“That’s the kind of additional information that gives us a strategic edge”
Organizers react to our newest Action Builder features
Here at Action Builder & Action Network, we build our tools through a cooperative development process, hand-in-hand with the organizers who use them everyday to build progressive power. We’re always focused on how we can make our organizing tools more powerful and even easier to use, which is why we’re so excited about our newest features on Action Builder: a person-level activity stream, note search, and complex filters.
The Person-Level Activity Stream will show every update made to a person’s profile, including assessment changes, tags, address changes, and more. Similar to the Activity Feed on the campaign level, the Person-Level Activity Feed helps you keep tabs on each individual person in your campaign.
“With the person-level activity stream, it’s going to be easier for an organizer to look at a person’s record and identify the key points they need to know about that person. Previously you could get that information from the Info field, but now you’ll be able to see what this person did two months ago — that’s way different than if they did this two years ago. It’s a better visual design for getting at the important points in a time sensitive manner.” — Phil Harding, Organizing Data and Database Manager, UAW
Note Search allows you to search for notes via the Campaign Activity Stream or the Person-Level Activity Stream that were applied to a person in your campaign. Look for mentions of workplace issues, locate and pull up the notes from a specific conversation, or remind yourself of a detail you picked up from a house visit months or weeks ago.
“I’ll never forget the time, before Action Builder, when I lost this sign-in sheet that had the key activist’s name and phone number on it. We needed her to break open the rest of our campaign, and she was fired up and ready to go. I never could get in touch with her again. It still haunts me! With Action Builder, that never has to happen. Papers don’t get lost in the trunks of our cars as we’re driving across states. The search notes feature is going to be another real game changer. Imagine digging through your trunk full of files of notes to try to remember who said that one key comment. This happens all the time in our work, where some comment will pop into your head, and you can remember the phrase verbatim, but you can’t remember who said it. Every bit of work that we do and every person in the campaign plays a role, whether it’s immediately or down the road.” — Liz Rilley, Organizing Data Strategist, AFL-CIO
Complex Filters allow you to link together groups of query filters using logic such as ‘AND’ and ‘OR’. Now, you will be able to ask more detailed questions about your data and quickly and easily get the answers you need within Action Builder.
“In organizing, we have a lot of axioms. I love to say that to win more campaigns, we need to organize with a scalpel, not a hatchet. What we often see, especially as we scale up campaigns, is that it’s harder and harder to keep good one-on-one relational practices at the core of our organizing. It’s hard to scale up into the thousands. But with these new features, we can keep our fundamental best practices of organizing by building deep relationships and getting to know individuals without letting our key activists get lost in the numbers.” — Liz Rilley, Organizing Data Strategist, AFL-CIO
