What To Clean Up
- Improper capitalization. Nothing in the records should not be in all caps or have no caps. All proper nouns should have the first letter only capitalized. Eliminate any double capital letters at the beginning of words.
- Non-standard abbreviations or address formats
- No districts. Every user should have both an upper and a lower voting district.
- Duplicate records. People sometimes forget they have signed up with COS, and we end up with multiple records for one person. We only want one record per person.
- More than one person in a record. Occasionally a husband or wife will enter both names as they sign up. We want one person per record. Notify the District Captain of the district they are in and they will contact the people and have them edit the existing record and have the spouse sign a separate petition.
Here is the document from the National IT Group that addresses the legality of data cleanup. Please refer to this when you're not sure of what data can be edited and what data should be left alone: >Data Cleanup Policy.
Create a List of Petition Signers by District to Work With
We are primarily concerned with petition signers because those are the ones we will show to legislators. There are a number of supporters in the database that have incomplete names and addresses, but who have not signed the petition. Until we get them to sign the petition, don’t worry about cleaning up the data. Hopefully we will get more and better information from them when they do sign the petition.
In People->Users, click on the Filter button to start creating a filter.
- Click the “Add criteria” link.
- Include the following:
- Activity->Signed Petition, “Yes”
- Voting->Lower House, “IL nn” (where nn is the district number. Be sure to click on the district number in the drop-down list to select it.)
- Set the Sort By to Alphabetic so you can catch duplicates
- Click on the Filter button on the right side to start the filter.
How to Clean up a Profile
Once you have identified the group of users to clean up, scan through the list, looking for errors as detailed above. When you find an error, click on the person’s name to enter the details of the record.
- If there is a mistake in the name or to enter a phone number given to you by the supporter, click on the Edit tab in the right-hand section of the profile. You can then make corrections or additions. When finished, be sure to click the “Update” button! If you forget, your changes on the Edit will not be saved.
- If there is an error or missing information in the address, click on the Address tab in the right-hand section of the profile.
- Only the street address should go in Address 1. Enter PO Box, Apartment, or Unit numbers in Address 2. (If there is no street number and street, but a PO Box, put it in Address 1.)
- Make sure there is a city and zip code entered.
- If there is not a Zip+4, or if you make any change or addition in Address 1, City or Zip Code, click the “District Lookup” button. If there is no new information and the districts have not changed, click on the “Discard” button. Otherwise, click “Update.”
- You may see a suggestion in the District Lookup box to change the name of the city. Unless it is to correct spelling or capitalization, uncheck the box. We have to assume the person knows the city in which he lives.
- Finally, if you have made any changes at all to the Address tab of the record, be sure to click the “Update” button or your changes will not be saved!
We have access to a Melissa Search tool, which will sometimes find information they have omitted, or give us an updated address. Click on “Address Lookup” in the Profile under the Address tab to start the search.
- In the Address Lookup window, the person’s address, phone, and email appear. The address lines will be checked, but not the phone or email lines. This is normal for just an address verification. Click on the “Search button.”
- If the record is found, it will appear in the right-hand pane. There may be more than one entry for the person as there are many sources from which Melissa pulls and each one will be identified. Click on the most likely record (usually the first one is the best). If it has more information than what is in CitizenBuilder, you can click on the “Fill Address with Result” button to add it to CitizenBuilder. Be sure to click on the “Update” button if any change is made to the Address tab.
- If no exact match is found, you will get a code in the right-hand pane. You can try a deeper search by clicking on the arrow on the “Progressive” button at the bottom of the right-hand pane and selecting “Loose.” Then click on the “Search Again” button. You may get results, or you may not. If you do, follow the instructions in the above bullet point.
Another way to try to find an address for a supporter is to use www.spokeo.com. There are other sites that provide free information as well. You can also try just an Internet search of the person and the town/state.
Eliminating Duplicate Records
There should not be too many duplicates right now because we completed a full sweep of duplicates in January of 2022. We are still dealing with the best way to merge records where one is a confirmed account. For now, please send the person’s name and the CBIDs of the duplicate records to Marty Benner for handling.
