When preparing to use the ThruTalk dialer for voter contact, there are a few fields you should include that will be mapped and show up when making calls in the platform. To export these fields, the user will need to use the Standard Export Format or save the following options as a custom export format.
Those fields (and why they are important) are:
- Voter File VANID --> Without this, the API cannot automatically sync your results back into Votebuilder. If this not mapped in ThruTalk's upload tool at all, it will be very difficult to do a bulk upload.
- Name --> So that you know who to ask for when the voter picks up.
- Preferred Phone --> Unlike texting, you can only dial one number for a voter at a time (the dialer calls numbers from a certain column in the CSV) and it is recommended to use the preferred phone since more people have numbers in that column.
- County --> If running a race encompassing multiple counties, it is recommended that county is included in case any follow up is needed. If the race is local or only one county, this can be replaced with PRECINCT.
- Voting Address (Single Field) --> Used to know the voter's voting address, in case you want to confirm the address for a follow up postcard, yard sign, etc.
- Age --> Can be beneficial in determining who you are speaking to based upon the sound of their voice.
- Party --> Can be useful outside of primaries.
- Source Sex File --> Can be beneficial in determining who you are speaking with on the other side of the phone.
In addition, since the dialer goes straight down the spreadsheet to call voters, using the formula =RAND() in Excel, you can randomize the dialers sort order.