Recommended Reading Before You Start

• Creating System Email and Letter Settings

Content

System Letters

System Letters are the "hard copy" version of System Emails. Once you have configured the content of your System Letters, see the System Email & Letter Defaults guide so that the CRM will add letters to your mail merge queue when someone has completed an action or transaction through your Neon system. For example, if John Doe makes a $10 donation, Neon will add a Donation Appreciation System Letter to your merge queue. 

There are two components to System Letters:

1. Letter Themes - this is where you design the "wrapper" for your letters, such as a header, footer, and appropriate margins.
2. System Letters - this is where you configure the content of your letters (i.e. "Dear John, Thank you for your donation to XYZ Foundation..."). Learn more about this below.

Types of System Letters

Account Letters

• Account Form Registration – send to a constituent after their account is created either via an Account Form or by a system user.
• Birthday – sends to a constituent on their birthday

Donation Letters

• Donation Anniversary – added to the mail merge queue on the anniversary of a donor's last donation. This letter is only sent if the donor has not made another donation in a year
• Donation Appreciation – send to donors after a successful donation (with payment).
• Donation Appreciation - Pay Later – send to donors who fill out the donation form, but say they will send payment at a later time. Learn how to enable the option to Pay Later here. 
• Recurring Donation Error Notice – notification of a problem with a recurring donation (e.g., expired credit card).

Event Letters

• Event Registration – send to an event registrant after they successfully register (with any required payment).
• Event Registration - Pay Later – send to event registrants who fill out the registration form, but say they will send payment at a later time.  Learn how to enable the option to Pay Later here. 
• Event Reminder – notifies registrants of an upcoming event. Added to the mail merge queue on a specified number of days in advance of the event start date. Edit the settings and versions to set the "Advanced Days".

Membership Letters

• Membership Registration – send to a member after they register for a new membership (with any required payment).
• Membership Registration - Pay Later – send to folks who fill out the membership form, but say they will send payment at a later time.  Learn how to enable the option to Pay Later here. 
• Membership Renewal Completion Notice – send to a member after they successfully renew a membership (with any required payment). 
• Membership Renewal Completion Notice - Pay Later – send to members who fill out the renewal form, but say they will send payment at a later time. Enable the Pay Later option.
• Membership Due  – added to the mail merge queue in advance of their membership expiration date. Specify Advanced Days to schedule how early it is sent.
• Membership Overdue - added to the mail merge queue a certain number of days after their membership has lapsed. Specify Advanced Days to schedule how long after the membership expires to send it.
• Membership Auto-Renewal Notice – send to a member before their membership is set to auto-renew. You specify the number of days in advance that you want this letter to enter the mail merge queue. 
• Membership Auto-Renewal Error Notice – notification of a problem with an auto-renewed membership (e.g., expired credit card).

Store Letters

• Purchase Acknowledgement – send to a constituent after a store purchase.
• Product Purchase - Pay Later – send for store orders who say they will send payment at a later time. 
• Shipping Notice – send to a constituent when a store order has been marked Shipped in Neon CRM

Configuring System Letters

Content for System Letters is configured very similarly to System Emails. To learn more about creating content for your System Letters, refer to the documentation for System Emails. 

1. To configure your System Letters content, navigate to Settings Icon and select Global Settings.

2. Under Communications, select System Letters.

3. All System Letters will be listed within the associated tab. Within the tab are the letter types.  Within this section you can:

• Activate or Deactivate the system letter by using the toggle.

Within the Actions Icon, you can:

• View the Default Version. The Default Version is the letter version that will send if no alternative conditions are met. View it from this page by clicking View next to the name of the Default Version. 
•  Add New Version
• Edit Settings & Versions

Activating and Deactivating System Letters

On the System Letters page, you can activate or deactivate system letters by using the Active switch next to each system letter type.

The Off setting will turn off the system letter entirely. It will not be sent even if the appropriate trigger occurs.

The On setting means that the system letter will send as appropriate depending on the settings selected in System Email & Letter Defaults.

Create Different Versions

Note that you can set up multiple versions (different content) and conditions (rules for which versions should be used for certain scenarios) for System Letters, just as you can with System Emails. Please note: You cannot edit the content of the Neon CRM Standard Version. In order to alter this version, first make a copy by selecting the three dot Action Menu at the right side of the letter row and select Copy Version on the drop-down menu. You can then make any adjustments to this version as needed.

From the letter type landing page, select the "Build New Version" button from within the versions section. 

You will enter the letter builder where you will answer a series of questions including, adding a version name, adding any conditions, and creating the content for your letter version. When finished, select Ready to Send.

Create Conditions

While only one version can be set as the default for each System Letter, you can set Conditions to send different versions to different types of constituents.

The version set as the Default is the one that will be sent out at the appropriate time, when no additional conditions are met. 

The process to set up a conditional system letter is:

1. Create a version of the letter that you want to be sent to your specific constituents
2. Create a New Condition
3. Specify the Version that will be sent to this group (or specify "Do not send to the mail merge queue for this special condition")
4. Specify the conditions that will determine who this Version is sent to.

To create a condition, Navigate to the system letter configuration page then click "New Condition" 

Give the condition a name, select a version, then set the criteria for when this condition should applied. 

When creating a condition, you'll notice that some system letters come have the "Do not send to the mail merge queue for this special condition" option. Creating a condition using the "Do not send" option tells Neon that a system letter should not be generated for anyone meeting the specified criteria.

You might use this to add a condition that prevents donation appreciation letters from being added to the mail merge queue if the donor's account is flagged "Do Not Contact" or to stop generating letters for recurring donations, as detailed here.

Example Condition: Accounts flagged "Do Not Contact" 

Click "Submit" to create the condition.

The "Condition" shows the criteria for each condition and the "Version Name" will either show the selected version or it will read "Do Not Send To The Mail Merge Queue".

Sending System Letters

You determine the default behavior for system letters under System Email & Letter Defaults. These settings determine whether or not a system letter is added to your Mail Merge queue when transactions are created.

You can manually send or resend a system letter by clicking on Actions (three dots) in a transaction record's row from a Neon account page, as shown in the example below.