How to create an address list

(For Bailine BSP 3.62 and later)

Select the menu 'Register' + 'Clients'

Apply a filter to the clients unless you want to include all clients on the list.

Select the shortcut 'A - Other Functions' + 'Save addresses'.

You are prompted to save the address list as

C:\BSPADDR.DOS

(You can change the name or location of the file if you prefer)

You can use this file e.g. for mail merging

The format of the address list

The data is saved as a semicolon separated (delimited) list.

The data is saved in DOS format. That means you need to convert
the data when working on it in Windows. Both e.g. Microsoft Word
and Excel contains functions for converting from DOS format.

For English shops DOS and Windows format will in practice be
identical. For non English shops some local non English letters in
clients' names and addresses may be displayed incorrectly unless
the data is converted.

Each record in the file is one line, and the first line is a header
containing field names:

ID

This is the Bailine client ID number

FNAME and LNAME

First and last name of the client.

ADR1, ADR2 and ADR3

The address of the client

PHONE and EMAIL

These fields are free form text fields and can
possible contain more than e.g. one phone
number or email address each

BDAY

The client's birthday stored in the date format
as specified through the menu
'Bailine' + 'Program setup' + 'Special' + 'Date as'

NREGVST

This is the registered number of visits for the client
and is not the same as a client's total number of visits.

(The original program specifications were that the
program should not store data for more than 30 visits.
Data for older visits are thus discarded after the limit
has been reached.)

FVISIT and LVISIT

This is the clients first and last stored visit.

RVSTS and RPAYM

This is the clients registered remaining number
of visits and payment.

NOTES

This is the text entered through the menu 'Client' + 'Text and notes'.

Line feeds and some nonstandard ASCI characters are converted
to spaces.

How to open the file in e.g. Microsoft Excel

(The example is for Microsoft Office Excel 2007)

Start Microsoft Excel and select the menu 'Open'

(If you do not start Excel BEFORE you open the
address list Excel may not prompt you to convert
the data)

Assuming you saved the file to its default location:

Type in the following path to locate the address list:

C:\*.DOS [Enter]

Select the file BSPADDR.DOS and open it.

Excel will now prompt you a number of times:

Select Ok to bypass any warnings or errors, then
select DELIMITED and FILE ORIGIN.

While browsing the options for 'File Origin' you
should check the coversion of any non English
letters in the preview panel.

Finally select 'Semicolon' as delimiter.

For further information refer to www.bailine.com/faq