Convoluted workflow in walk list- or is it I'm an idiot

[The Next Wave]

I have imported voter data- identified the people most likely to vote in a primary as "supervoters" and made a group. These are people who voted in the last three elections, so it probably doesn't need to be a smart group since it's historical data on fixed fields.
However, the set is 9,000 people.
So- I want to reserve respondents to assign to "interviewers".
Here is what I've done so far:
Start with an advanced search- to make a smart group.
Contact type individual, Contacts in Supervoters 13
Proximity search to a distance of .5 miles from address City, State, Country
or ward and precinct to create a small group- then choose all- and make new smart group.
Then you have to make that smart group searchable- since it won't appear in the option to reserve respondents.
Go to Campaigns, Dashboard>campaigns, then edit the campaign- and add your new smart group.
Then Create reports from Template- pick from the bottom-Survey Report
Then pick the fields you want to display on the print out-
Display criteria: Name, address, phone, email, the survey questions, (since the interviewer needs to know where to go- and if we have email or phone, we want to verify)- then the questions- which are 3, with 4 responses for question 1, 3 for question 2 and 3 for question 3.
Then we want to group by columns- Street name, odd/even numbers
and then I should be able to print out a form- that the person can walk - make notes- and turn back in for data entry.
It seems like an overly complex process- did I miss something major?
as it is- the formatted output is butt fugly- and not using paper efficiently- I can't figure out where you redesign the layout.
Or if it's even possible.

Why is this so complicated? Why can't I go to reserve respondents, enter in criteria through a search panel to refine and reduce size, generate the report right there- from a pull down of preformatted reports- and email it to my "interviewer"
Why do I have to create a smart group?
Why do I have to set a permission for a smart group to be able to reserve respondents?
Who came up with this?

HELP!!!!

[The Next Wave]

So what is even more bizarre-
if I wanted to skip the printing out of this list- which would be ideal in a mobile version-
I can't even pull it up in a way that I could work with it on a computer and fill it out easily.From the list of names- I should be able to click on the little man icon- or do an activity- like survey- and neither are there.
Isn't a survey an activity? Shouldn't it be available easily from the contact?
We've got GPS coordinates-
it should be easy to put this to a mobile device and then populate a screen- allowing quick data collection.
All we have to do is make it easy to select respondents- and then quick to assign- and be able to sort in some sort of meaningful way - either by proximity- or other factors.
Although it's defunct now- 5ivePoints was pretty amazing at doing this.

[The Next Wave]

I really need help here.
Now- attempting to do an advanced search:
want a list of names, addresses, (preferably in walk list format) of:
addresses withing .25mi of an address- on the same street.
I get it- no problem, 52 names. In a list- with the contact name, with view edit more.
I want it to display something I can email the person at the address- so he can canvas his neighbors to do a survey- but, I've already determined- I can't get the reserve respondents- walk list to work-
so- I'm just trying to get this list to display with a different view-
I change the "Search views" to one I created in the campaign "Yard Signs"- no change in output.
I try using "Display results as ACTIVITIES"- no records found.
In fact- no matter what other option I choose under the activities area- picking either an "Activity type" "Survey" or "Campaign" I still get a fail message.
The only thing that I can remotely do is generate mailing labels- this works- but, it's not quite what I want.
Any suggestions on what I've done wrong to get CIVI to hate me?

[ptpmark]

Hi The Next Wave, 
Sorry you're feeling frustrated.  The first time through something unfamiliar can be challenging. F I agree that the process is complex. Set up of a survey is changing quite a bit in 4.3, which is just around the corner.
It will also improve the sorting of the walk sheets.
Couple of items:
* I don't follow the issue that you have with making a group eligible for reserving. I don't think it has to be a mailing list to be in the survey.
* you don't have to put people in a group to reserve them, but if you have people that share a common characteristic, and you only want to deal with them, well, then, you have to put them in a group to access them together. CiviCRM is built on the idea that you make a group and then do something with it. It's a fundamental part of the architecture from what I see.
* you don't have to link your smart group to the campaign
* if you want to create an activity from the doorstep, via a phone,you may want to look at a different technique. Survey right now will work with a tablet device and probably with some smart phones.  To some degree it depends on the number of questions you are asking as to whether you can get it to fit. However in 4.3 there is a new mobile interface that might make you happier.  The GPS idea is a good one, and if you're interested in having it happen, you'll probably have to organize it. The CiviCRM product grows when folks write software for it or raise the funds to make it happen.

you posted a lot of questions, I'm not sure if this answering all of them.  let me know if you have more and I'll try to help.

[The Next Wave]

This isn't my first rodeo with open source software or with CRM software.
I looked at the 4.3 sandbox- and agree- it's much better.
However, in my "Reserve respondents" option screen- I'm basically given operators to only select by an address- not by ward and precinct, not by tags, not by age, or any other variable other than groups- and only groups that have been added to the campaign.
I'm attaching a screen shot.
I'm not asking very many questions- 3. I don't have that many options for answers (and I find the limit of 10 odd- why is there a limit?)
I'm still unclear how the "interviewer" is picked- and how you cycle through the reserve, survey, enter data, release cycle. If I have 100 people who are going to do walklist surveys- right now- it seems there isn't really a support area to see who has surveys out- and to gauge their progress.
Again- I believe the way to get more developers- is to have a really great roadmap- clearly defined by the core group- with an organized release schedule and clear functionality. Look at how Wordpress has grown up. The community is thriving thanks to visionary leadership and rock solid decisions on UX. It keeps getting better- and believe it or not, simpler.
I'm willing to work with people to help focus the interface and process- but you have to stop making excuses for spaghetti not going back in the box. It won't get better by saying it's what it is- it only gets better by saying what it will be.

