One of my Excel School students, Rajatha, e-mailed me and asked,
I have to come up with a Birthday and Anniversary calender which would automatically send emails on the particular date, is this possible if yes then how?
My initial response was,
You can do the automated birthday / anniversary reminder using excel. Here is the basic approach:
- Record birthdays and anniversaries in a table
- Now, write a simple macro to scan the list to see which birthdays / anniversaries are on today
- For each of the matches, send an email with a pre-composed message (more on sending emails thru vba here: http://www.rondebruin.nl/sendmail.htm )
To which she came back and said,
I am not familiar with macros… is there any other way?
Well, there is.
You can use Excel to remind you about upcoming birthdays and create pre-composed messages, like above. The basic approach is like this:
- We list all the birthdays, corresponding names and email addresses in a list.
- Now, using TODAY() and IF() formulas we test if anyone’s birthday is today.
- If that is the case, we use Excel’s HYPERLINK() formula to generate a mailto hyperlink.
- Once you click on that, Excel opens your mail application (outlook or notes or whatever fancy app you are using) and loads the message.
- You just press the send button. Done!
Watch Excel Birthday Reminder – Recipe Video
Download Excel Birthday Reminder Template
Click here to download the excel birthday reminder template & play with it.
Do you use excel to keep track of birthdays etc?
Not me. I have very few close friends and I remember their birthdays. For the rest, I use facebook to get notified when their birthday is around the corner. It is unlikely that I will forget the birthdays of family members.
But, I think Excel has amazing potential to remind you about various important dates. Especially if you want to send birthday wishes to customers (or employees) from a database, Excel is good for that.
What do you think? Please share your experience & tips with us using comments. I am all ears.
Download even more templates:
Visit excel templates page to download several spreadsheet solutions & samples.
