As Mum24kids mentioned, you can use the two together. You can find out exactly how to link Manager and PEX in the 2009 Summer Enhancement Guide located here www.ptotoday.com/manager/manual.html
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When you decide to use PEX for your email client, you can still use the VB email system. All general emails are sent out through PEX (emails that are generated by going to VOLUNTEER MANAGER _ FIND VOLUNTEERS or SETUP _FIND USERS. If you have an event specific email, the email can be sent through the event section using VB. The same is true if your run a report such as the student report and then select "email this list". The email will be sent via VB and not PEX.
Hope this helps - feel free to call us at 800-557-2670 if you need additional help.
You can use the two together, but it's too complex for our parent group. If you flip the switch in PTO Manager to use PEX, it's all or nothing--so if you want to send out a quick email to find volunteers for the fall festival, you need to have someone do that who is comfortable with setting up an email in PEX. I ended up turning it off, because I don't need every email I send out to look like a work of art.
We pretty much limit use of PEX to newsletters or maybe some special announcements, and just use the regular emails from PTO Manager for everything else. It is a bit of work to maintain the two databases of emails, but we make the coordination of the two databases the job of the volunteer coordinator, and after the beginning of the year flurry of activity, it's not too bad.
I was looking through our PTO manager and noticed a link to Parent Express Email. Can this be used in conjunction with PTO manager or is it something we will have to maintain separately? If you use it could you give me more detailed information on it? We do use our PTO manager email system alot.