I recently used the Mail Merge function in the online document editor and it worked well but I noticed if I made a change in the source data (a spreadsheet in this case), it would not be reflected in the merge field in the document nor did I see a ‘refresh’ option to refresh the linked source data (I didn’t see an option in the user guide as well).
Rather, it appears OnlyOffice pulls the source data into a database of sorts which can be accessed with “Edit Recipient List” to make individual changes. Alternatively, if a change is made in the source data and saved, then the source data must be reloaded (Mail Merge > From Storage > source).
An improvement would be to allow dynamic linking or a refresh button to either immediately reflect changes (dynamic link) or quickly and easily update the data (manual refresh button).
It would also be nice to include Mail Merge in the local/offline version of OnlyOffice (I’m guessing this has already been requested, however).
This is expected behavior as the editor cannot connect to a spreadsheet to pull the content dynamically. Think of it as the editor downloads a copy of the file to work with, but it cannot enter, so to say, a collaborative mode by itself to pull new data. In case source spreadsheet was modified, you need to close it to trigger saving back to the storage and then re-upload it to the Mail Merge feature.
Small workaround: if you enable Keep intermediate versions when editing option in the common settings of Documents module, then you can simply hit CTRL+F combination to save the file back to the module. That way you will only need to re-upload the spreadsheet via Mail Merge to display most recent content, i.e. without closing the spreadsheet editor. Saves some time and eliminates unnecessary browser tab management.
Indeed, the suggestion was registered earlier. I will forward your request to the dev team. I’ll let you know once this feature is available in Desktop Editors. Thanks for the interest.