Campaign Ctrl Knowledge Base

Getting Started

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 19:12:47 -0700

Welcome to CampaignCTRL — the platform for running a political campaign’s voter contact: canvassing, phone banking, texting, surveys, and turnout.

Start with the concepts

Almost everything in CampaignCTRL is built from three pieces. Get familiar with them first and the rest of the app falls into place:

Lists — who you want to reach.
Surveys — what you want to ask or record.
Activities — the push (canvass, call, or text) that brings a list and a survey together.

The How it fits together page shows the full picture in one diagram — that’s the best place to begin.

User roles

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 06:16:30 -0600

TL;DR — CampaignCTRL has six roles. Four sign in: Owner and Admin (full access), Organiser (runs a volunteer team), and Volunteer (does the outreach). Two are field agents reached by a private text link: Captain (election-day turnout) and Recruiter (signs up supporters).

A campaign is a team effort, and CampaignCTRL gives everyone on the team the right amount of access for the job they do. Knowing who’s who makes the rest of the app easier to follow.

How it fits together

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 14:50:40 -0600

Almost everything you do in CampaignCTRL is some combination of three things:

Concept	Answers	In one line
List	Who?	A saved set of people you want to reach.
Survey	What do we ask?	A reusable set of questions whose answers update each person’s record.
Activity	How do we reach them?	One campaign push — canvass, call, or text — that works through a list and records survey answers.

The pipeline

An Activity is the thing that ties the other two together. It targets a List (the people) and runs a Survey (the questions), then sends volunteers out to make contact and record what they hear.

Lists

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 14:50:40 -0600

TL;DR — A list is a saved set of the people you want to reach. Build it from filters, the map, or by hand — as a fixed snapshot (static) or one that updates itself (dynamic).

What it is

A list is a saved set of people you want to reach. It’s the who of a campaign: the roster an activity works through when volunteers canvass, call, or text.

You build a list by narrowing down everyone in your database to just the people who matter for a given effort — for example, undecided voters in Ward 3 who haven’t been contacted yet.

Surveys

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 14:50:40 -0600

TL;DR — A survey is a reusable set of questions your team asks at the door or on the phone. Each answer can also update the person’s record — adding a tag, setting their support level, and more.

What it is

A survey is a reusable set of questions you ask people during an activity. It’s the what we ask of a campaign — the script a volunteer follows at the door or on the phone.

Activities

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 14:50:40 -0600

TL;DR — An activity is one campaign push — a canvass, phone bank, text blast, or GOTV drive. It works through a list of people — or, for a field canvass, a poll, an area you draw on the map — and runs a survey. A field activity can target a poll instead of a list, reaching everyone inside its boundary.

What it is

An activity is one campaign push. It’s the how we reach them — the effort that puts volunteers in front of people and records what they hear.

Polls

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 07:29:59 -0600

TL;DR — A poll is a named grouping of the people it covers, and it comes in two kinds: a custom-map poll (a boundary on the map — you belong by where your address falls) or a custom-file poll (a polling-division number from your import — you belong by the number on your record). Build a poll once, then attach it to a Field activity to reach everyone in it.

What it is

A poll is a named grouping of the addresses and people it covers — one slice of your campaign’s territory that you can hand to a coordinator and work as a unit.

Leads

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 06:59:17 -0600

TL;DR — A lead is a new contact a volunteer captures in the field. The app matches it against your existing people, and once a reviewer approves the match, the lead becomes a confirmed identified voter.

What it is

A lead is a newly captured, unverified contact a volunteer records from the field — someone they met or spoke to (a neighbour, a friend, a co-worker, a family member) whom the campaign wants to add to its supporter base. A lead starts life as raw contact details; the job from there is to work out whether that person is already in your voter file and, once a reviewer confirms it, promote them to an identified voter.

Import people into a campaign

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 09:34:21 -0600

This guide walks you through importing people — the contacts your campaign reaches — into CampaignCTRL from a spreadsheet. You upload a CSV file, line up its columns with CampaignCTRL’s fields, and the app either adds new people or updates ones you already have.

