August VoteSource Newsletter

Welcome to the August edition of the VoteSource Newsletter

Missed last months edition? Catch up by clicking here.

Or click here to browse all previous editions.

A quick reminder that VoteSource Support now has a new email address:

votesourcesupport@conservatives.com

Please ensure all VoteSource related queries are sent to our new email address. The old address will remain active until 31st October 2020.

New features coming soon

Delivery Rounds:

Merge Walk Routes

It will now be possible to merge streets that cover more than one polling district in to a single delivery PDF file.

It is important to note that you will still need to create the walk routes via the relevant polling districts - that is to say if Smith Street covers polling district A1 & A2 you will need to create individual walk routes for A1 & A2 - but by making sure the individual walk route names match, you can merge them to create one delivery round.

When you create your delivery round, make sure you select all walk routes with the same name and as you create your delivery round you will then find the option “Merge walk routes with the same name”.

Once you have generated your Delivery Round, your download option will combine all selected streets into one file.

At present this merge feature only works via Delivery Rounds.

Inaccessible Properties

If there is an area that is gated or otherwise inaccessible, it is now possible to record this information via delivery rounds data entry.

Once a property is marked as inaccessible it will appear as such on subsequent files, and the number of properties will update accordingly.

Walk Routes:

No. of Inaccessible Properties

A new column will be available to list the number of properties that have been marked via Delivery Rounds Data Entry as inaccessible. At a glance, users will be able to identify which walk routes contain the most inaccessible properties – helping to optimise our routes and make the most of our campaigners time on the streets.

Once a property has been marked as inaccessible it will remain marked as such in the Walk Routes column.

Deliverer

Users will now be able to assign individuals to walk routes as deliverers.

When the delivery round files are generated, the assigned deliverers key contact information will be included in the file.

What’s coming soon?

Following overwhelming feedback from users, the VoteSource team are in the early stages of developing the ability to display a “walk route in construction” on to the mapping section in Walk Routes. This will allow the user to dynamically map streets to their routes and check against the map in Walk Routes – ensuring each route is perfect.

We must stress that this section is still in early development, but we wanted to let users know we have listened to their feedback and are working to incorporate suggestions into the system.

User guides for both Delivery Rounds and Walk Routes will be amended to include full information on how to use these new features and will be available upon release. Please keep an eye on the News section, where we’ll announce when the new features are live.

Role review: Local – Candidate/Councillor

Firstly, it should be noted the change has not yet happened – and users can expect an announcement on the News section of VoteSource when these changes have taken place.

At present the role of candidate and councillor is combined into one. That means that an elected Councillor has the same level of access as a candidate for the Party. But candidates for the Party can be granted access to membership data to assist with their election campaign – whilst our elected representatives should always request this data from their local association.

That’s why we’re splitting the two roles. So we remain compliant and proper oversight is given for handling sensitive data.

Moving forward, Councillors should request membership data from their local associations – in the same way that our Members of Parliament do.

Once we have completed this work, we will inform users via the News section of VoteSource. We will also ensure that the user guides detailing user roles are amended accordingly.

VoteSource Fixes

Newly Fixed - Delivery Rounds

A small number of users had encountered a time out issue when creating a delivery round. Having selected the walk routes required for the round, an error message would appear stating “walk routes not available” despite the routes being live and useable elsewhere in VoteSource. The team have identified and corrected the issue.

Upcoming Fix - Marked Register data entry reports

In the next VoteSource release we will be fixing an issue where the “entered by” column would not update in the Marked Register Data Entry reports.

VoteSource Best Practice

“No Processing”

You may occasionally come across a “no processing” mark on a constituent record. These electors are marked in this way as they have requested that the Party delete their data.

Following discussions with the ICO, we have decided to mark all these records in this way so we are most accurately able to exclude them from Party contact, processing or modelling – best honouring their request. And by keeping this record, we can ensure these people remain excluded when local authorities resupply our electoral roll data.

These marks are usually added to records by the Data Protection team at CCHQ, and should not be amended by other users.

If you have been contacted by a constituent wishing to have their information removed by the Party, please contact the Data Protection team on:

dataprotection@conservatives.com

020 7984 8300