type of mail exclusions (not each individual exclusion word).
- TYPE_DESC
Contains a description of the exclusion group/type. All mail exclusion words in the same group, with the same XTYPE field value should have the same TYPE_DESC. This description will ultimately be displayed in the 'Import Details' dialog, where the user chooses the group/type of mail exclusions they wish to browse. Limited to 20 characters.
- COUNTS
This field is populated by mDesktop. It should not be modified by the user.
To add a new field to the mail exclusions table, select Table>Append New Record. To remove an exclusion word, simply delete the record from the table by clicking on the small deletion cell to the left of the record.
After updating the mail exclusions table as require, the mail exclusion words must also be added to (or removed from, depending on what you are doing) mDesktop ’s standard Names and Words table via Job/Setup>Names and Words. They should be categorized as type 'Exclusion'.
Enabling/Preventing Mail Exclusion in New Data Files
mDesktop will only ever scan for mail exclusions on a file, if the file contains a field labeled MAIL_FLAG. It is therefore essential to add this field during the Setup Wizard stage, before the import begins. You can enabled this feature by ticking the 'Generate Mail Exclusions Flag Field' option under 'Generate Additional Fields' in the Processing Options screen. This field is populated with the XTYPE codes from the 'Mail_Exclusions' table, where records contain mail exclusion words. It should therefore be added with a width of at least 20, to cater for records that may contain multiple mail exclusion words.
Where mail exclusion scanning is not required, it is not necessary to add this field.
Reporting of Mail Exclusions
Mail exclusions are displayed on the Data Summary report. The report shows the type of mail exclusion word present in the mail exclusions table, as well as the corresponding exclusion code, count of occurrences in the work file, and percentage of records in the file containing the exclusion word.
If the file that is being reported on is not the last file that had keys generated, mDesktop will re-count the mail exclusions. Therefore the report may take a little longer to produce than usual.
If a MAIL_FLAG field is not present in the dbf that is currently open, the Mail Exclusions section will not appear in the report at all.
The Mail Exclusions area of the Data Summary report is displayed below:
Browsing Records that contain Mail Exclusions
After importing a file of re-generating keys in a file, any records that are found to contain mail exclusions can be browsed via Import>Import Results>View Records By Category.
To browse a specific category of mail exclusion, tick the 'Use Mail Exclusions' tick-box in the bottom right-hand area of the screen. A drop-down menu will now be enabled, which is populated with each different mail exclusion type found in the mail exclusions table, as pictured below:
To browse records containing mail exclusion words falling into any of the categories listed, select the category and choose ‘Continue’. You can also modify the output options at the bottom of the main dialog if you wish to send the records to a separate DBF, report on them, or produce a PDF report displaying them.
If a MAIL_FLAG field is not present in the dbf that is currently open, the Mail Exclusions section will not appear in this dialog.
Maintenance
When re-installing mDesktop or moving mDesktop to a different machine, it is essential that both MAIL_EXCLUSIONS.DBF (located in the mDesktop root directory) and the DAT sub-folder are copied to the new installation. This will ensure that any customization carried out will not be lost.
It is also advisable to regularly make backup copies of these files, in case the mDesktop installation is accidentally removed or overwritten.