Share data with other nations

Sharing data with other nations can be a messy process. Tag sharing eliminates the hassle of exporting and importing data between nations.

Updated over a week ago

📌 Note: Tag sharing is available on our Enterprise plan. For more information please see our pricing page.

Table of Contents

Where to start

Sharing data with other organizations can be a messy process. In the past, you might email someone a spreadsheet of information and hope that the critical data about supporters remains secure throughout the process. Tag sharing eliminates the hassle of exporting and importing data between nations.

Tag sharing is a relatively complicated feature that can significantly change profiles within a nation. Therefore, only nation admins can share or accept tags. Nations on the Organization, Enterprise, or Network plans can create or accept tag shares. Nations on the Leader plan can only accept tag shares. 

A tag is a discrete and important piece of information regarding a person or organization. For example, a coalition might ask all of their supporters to sign a petition. The exact same petition exists on each member organization's website. One nation can share a tag with a second nation to indicate that the petition has been signed. That tag will be added to people who already exist in the second nation. The second nation can then exclude those people from future email blasts regarding the petition. This is a powerful way to share a specific piece of data with like-minded organizations.

Within a network, even more sensitive information can be shared with tags. For example, a networked nation could let other networked nations know who their large (or small) donors are, ensuring targeting across the network is synchronized.

Sharing a tag with other nations

To share an existing tag:

1. Go to People > Tags and click Edit next to the tag you want to share. Note that if you click on the tag name, in this case "Board," you will be taken to a filter of people who have that tag.

2. Click on the Sharing tab and + New share.

3. Enter the slug of the nation with which you would like to share data. You can share the tag with multiple nations by separating their slugs with commas.

4. Click the Create share button.

When the receiving nation(s) accept this tag share, the tag will be added to profiles that already exist in the receiving nation(s).

Sharing a tag and syncing profile information

A tag is a single data point on a profile. Nations may decide to also sync profile information with each other. Syncing profile information should not be done lightly. All nations involved in a data sync accept mutual responsibility for data hygiene, trusting one another to only update profiles with more accurate information.

Up to 37 fields are always included in a data sync. These fields represent core information regarding a person (or organization) that would not change based on interaction with a particular nation. When profile information is shared, 30 fields are always synced. This includes 6 address fields and each address has 22 components. When all nations included in the tag share have voters enabled, an additional 7 fields are always synced. 

To sync profile information, follow steps 1-3 in sharing a tag.

5. Check the box next to "Sync profile information of people with this tag." The fields that always sync and the fields you can choose to sync will then display.

6. Decide whether to include optional fields in the syncing process. Checking the box includes that field in the sync. If there is an arrow next to the name, checking the box will include all associated fields in the sync. Feel free to uncheck specific boxes within a group of fields. Note that custom fields and Facebook UID can only be included when sharing data within a network.

7. Click the Create share button. 

Fields always included when syncing data

37 fields always included 

Choosing to sync data between nations is a choice to keep a significant amount of data the same between nations. If any of these fields are blank in one nation, they will be filled with the content of the other nation. This means that all nations involved should feel confident in their collective data integrity and hygiene. 

Name fields: first name, last name, middle name, legal name, suffix, prefix

Personal fields: birthday, employer, occupation, sex, bio, website, is deceased, religion, ethnicity, place of worship, marital status

Social media fields: Twitter ID, Twitter login, Meetup ID

Phone number fields: phone number, work phone number, mobile number, fax number

Address fields: home address, registered address, mailing address, work address, billing address, user-submitted address

📌 Note: The logic used with imports is also used in tag sharing. This means that when an address is updated in one nation, it will be updated in the other nation. This is true regardless of what choice the receiving nation has made regarding how it will accept data.

Voter fields synced when both nations have voters enabled: Voter GUID, is party member, is absentee voter, is active voter, is permanent absentee voter, NationBuilder precinct ID, NationBuilder precinct code, NationBuilder precinct name

Optional fields that can be included when syncing data

10 optional fields

Unique ID fields: CivicCRM, County file ID, DW ID, Data Trust ID, External ID, Meetup ID, NGP ID, RNC ID, RNC Registration ID, Salesforce ID, State file ID, VAN ID

Tag sharing uses the same matching process as importing. Imports always include every unique identifier in the matching process. With tag sharing, the process does not assume that unique ID fields in two nations are displaying the same information. You can choose to match and sync any or all of the unique ID fields listed.

Adding additional ID fields to match on may create more ambiguous matches. This means that a profile in the sending and receiving nation cannot be synced because a unique ID field contains a different value in each nation. At this time, no action can be taken within the control panel to resolve this problem and the profiles will not be synced.

Demo: the demographic field has six possible options based on United States Census race categories.

Districts: Districts will only sync if both nations have voters enabled. If any nation involved in the sync has auto-districting enabled, sharing these fields will overwrite existing data. There are 15 district fields that will be synced. District fields within a nation will display different names due to localization. 

Emails: There are four email fields for each profile. Since supporters can log into a nation's website with an email address, email is a unique identifier and will be used in the matching process if it is shared.

Within a profile, there are three attributes to an email address: the address, whether that address is bad, and whether that address is the primary address for the profile. Whenever the profile is included in an email blast, the blast is sent to the primary address.

When emails are synced in a tag share, only the email address itself is shared. If an address is marked bad, that information will not be shared. Similarly, primary address is not synced between nations.

Facebook UID: This unique ID can only be shared within a network per Facebook platform policy.

Federal do not call: A yes/no field, primarily used to indicate whether the profile is registered on the U.S. national do not call registry.

Fundraiser: this field indicates the profile has raised funds for a nation or has pledged to raise funds for a nation. This is a nation-specific field. We recommend sharing a tag between nations to indicate someone is a fundraiser, rather than syncing this field. 

Volunteer: A yes/no field on a profile and a nation-specific field. When someone fills out a volunteer sign-up page, she is marked as a volunteer in a nation. The field can also be edited in single-person view or via batch update. We recommend sharing a tag between nations to indicate volunteers (can also share role-specific tags), rather than syncing this field.

Custom fields: These fields can only be shared within a network when custom field settings are shared from HQ. By clicking the arrow next to "Custom fields," network HQ or networked nations can choose to sync specific custom fields rather than syncing all custom fields. 

Nation specific fields: We do not recommend syncing these fields because the data should be unique within each nation. These fields should be unique even within a network. We recommend sharing this information by sharing tags between nations rather than the field. The fields in this category are: Do not call, Do not contact, Email opt-in, Priority level, Support level, and Text message opt-in. While we do not recommend sharing these fields, if you check the box next to "Nation specific fields," all of these fields will be shared. Alternatively, you can select specific fields within this category to share.

View the tags dashboard

Viewing shared tags in the sending nation:

You may review shared tags under People > Tags > View all. All shared tags will have a people icon next to their name. To look at shared tags exclusively, click Shared.

👉🏼 Next steps

Currently, tag sharing may not work properly when more than 500,000 profiles are included in the tag share. We recommend breaking down the share into smaller groups.

You may also want to be aware of how you can stop a tag share.

If you're the recipient of a shared tag, you may want to check out how to accept a shared tag or how to review/edit/stop a tag share.

Related HOWTOs

 

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