Allow mailmerge using SharePoint (and/orOneDrive) based lists and document
Allow Office 365 Word/Excel mailmerge functionality when the files are stored on SharePoint (Online or on-premises).
As per: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_sharepoint-mso_winother-msoversion_other/word-mail-merge-with-excel-document-in-a/81cd913e-9a57-4bf8-99ca-a766b57b2531
The Office client people I know seem to think this is a SharePoint Online limitation, while the SharePoint people seem to think the Office client team need to sort this.
Bob Grahame
shared this idea
23 comments
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Anonymous
commented
I think MS are very evasive about this. I have seen some attempts at getting a straight answer from them but no-one has got one. It seems hard to believe that products such as Power BI and Power Query can easily connect and re-connect to data sources stored in sharepoint and yet somehow Word can't? I think word mailmerge is still the best and most flexible merge product out there (if someone knows of something as good that can work with data sources saved in sharepoint then please tell us). I particularly like that it can be used as an efficient archive and database of letters/documents sent/produced (much better than huge pdfs or rtf files) available in an easily searchable and familiar format. Why are MS not making this, it seems to me, basic capability available? Is there a real engineering difficulty or is this about marketing? Is there some other capability in Office365/sharepoint that MS believes has made Word merge obsolete? If there is what is it (one that works in the real world too where some people, still quite a lot actually, aren't reachable electronically? I think they should explain, but, they never do.
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Viv
commented
I think that Microsoft have missed a massive trick here! Office has had this functionality for yonks and now it has been taken away.. wondering if this is going the "apple way" where they take away functionality, get a 3rd party to develop it and you end up having to pay a subscription to a 3rd party for something that you used to be able to do with a few clicks and no additional cash expense?
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Kate Skrobava
commented
It should be one of the major priorities to find a solution, as most of the database files are stored currently on SharePoint and it brings a lot of limitations for optimizing work. I am greatly surprised that it hasn't been implemented yet.
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Sue Neilson
commented
We are looking to move our network shares to SharePoint but this throws up a big question about whether it is a good strategic move. It seems such a ridiculous restriction, removing functionality that is so widely used and should be so simple. Wonder what other features we will lose....
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C. Orr
commented
Our IT department is pointing all of the users to OneDrive and Sharepoint by default. I can get graphical reports from Sharepoint via PowerBI (what a hassle to pick out only the spreadsheets I need when 25 users have been using the site for 3 months, though!) and I can still get to the file servers via the VPN but at this rate I will soon be unable to mass-produce letters, personalised feedback reports and emailed appointments. We will have to go back to the 1980s and re-employ a typing pool!
Genuine question: How come PowerBI can retrieve data from Excel files on Sharepoint, but Word can't? -
Roland
commented
Que c'est nul qu'on ne puisse pas faire du publipostage depuis une source en emplacement http, notamment pour les entreprises sur leur réseau perso intranet..???
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Barstow Phillips
commented
This is a widely used function for our administrative assistants. Having to download the file first is not intuitive or convenient and syncing the entire document library is not feasible (128 GB for most workstations). Our users end up downloading the Excel document or adding it to their OneDrive and they no longer receive the updates others contribute.
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Caty Hespel
commented
I read a suggestion by a microsoft moderator that syncing the library would solve the problem, but this is not an option in my case as this library contains thousands of sensitive personel files that should not be stored on local computers.
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dario
commented
Mail merge da Share point, e' una funzione importante per non dover sempre fare il download in locale dei file per il mail merge
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GODIN
commented
Hi,
This should be a great progress in this COVID time ... -
Pia
commented
I'm so frustrated that this cannot be done. At my workplace we need to use the Sharepoint option for the excel-file but it now seems that we cannot create a mail merge ...
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Ben W
commented
Ditto
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Carlos Morales Lemus
commented
Hi,
Please enable functionality "Allow mailmerge using SharePoint (and/orOneDrive) based lists and document". -
Anonymous
commented
Bonjour,
Je souhaiterais pouvoir réaliser des publipostages entre des tableaux excel et word.
Merci d'avance -
Sarnst
commented
unfortunatly this is still an issue in Office365. When synching the doc lib it work refering to the XLS on the machine... however no one else can open then the word doc... We have teams who need to Share as that's the whole point :-)
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Shoaib
commented
I have a similar issue. I agree that OneDrive sync works but it only works for one individual. I have a mail merge Word file with Excel dataset that my team use. It was working fine when our data was on the local server but since we moved to SharePoint, the links stopped working. I updated links for my machine's OneDrive synced copy now and it works for me but my team can't use it as their OneDrive synced copies have different address of the Excel dataset.
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Rob Short
commented
We use the OneDrive sync client to sync the doc lib containing the Excel file sync'ed locally. Then we can browse to the file and use it for merging. Agreed it would be useful to be able to do it natively without using the sync client though but by no means is this not doable.
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Rob Nicholson
commented
I'm not sure which team is responsible for the Excel/Access ODBC connector - could be Windows 10 team, could be Office team
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Rob Nicholson
commented
I don't think this is an SharePoint document library issue as such as there are obviously functions available to allow Office to open documents from SharePoint. However, mail merge appears to use a Windows function to interface in with the data source - guessing maybe ODBC as that's used to interface databases with mail merge. So I'm guessing that it's the Excel/Access ODBC connector that can't handle HTTP based documents: https://i.imgur.com/jDp6MO7.png
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Rob Nicholson
commented
I am totally and utterly flabbergasted that Word/Office cannot use mail merge when the source Excel document is stored in SharePoint. When I user asked me about this, I thought "Of course, it'll work" but when I try it, you a) can't browse SharePoint and b) if you have a network location mapped (WebDAV), you can't use that either.
Office 365 is Microsoft's cash cow these days but there are still so many features that don't work.
Come on Microsoft - you are in control of Office, Office 365 and the operating system. This is such a basic requirement.
