Logging contacts

By logging all contact in your nation, transparency is enhanced & a historical record is built. This is a key factor in building community!

Updated over a week ago

๐Ÿ“Œ Note: Walksheets are available as an add-on in the political bundle. For more information on adding new features please see the add-ons page in your nation.

Table of Contents

Where to start

Interactions between people build and sustain communities. By logging all contact in your nation, transparency is enhanced and a historical record is built. There are four key components to logging a contact: method, path, notes, and status. These elements describe how you contacted someone, why they were contacted, and the result of the interaction.ย 

Contacts can be logged in single-person view or when importing scannable sheets.ย 

Logging a contact

Click on People > Select Person > Dashboard.

1. Click on Log Contact.

2. Notes: Usually, you'll want to include a summary of the interaction as a note. Notes should be as detailed as possible to ensure everyone has access to the same information regarding the person's interaction with your nation. Be aware that you can record a private note on a profile without logging a contact by clicking the word Note next to Log contact.

3. Contact method: This is how a person was contacted, i.e. phone call, door knock, email, face to face, etc. You can use the dropdown menu to choose any of these methods.
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4. Currency: The amount listed is deducted from the person contacted and added to the control panel user recording the contact. By default, one social capital will be deducted from the person's balance sheet. If you select 0sc, no social capital is deducted or added. Alternatively, if the contact took longer than average, you can deduct additional capital. This can be used as a way of describing the amount of your nation's resources spent in developing a relationship with that person. Adding the social capital to the balance of the control panel user contacting the person allows you to recognizes the value the add to your nation.
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5. Contact status (Optional): This is the result of the contact, i.e. answered, bad info, inaccessible, left message, meaningful interaction, etc. While not required, this is a very useful field to include in all logged contacts.

6. Path (Optional): This is why the person was contacted.

If the person already has active paths, the path dropdown menu will only include those paths. The engagement will be recorded on the current step.

If the person does not have any active paths, the path dropdown menu will include all paths in your nation. When the engagement is recorded, it will be included on the first step of the path selected. The path will then display as active on the person's profile, and the person will be placed on the first step of the path.

There is no limit to the number of contacts that can occur on each step of a path.

7. Broadcaster (Optional): If you select a broadcaster, you're indicating that the contact was made on behalf of an official voice of your organization. This is particularly useful if you have role-based broadcasters. For example, a customer emails your help email address and asks for a response via phone. A member of your support team calls the customer back and logs the contact on behalf of your Support broadcaster. In this way, the contact is recorded for the control panel user (the person who initiated the call) and their department (the Support broadcaster).ย 

8. Organization (Optional): If a person has a relationship with an organization, the organization dropdown menu will appear when you are logging a contact with that person. In this way, you can record a contact on the person's profile and the one of their organization. The relationship between profiles must exist before the contact is logged to post the contact on both profiles.

This dropdown menu always displays organizations with which a profile has relationships. In other words, if you're logging a contact on a foundation's profile, you won't be given the option to also log the contact on the foundation's employees. Thus, to log a contact on both a person and an organization, you must record the contact on the person's profile.ย 

9. Support level (Optional): In some ways, support level is the key metric of your community. It precisely defines who supports your organization's mission (1s and 2s), who is unsure (3s), and who is opposed (4s and 5s). Every interaction is an opportunity to re-assess a person's support level. Therefore, you can set support level when logging a contact. It defaults to the person's current support level.

10. Priority level (Optional): Priority level is a more fluid and quixotic way to define your community. While priority can vary based on an organization's current focus, support level is more stable and based on the over-arching mission of the organization. You can set a person's priority level every time you log a contact.

11. Click the Person was contacted button to record the contact.

Deleting a contact

If you make a mistake when logging a contact, you can delete it. When viewing the contact in an activity stream, click the arrow on the right side and select Delete activity.

This will remove the contact from everyone involved and every activity stream. Social capital balance sheets will also delete the contact; i.e. the currency deducted from the person contacted will be restored to her balance sheet and removed from the control panel user's balance sheet.

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