September VoteSource Newsletter

Welcome to the September edition of the VoteSource Newsletter.

Missed our last edition? Catch up by clicking here.

Or click here to browse all previous editions.

VoteSource at Conference

As announced in last month’s newsletter a contingent of the VoteSource team will be at the Party conference again this year. Why not come and meet us on the Party stand?

We also announced there will be training seminars taking place at conference this year. This training is taking place due to the high number of requests from our user base in their recent feedback on the VoteSource Survey. The titles for these sessions are:

VoteSource 101 – A real “getting started” session – how you go about getting a VoteSource account. What are the basic functions within VoteSource; contact details, and how to search for someone. A very quick view of the all the bits of VoteSource, and some of the key terminology – “what is a target audience” etc. This session is run 3 times, at two speeds; one for those who consider themselves very tech savvy but still would like an introduction, and a slower session (run twice) to make sure everyone benefits.

The Mobile App 101 – A “getting started” introduction to the mobile app when canvassing. Understanding what to do when “given a PIN”. How to set the app up perfectly for your personal situation (house names vs numbers, rural vs urban, etc). Various tips and tricks.

Data Entry – Understanding how “surveys” are the centrepiece of most of our data capture and entry. How do I add a new marked register? What about drop-offs? How the “rapid entry” function can make your life so much easier entering data.

Surveys and Running a Campaign – A double session, covering most of the core functions an organiser will need to run a campaign. Setting up surveys. Using and managing Target Audiences, Delivery Rounds and Walkroutes. Maps. Setting up Connect Calling.

Elections! – Again an organiser’s view of how to use VoteSource as Election Day approaches. Postal Voters, GOTPV and GOTV. Campaign Rooms and Poll Day.

Data, Emails, Compliance – A refresher – or a beginners guide – from Andrew Stedman, the Data Protection Officer, to all things related to data compliance on how you use VoteSource to record data such as contact details, voting intentions, and consent statements

Mop Up - A completely open session to ask any questions about the system and how you use it. How you might want it changed in advance of the election. Or just if you want to listen to other people discussing tips and tricks.

And our schedule will be:

Sunday

Tuesday

We will be running these sessions on Sunday afternoon and Tuesday morning.

The following members of our team will be attending conference and we will be located on the Party stand as usual. Please be aware that as we will be conducting training this year there may not always be a full contingent on the Party stand!

• Ian Singlehurst – Head of Application Development

• Grant Hallyburton – Senior Developer

• Oliver Patey – Senior Support Analyst

• George Sanderson – Support Analyst

• Nick Mason – Chief Data Officer

Why not come and see us!

Improvements to search functionality

Our developers have been continuing to work hard to improve search functionality within VoteSource.

We are very pleased to announce the following improved search abilities within VoteSource.

Similar name searches are now restricted to the first name in a search – as some surnames are also common first names.

• Improved ranking given to the order match of names.

• Initials now searched, i.e. ‘P Smith’ would not have found directly ‘Paul Smith’ before – it now does, and similarly ‘Paul Smith’ would not have found ‘P Smith’, it now does so they appear with a higher ranking.

• Middle initials now improved as above, so ‘Paul Fred Smith’ would now return ‘Paul F Smith’ so they appear with a higher ranking

• Searches now reflect the consistent apostrophe used in VoteSource – so copying from source with a different one will be corrected.

• Some space characters that might come from copying sources are now cleaned better to improve results.

• Emails copied with URL mailto: will now be cleaned automatically.

Our team will continue, as ever, to work to improve all functionality within VoteSource but we hope this work helps with all ongoing work.

Please do let us know if you find that this work has helped or if you encounter examples of searches that still do not run properly.

We can be reached at votesourcesupport@conservatives.com or 020 7984 8000

Target Audiences

Whether you’re brand new to VoteSource or a long time customer it is always worth reviewing what target audiences are and how you can use them for your campaigning.

What is a target audience?

Target Audiences allow you to start planning your campaign and really think about who you are trying to reach and engage with. Have you got an upcoming local by-election? Then it would be best that your target audiences are set to have a local franchise for instance.

Without a target audience you will not be able to set up any campaigning activities, so they are essential to your efforts and must be planned out carefully to ensure success. Simply running a full canvass at the start of the year and planning to use it right through to Christmas is not a wise move.

How do I create my target audience?

