Full Sail Partners Blog

For years marketing professionals have been clamoring for a way to directly merge information from their Deltek Vision system to an InDesign template. For firms with Deltek Vision version 7.1 and higher, the wait is over! Creating InDesign Templates and merging information directly from Deltek Vision is simple, and is very similar to merging from Word, with some usability enhancement.  

Before we begin, you might be asking yourself, ‘What kind of functionality will InDesign merging include?’ To answer your question, we have highlighted some of the major areas below:

• Add fields and grids (including user defined!) to an InDesign template
• Format number, currency (projects only), and date fields in a template
• Merge data directly from an info center record into InDesign
• New ‘Select Projects’ function for Employee Resumes allows for more precise formatting of project examples on resumes within InDesign

So as you can see by the functionality, the ability to merge data directly from your Deltek Vision system to Adobe InDesign is going to allow your firm to easily deliver accurate, more consistent proposals through the industry standard desktop publishing software.

What exactly will we be able to merge?

If your information is in Vision, you can now export it out allowing your firm to merge the following documents from Deltek Vision to Adobe InDesign:

• Resumes
• Cover letters
• Project cut sheets
• References
• and much more from your Vision system 

Merge functionality includes the ability to pull information from tables, grids, custom Info Centers, and user defined fields.

What technical requirements are required?

In order to run a Deltek Vision merge to Adobe InDesign, you will need to be running a copy of Adobe InDesign CS5.5 or newer, installed on your local user directory. You will also need to be running a copy of Deltek Vision 7.1 or newer, with TDM enabled.

So what are the steps?

Setting up Deltek Vision to Adobe InDesign merge capabilities is surprisingly easy! The process requires five major steps, highlighted below.

1. Access the ‘Merge Templates’ section in Deltek Vision (Configuration>General>Merge Templates), this step may require you requesting additional privileges from your Vision administrator
2. Select the Info Center you would like this template to be associated to
3. Create or upload a new template. If creating a new template, please be aware that you will need to insert merge codes from the Vision Merge Code window
4. Open the ‘Custom Proposals’ Info Center, select the proposal you want to merge information out of, and link the new template to the merge function
5. Merge your information out of Vision!

So now that you know the basics of what Deltek Vision Adobe InDesign merge integration offers, we encourage you to get started. Should you or your team need further information, reach out to our team of CRM experts to assist.