Generate Mail Merge documents programatically on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013

Question

Is there any way to generate a mail merge document programatically via the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013?

Trying to generate a mail merge document via a custom plugin in the back end.

The merged document would then be sent to sharepoint.

But... can't find a "Create Merged Document" feature in the CRM SDK, anyone know of a way of doing this?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

This can't be done with Mail Merge documents insofar as the way they work with out of the box Dynamics CRM - you need MS Word installed on the client in order to do this, so no API. However, you can still meet the requirement by doing one of the following :

• Write a workflow that retrieves a report, converts it to a document and attaches it to sharepoint like this
• Use a third party add-on Documents Core Pack from MSCRM Addons. The 2013 version provides you with an automerge workflow activity that will auto generate the document and store it in the SharePoint library you have pre-configured for that entity. Note: Templates are created not in the traditional CRM way, but rather by using a MS Word plugin (which gives you more flexibility than Dynamics normal mail merge functionality).
• There is another product called Xperido that looks like it will do the same thing, but I've never used it.