May VoteSource Newsletter

Welcome to the May edition of the VoteSource Newsletter.

Missed our last edition? Catch up by clicking here.

Or click here to browse all previous editions.

A thank you from the VoteSource team and Member Services team!

On behalf of the VoteSource team and the Member Services team, we want to thank all of our users that made use of VoteSource this year for their election campaigns.

Our user base is what makes VoteSource the incredible campaigning tool it is today, and through continuing to use the system in your campaigns we are able to help develop and build VoteSource into the most useful part of your digital campaigning arsenal.

And this year, the local election usage on VoteSource was extraordinary, with 230 Control Rooms having been set up by Poll Day, and over 1800 Committee Rooms enabled for our volunteers to use. And what’s more, a smooth and successful Poll Day operation took place, with the Member Services team monitoring the significant usage of the system throughout the entirety of the day.

So, this is just to say thank you again to all of our users, and in particular congratulations to all those successful on Poll Day this year: well done to all our re-elected and new councillors, and congratulations to our great campaigning teams such as in the City of Westminster (who managed to retake the council this year). We hope to continue to work with you on VoteSource throughout the coming years!

Your Polling Day feedback welcomed

We were pleased to see so many of our users making use of the VoteSource GTV section on Poll Day.

We know this section of VoteSource forms a vital part of your election campaigns, and this is why we would like to introduce our new Feature Requests Form.

This form has been designed to allow our users to provide requests for features they would like to see developed for the VoteSource system. These will then be fed back to the Development team, and your suggestions could form part of the development strategy for VoteSource later in the year.

This form can be accessed at the address below:

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=8wLDNGfjZESEmsIKGvhVRseUtgp5xL5Mnw7FfcLasOZUMTNSSUM5OTdCWjJDR0U1M0o1R0E2VU44OS4u

And we look forward to your suggestions on how we can make VoteSource work best for you!

Further details and conditions of use.

• All feature requests for VoteSource should be submitted via this form going forward.
• Please remember to fill out your feature requests in as much detail as possible; the clearer the request the more likely it is we will understand exactly what is needed by our users in the field.
• All form entries should detail feature requests or development ideas for the system. Any VoteSource issues should be reported directly to the Member Services Team – any issues reported via this form may be missed.
• All feature requests will be seen by our development team, however, we cannot guarantee that all will be taken forward for development, and for this reason the Member Services team cannot provide updates on the feature request process.

Time to check your User Base

As we move away from this year’s Local Elections, the VoteSource team would like to remind our Association Officer users that now is the time to perform an audit of user access for your areas.

This is often a line of discussion within the VoteSource newsletter, and it is particularly relevant now.

Many VoteSource users will have had their access upgraded to assist with the election campaigns taking part across the country, and for those that no longer need this access, were – unfortunately – unsuccessful in their election campaign, or form part of our brilliant new councillor base, VoteSource access changes will be necessary.

In the first instance, VoteSource access should be managed locally.

Association Chairs, and in some cases Association Agents, do have the ability to amend VoteSource access.

For those tasked with managing user access in their association at this time, please find the help guides below, which cover how to amend the access of existing users so that your association users have exactly the access they need going forward:

Managing Existing Users - https://votesource.uk/support/helpcenter/viewarticle/288

What Different Sections of a User Account Mean - https://votesource.uk/support/helpcenter/viewarticle/186

List of roles a Constituency Organiser can grant - https://votesource.uk/support/helpcenter/viewarticle/151

For those that would prefer to see a video walk through of the process of managing user access, we also have an exciting new VoteSource training video on this subject available below:

Users and Roles; Managing your Users on VoteSource – https://votesource.uk/support/helpcenter/viewarticle/435

And please remember!

Should you be removing access from a VoteSource account, it is best to remove the access rather than delete the account entirely.

This means that should we need to do an audit of VoteSource use, the account is still available for us to do so. And, it also means that potentially active volunteers who have just changed their role within the association do not need to re-sign up for an account unnecessarily.

We would suggest only deleting user accounts that have not been accessed for a long period of time (1 year or longer)

To remove a user role from a VoteSource account, simply click on the User’s name, and then ‘View Advanced Security Details’. This will take you to the screen below, and you can click ‘Remove’ to remove the roles that need to be revoked.

And, finally, should you need the Member Services Team’s assistance with managing user access in your area, please get in contact via email at memberservices@conservatives.com, or phone on 020 7984 8036 (Monday to Friday, 9am – 5pm).