[ptpmark]

In reserve respondents you can use ANY group that you've created. If you have precinct defined in your data base you can make groups based on that.  I know that means you'll have lots of precinct groups.  If you are using tags for this, well, you have to make smart group based on the tag.

I don't know why there are only 10 possible Survey Responses. We're able to make them work in the situations we work in.  You will have a problem fitting more of them if you're printing a walksheet. In general, for neighborhood walking with volunteers, it's best to make it very simple and not require them to make decisions that will be arbitrary,  which I imagine you know already. I suppose that may be why there are only 10 available, but who knows?

Interviewer is picked on that screen you included. The person has to be an individual contact. Are you doing these surveys as a phone bank or walk sheets? In some places where volunteers are doing the calling, we've created menus just for the volunteer permission group. Then we've  created log ins for each of the volunteers and reserved respondents for them. When they log in they get only the ones reserved for them.  When the evening's calling is done, the respondents are released. 

If I had a 100 surveyors to set up, maybe I'd be inclined to do that differently by just having them call a subset of a reserved respondents that were marked for one generic surveyor. However, if you do that, you won't get a record of who did the call.  I suppose another option would be to make a set of generic contacts (and user log ins if it's a phone bank) that you reuse for each survey.  It goes without saying that it takes a lot of preparation to get this right if you want to track who did what, especially as you get started.

I'm attaching a guide we wrote about 18 months ago. It's due for a revision and we'd probably write it a bit differently now, but perhaps you'll find it to be useful as you eat the spaghetti. 

[The Next Wave]

Hi PTPMark-
Thank you.
The step of making the groups- based on precincts- seems like an extra step- since the precincts are already defined- and should be easy to search on the fly. Even in a city- the number of wards and precincts is pretty high. I can't imagine doing it for a statewide campaign.
The 10 possible survey responses- just the door knock- has a minimum of 4 responses- Home, not home, moved, deceased. that leaves 6 for other questions- like which candidate do you support- in our local election- that can mean 6 options- and you are done.
The interviewer- I would think- should be able to be picked out of a list/group- of some sort- it also seems they will all have to have some sort of site access- acl list. This seems odd that it isn't part of the implementation. Managing many interviewers would be easier if they were in a group/organization- and that we could get a report of their status daily- via that group- ie- number currently reserved- and completion rate.
I'll look through the guide- and we'll try to annotate as we go through this.
We've decided to do a clean install with 4.3 latest- with clean data- to try to test- since we were having issues.
Also- it seems our major issue would be solved if you were able to use the "Advanced Search" style to find and assign respondents instead of the stunted search that's there now.
The other problem we keep having is some searches give more than the set number of respondents- because you might have 6 people in a house. It would help to find ways to narrow a list to the number of respondents based on things like households- etc.

[ptpmark]

Hi The Next Wave -
I agree that the survey function would be improved if we had the type of options available in advanced search for selecting the respondents. 

The "Survey Results"  is designed to serve a different function than tracking the opinions or other results gained at the door step.  It's really about showing the disposition of the effort to ask the survey questions. That's why it has an answer value called "Completed" .  The idea is that you create some other questions and the related answers that hold things like preferred candidate.

I also agree that the tools for managing a massive survey are not there. I used pre-configured  activity reports and attached them to a menu option to make the process tolerable for folks we've been working with.  It really needs things like completion rate.

[The Next Wave]

I found this post about "Profiles, if we had to do it over again"- right on the money:
http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/plugins/servlet/mobile#content/view/73924905

I ended up doing a clean install- default theme, Wordpress3.51 with civi 4.3 beta5 with a whole new clean set of data imported again (being careful to match Civi standard fields to my fields) and after spending better part of 8 hours to get 60,000 records in (server kept timing out- etc) I got to run through the process of making a walklist.

The issues with profiles- the terminology- all still suck. The workflow is disjointed-
so much could be solved if I could set up which fields I wanted to construct my reports/walklists on the fly were available in a simple box- like "advanced search" - but that I could customize: ie: I want super voters in this precinct, sorted by walking- street name, even odd numbers) Supervoters is a group that I've identified as voting in the last 3 elections.

One of the things that's annoying- is I don't seem to be able to construct an automatic drop down selector for data in a field?
I have precincts- all defined and imported- I should be able to easily make this a drop down box- and or, be able to multiple select- why isn't this built into the field definition? Or is it- and I'm missing something?
 I find the interface for 4.3 easier to make a survey- but only slightly-
the points made in the post above- key to what would make this so much easier.
Can we start looking at this for a MIH for Civi 4.4? I think it would make a monumental difference to all of us?

[Donald Lobo]

Can we start looking at this for a MIH for Civi 4.4? I think it would make a monumental difference to all of us?

Instructions for starting an MIH is documented here:

http://civicrm.org/blogs/michael-mcandrew/make-it-happen-44-submit-your-campaigns-now

Would help a lot to incorporate that work into an MIH for the 4.4 release

lobo

[ptpmark]

Hi next wave -
you asked:
One of the things that's annoying- is I don't seem to be able to construct an automatic drop down selector for data in a field?
I have precincts- all defined and imported- I should be able to easily make this a drop down box- and or, be able to multiple select- why isn't this built into the field definition? Or is it- and I'm missing something?


Towards the bottom of this manual page you'll see an explanation of how to do it.

http://book.civicrm.org/user/current/organising-your-data/custom-fields/

[The Next Wave]

Thank you Mark!

[The Next Wave]

By the way- a lot of this was solved by guys who created a mobile friendly political campaign software based on Drupal- called 5ivepoints.
There was no walk list creating-
you sign up- you take your smart phone out- and you gain points by doing things the campaign wanted you to do.
http://vimeo.com/38575938
I used it for one campaign- and it was pretty slick.