pdfMachine Merge is a free mail merge software that sends batches of personalized emails with personalized PDF attachments. It's a useful tool that enables you to quickly email PDF pay stubs to your employees. The steps in this article will guide you through the setting up pdfMachine Merge.
Download and Install pdfMachine Merge
- Download pdfMachine Merge from https://broadgun.com/pdfmachine-merge/download/
- After the download is finished, open your Downloads folder and double click the pdfmachine_marge_setup.exe file to run the installation program.
Windows will ask if this software should be allowed to make changes to the system. Press Yes to continue. - Next you'll select the language to use, it defaults to English. Press Ok to continue.
- On the next screen, select I accept the agreement then press Next to continue.
- The next screen will allow you to create shortcuts to the program. (This is optional but will make finding the program easier.)
- Select Create a desktop shortcut then press Next to continue.
- The next screen allows you to review the installation. Press Install to continue.
- After the installation completes, you'll see an Optional Settings screen. We recommend unchecking Upload Anonymous Data and checking Check for new Versions then press Next to continue.
- On the final screen, press Finish to complete the installation.
Setup Payroll pdf Direct Deposit Notices
- In Payroll, go to Options then select Pay Checks
- Check the Enable pdf File DD Notices box.
- Change the pdf Filename to Loc-Pyrl#
- Check the Truncate leading zeros option
- Enter a folder path in the Path for Drct-dpst Files This should be a folder separate from (or inside of) your Payroll folder. You'll need to use File Explorer to create the folder then enter the path to the folder in this field.
- When finished, press Save.
- Employees - Edit each employee that wants to participate and add their email address and check the ‘Print to pdf file’ box on the ‘Direct Deposit/Leave’ tab. Click Save
Create an Employee List File in Payroll
- In Payroll, go to Other Functions then select Email List
- On the Email List screen, check the Exclude Terminated option
- You can selectively include or exclude employees using the check box options. We suggest creating the file with all active employees by not checking any of the boxes.
- Use the File Name field to enter a name for your file. It must end with .csv
- Click Build. The file will be saved to your Payroll folder. We'll use this file to create an email list in pdfMachine Merge.
Setup pdfMachine Merge
- Open the pdfMachine Merge program
- On the Home screen, press Profiles.
- Press the + button to create a new profile for your school
There are a few test profiles included with the software, you can delete or ignore them.
- Enter a name in the Profile Name field (something like School Name Direct Deposit) and check the Show Rows to Email tab box.
- Press the Data tab then press the Select (File System) button
- Use the Open window to navigate to your Payroll folder and select the Employee list you created in the previous step. Select the file then press Open.
- After pressing Open, you should see a table of your employee's information.
- Press the Rows to Email tab and select Each row creates an email
- Press the @Email tab and enter a Subject for your emails (You can use any subject you want, but something like Direct Deposit Notice from School Name is a good start.)
pdfMachine Merge is a powerful merge tool that allows you to use any of the data from your csv file in any part of your email. For example if you entered a subject line like Direct Deposit for {{firstname}} {{lastname}} The program will personalize the subject line to the employee.
- Press the Body tab and enter the text of your email. This can be whatever you want, however email best practices are to include a sentence or two. (Blank emails can end up in Spam folders.)
- Press the Attachments tab then press the Add Static file button
- Use the Folder icon to navigate to your direct deposit notice folder and select any one of the pdf direct deposit notices then press Open. (It doesn't matter which pdf you select.)
- The file name should be populated with the path and pdf you select. Next you need to remove the pdf filename (the employee's loc-payroll number)
- Enter {{LocPyrlNo}} where the numbers used to be. Make sure the path ends with .pdf. This will allow pdfMachine Merge to dynamically attach the direct deposit notices based on the employee's location-payroll number.
- Press the Send tab to setup your email configuration.
Setup Email Configuration in pdfMachine Merge
On the Send tab, you need to configure pdfMachine Merge to work with your school's email provider.
If your school uses Google/Gmail for email follow these steps:
Your school's tech department may need to assist with authorizing pdfMachine Merge to send emails for you. If you encounter an error, please reach out to them.
- Press the Email Config Button.
- Press the Gear icon next to Gmail API.
- Press the Authorise Gmail button.
- Follow the on-screen prompts to allow pdfMachine Merge access to your Gmail account.
- Go to the Test Mode Emailing screen to test that your email is setup correctly. (Make sure to select Gmail API in the Email Profile field.)
- Go to Live mode email to send emails to your employees. (Make sure to select Gmail API in the Email Profile field.)
If your school uses Microsoft for email follow these steps:
Your school's tech department may need to assist with authorizing pdfMachine Merge to send emails for you. If you encounter an error, please reach out to them. This option works for some Microsoft email services, but not all.
- Press the Email Config Button
- Press the Gear icon next to outlook.com API
- Press the Authorise Outlook Online button
- Follow the on-screen prompts to allow pdfMachine Merge access to your Microsoft account
- Go to the Test Mode Emailing screen to test that your email is setup correctly. (Make sure to select outlook.com API in the Email Profile field.)
- Go to Live mode email to send emails to your employees. (Make sure to select outlook.com API in the Email Profile field.)
If neither of those options work, press the plus sign button to add a custom configuration:
- You will need the following information: SMTP Server, username, password, and security type. (Your tech department should have all of this information.)
- Enter the SMTP server, user name, and password.
- Select the security type.
- Press Test Connection
- Go to the Test Mode Emailing screen to test that your email is setup correctly. (Make sure to select SMTP in the Email Profile field.)
- Go to Live mode email to send emails to your employees. (Make sure to select SMTP in the Email Profile field.)