From the VoteSource Homepage you would need to select Campaigns first and then click on the Target Audience tile. From here you will be able to view all existing target audiences that have been created for the electoral area(s) you have access to.

Please be aware that you can view target audiences created by others, so do not be alarmed if you see lots of target audiences you did not create!

From this page you will need to select the New Target Audience + tile located on the right hand side of the page. The page it loads will contain many different options of audience you can set up. Including:

• Full Canvass
• Uncanvassed
• Strong Conservatives with a Postal Vote
• Membership Recruitment – Targets

and many more.

All of these options do exactly what they say on the tin so it is worthwhile taking a moment to select your audience carefully before running your target.

We even have two advanced options that allow you to select your own specific criteria

• Advanced Target Audience by electoral area
• Advanced Target Audience by polling district

How do I set up my target audience?

Once you have selected the type of target audience you wish to identify, simply click on the tile and you will begin the set up process. You will be asked to name your audience, so you can easily identify it later, as well as choose when to run it. Most importantly you will be asked to identify what type of election you are canvasing for.

It is very important that you select the correct election type at this stage as this will set the franchise type for your target audience. In other words if you want to ensure that you including everyone who can vote in say a local election as opposed to a parliamentary election, you need to ensure you have selected Local at this stage.

Once you are happy you have set everything up on this page as required, click Save & Next at the bottom right of the page.

How do I select my electoral geography?

The next page you will be taken to will allow you to select which area you want to run your target audience for. You can choose a variety of options including:

• Parliamentary
• Parliamentary (Proposed)
• Local

and more.

This will display the corresponding polling districts for the electoral entity you have selected. Please be aware if you wish to run an audience based on Parliamentary (Proposed) you will need to firstly have access to the proposed entity and ensure you have changed the geography type to New.

Once you have selected your geography you will again need to select Save & Next and the final page before you can generate your target audience will confirm your geography.

I have created my target audience, what now?

You have now setup your target audience and will have a number of individuals with who you can start your campaigning operations. By default you will appear in the dashboard section of the target audience which will give you a breakdown of numbers. If you select the enabled activities you can get your campaigning operations up and running.

From enabled activities you can set up a variety of activities, from creating canvass cards to pulling off excel files for mail merges. You can set up connect calling and enable data entry for survey returns and canvass cards.

The flexibility of options provided from a target audience allow you to ensure a wide coverage of data collection which is crucial for the planning and executing of a successful campaign.

If you have questions about setting up a target audience, or want advice on the best way to create one to identify the target you have in mind, please contact VoteSource Support on 020 7984 8000 or votesourcesupport@conservatives.com

Vesting has now been completed

Following on from last month’s article, the vesting process has now been completed as planned.

Now that vesting is complete we have found that we are receiving a number of questions around the same themes. The below should help with your queries.

Vesting has nothing to do with your access to electoral geography

That is to say, you will not now have access to a proposed constituency if you did not have access to it before. The ability to grant access to a proposed boundary has been available for over a month at this point. Access can be granted by your Area Campaign Manager (ACM), Voluntary Party Manager, Field Director or by VoteSource Support.

Please be aware simply asking us to grant access is not enough – we require authorisation from either your ACM, Voluntary Party Manager or Field Director before we can provide your access.

Vesting was never about granting further access to users.

Accounting Units - Donations

As part of this overall process our data team have also created new accounting units in line with the new constituency boundaries. This has in turn led to overall reorganisation of the Party Organisation section of VoteSource.

The new accounting units will mean that donations entered under the old will no longer be visible from the front end of VoteSource – this does not mean they have been deleted from VoteSource though as the data will still be stored in the database.

As such before vesting occurred, reports of donations to the old accounting units were compiled by our data team and sent to the Financial Compliance team at CCHQ.

Branches & Clubs

We transferred branches but only where the boundary of the branch falls entirely within a new association. If this does not occur the branch cannot be transferred – this will not affect any membership status, but the branch will need to be set up again from the front end.

Clubs will not be transferred from old associations to the new. Please be aware that these will need to be reset up post the completion of vesting in your region

If your question has not been answered by the above we would encourage you to contact your Voluntary Party Manager, as they were the primary persons of contact for vesting or alternatively VoteSource Support.

We can be reached on 020 7984 8000 or votesourcesupport@conservatives.com