Help@lacc-smp.org

Letters Form:  HOW DO I Process Letters from Sponsors and Responses from Students?

The Letters Form supports the following process:

Record receipt of sponsor letters from the SCO and prepare schools lists and letterhead for students.

1. After an mdb file is processed on the Process mdb form, letter transactions for that MDB code appear in the sub-form on the Letters form, From Sponsor tab for all LACC correspondence from sponsors.  If you administer other sponsorship programs, you will need to enter letter transactions manually following these instructions: Entering non-LACC Letters Manually.

2. When the SCO packet arrives to the country office, return to the Letters form.  The MDB packet code will appear in the orange box.  By default, the code for the last MDB file processed appears in the MDB code box.  However, the user may access earlier letter transactions by selecting an earlier code from the MDB code drop-down box.

3. Put a check mark in the Received box for each sponsor letter received.  Note: Any letters left unchecked at the time of the following MDB file will automatically be assigned the MDB packet code for that following MDB file.

4. Press the Process and Create Packet button.  This assigns the packet code in the orange box to the group of letters that were checked as received.

5. The packet code will now appear in the Packet drop-down box in the yellow Letters from Sponsors box.  Previous codes may also be selected.

6. Press the Letter List button to preview and print the letter lists to be sent to schools with the student letterhead.

7. Press the Letterhead for Students or Letterhead for Students Photo button to preview the report.  This is a one page per student report formatted to use student letterhead.  The Publisher file with letterhead ideas can be download from the SMP website (http://lacc-smp/files/LetterheadIdeas.zip).  Note: The photo letterhead has a slightly different format.  Insert the appropriate student response letterhead into the printer and print the report.  Each country can develop this letterhead to taste.  Larger programs may want to have various pieces of letterhead with different graphics.  It is important that the area where the information prints be left blank.  These letters are then distributed to the schools with the list as a cover and distributed to students to write a letter to their sponsor and return the letter to the country sponsorship office.

8. Send student letterhead with cover lists to each school to requests letters from students.

Enter Receipt of Letters from Students.

1. Click on tab From Students to view the table that contains a record of each sponsor letter received for which there is no letter of response from the student to his sponsor. 

2. Record receipt of response letters from students by putting a check mark in the Received box.

3. Press the Process button.

4. Note: The report Outstanding Letters, available on the From Sponsor tab is a report of all records in the From Students table.

Prepare Student Letters Packet and Send to the SCO.

1. Click on the Send to SCO tab in form Letters where you'll find a table of student letters you have received in the Student Letters to SCO box.

2. Enter a packet code (orange box) or accept the default code (today's date).  If you will be accumulating letters over a several day period, you may want to let letters accumulate in the table before proceeding to the next steps OR use the same packet code during those days.

3. Put a check mark in all letters you will be including in the next letter packet to the SCO.

4. Press the Process button that assigns the packet code to all records with a check mark in the Send box.  That packet code should automatically appear in the Packet drop-down box.  Or choose a previous packet.

5. Press the Letters List to SCO button to print the report.  Include a copy of the report as a cover letter with the student letters sent.

6. Verify Internet connection.

7. Press the Upload data file to server button.  A copy of the Letters Packet data file is copied to both the lacc\export folder and the SMP server.  The file in the export folder will have this format mmddyy,xxExportLettersList.txt, where xx is the country number.

8. Press the Send email advisory to SCO button.  The file format box will appear.  Select Rich Text Format (default) or Snapshot format.  An email advisory message should open and the report file will be attached.  A message may be included with the email.  Note: Some email programs may interrupt the automatic opening of an email message.  If this occurs, give permission to open and send the email.  If it doesn't open, it may be automatically put in the outbox of your email program.  If this is how your email program works, it is strongly suggested that you turn off the feature that automatically sends messages when they arrive to the outbox.

9. Press send after verifying that the email message will be sent to DataTables@LACCOffice.org and your rep.

Entering non-LACC Letters Manually

Go to the bottom of the letter sub-form where the asterisk appears as the record indicator.  Follow these instructions to enter a record for each letter received:

1. Click in the Tracking field.  Enter the tracking code.  Suggested format:  3-letter designation for the program (CCP for example) and a 4-digit number (0001, 0002, etc.; the 4-digit number should be unique for each record)

2. Tab to the Student ID field and enter the student number.  The drop-down box provides the student-sponsor combination for all active students.

3. Tab to the Sponsor ID field and enter the sponsor number.  The drop-down box indicates the sponsor currently assigned to the student.

4. Tab to the Sub-sponsor ID field and enter the sub-sponsor number.  The drop-down box indicates the sub-sponsor number of the sponsor that is currently sponsoring the student.

5. Tab to the LetterID field and enter a unique number.  Suggested format:  99 plus the letterID number that appears above (for example, 99115823).

6. Return to #3 in Record Receipt of Sponsor Letters above.