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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!!!!

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?

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.

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.

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?

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/

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.