There are two ways in, and you pick the one that fits:

Upload CSV — add people straight into your active election from a CSV file. This is the everyday path.
From Previous Election — choose a past election cycle (or create one) and import a CSV into it. Handy when you’re bringing over contacts from an earlier campaign.

The one thing that trips people up: your CSV needs a header row — a first row that names each column, like First Name, Email, or Street. CampaignCTRL uses those names as the columns you line up in the next step, so a file without headers is much harder to map.

Canvass an area you draw on the map

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 15:52:03 -0600

This guide walks you through creating a poll-based Field activity — a door-to-door canvass scoped to everyone inside a poll you’ve drawn on the map.

A custom-map poll is a named boundary that groups everyone whose address falls inside it. This workflow starts from a poll you’ve already drawn on the map, then turns it into a door-knocking activity that’s ready to assign to volunteers.

The one thing that confuses new users: the area you draw on the map is saved as a boundary, but when you build an activity it shows up under the Poll data source. Same shape, two names.

Canvass a group of people you choose

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 10:08:14 -0600

This guide walks you through creating a door-to-door canvass scoped to a group of people you’ve chosen — say a batch of undecided voters, or everyone who asked for a lawn sign.

A list is a saved set of people you want to reach (see Lists). This workflow starts from a list you’ve already built, then turns it into a door-knocking activity that’s ready to assign to volunteers.

Who can do this

Action	Permission needed
Build a list of people	People access
Create an activity	Activities → Create

Owners and admins have this by default. Volunteers and field agents (recruiters and captains) can’t build lists or create activities. (New to these roles? See User roles.)

Run an election-day turnout drive

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 13:21:12 -0600

This guide walks you through creating a Get Out The Vote (GOTV) activity — your election-day push to make sure the people who back you actually turn out and vote.

A GOTV activity starts from a list of people — usually the supporters you’ve already identified — and gives volunteers a simple, household-by-household view for election day: who still needs to vote, and a one-tap way to mark each person as Voted once they do. Unlike a canvass, a GOTV activity doesn’t run a survey. Instead you set up a short set of intentions — the turnout states volunteers choose from, such as Will vote or Needs a ride.

Onboard a volunteer

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 08:46:09 -0600

This guide walks you through bringing a volunteer — a signed-in team member who works your activities and records each person’s survey responses at the door or on the phone (see User roles) — into CampaignCTRL, then getting them ready to start.

There are two ways to add a volunteer, and you can use whichever fits the moment:

Let them sign themselves up with a QR form attached to an activity — great for recruiting at events, doors, or rallies.
Invite them by email — best when you already know who’s joining.

Either way, the volunteer ends up in your Volunteers roster. From there they can open the activities you assign them and start recording survey responses for every person they reach — the heart of what a volunteer does. You can optionally also assign them to an Organiser, which puts them on a supervised team whose leads get reviewed.

Delete an organisation

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 08:09:09 -0600

This guide walks you through deleting an organisation — your campaign’s whole account in CampaignCTRL, with its people, lists, surveys, activities, and team. Deleting one permanently disables it: the organisation and everything in it become inaccessible to you and everyone on the team. It’s an action only an Owner can take.

You might do this to shut down a campaign that’s finished, or to retire a practice or demo org you no longer use. If you only want to step away from an org rather than close it down for the whole team, this is the wrong tool — leave it in place instead.

Campaign Ctrl Knowledge Base

Getting Started

Start with the concepts link

User roles

How it fits together

The pipeline link

Lists

What it is link

Surveys

What it is link

Activities

What it is link

Polls

What it is link

Leads

What it is link

Import people into a campaign

Canvass an area you draw on the map

Canvass a group of people you choose

Who can do this link

Run an election-day turnout drive

Onboard a volunteer

Delete an organisation

Start with the concepts

The pipeline

What it is

What it is

What it is

What it is

What it is

Who can do this