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Nesting Previously Saved Universe in New Saved Universe
Introduction
The Create People Universes page allows you to create universes of the Individuals in your people database. These universes are separate from the voter universes, and feature many different criteria options. Note: People Universes will not pull individuals whose records reside exclusively in the Voter Database. Once created, these People Universes can be used to generate outputs, create Merged List, and searched in the Individual Person Search page. If you are already familiar with the Create Voter Universes page you will already be familiar with creation process, and will likely only need to review the tabs.
- To access the Create People page, hover the mouse over the Actions section of the Navigation Menu, and click the Create Universes button. In the Create Universes page click on the Create People Universe Options tab.
Navigating Create Universes
Data Option Tabs
The 'Data Option Tabs' contain the criteria you can add to your pending criteria list. Criteria is added to the pending universe by clicking on the elements you would like to add to your pending list. The different types of criteria are divided into eight different categories Data Fields, Geography, My Flag Data, Volunteers, Events, Donors, Saved Universes, Members. A more in-depth look into each one of these categories can be found in the sections below.
Counts and Save Button
The Counts section displays the number of Individuals, Organizations, Phones, and All Email addresses in the current universe. By default, these numbers are recalculated each time new criteria is added to the universe. Clicking the Save Universe button will populate the Save Universe pop-up allowing you to save your universe. The View People in Pending Universe link provides you with a preview of the first 2,000 people in the current selected universe criteria.
Pending Criteria List
Pending Criteria - This section each one of the criteria that have been selected to add to your universe, before you finalize your selection. This section can viewed as a shopping cart.
Clear - Clicking this button will remove the items in the Pending Criteria section.
Add Criteria Without Counts - Activating this button will allow you to add criteria groups to your universe, without calculating the added criteria. You will need to deactivate the button once you are ready to review the counts of your universe.
ADD Criteria to Universe - Adds the criteria in the Pending Criteria section into the universe.
Buttons to Add New Criteria by Intersection, Expansion and Negation
Intersect Criteria (AND) - Clicking this button combines the criteria that is currently in the pending universe with the criteria in the current universe. This button will narrow the scope of the universe by requiring voters to meet both the criteria of the current universe along with the pending criteria.
Expand Criteria (OR) - Clicking this button expands the current universe, by creating adding the voters who meet the pending criteria to the current universe.
Exclude Criteria (AND NOT) - Clicking this button narrows the scope of the current universe, by removing the individuals in the current universe that meet the criteria of the pending criteria.
Exclude Dead, Moved Voted, Suppress - Clicking this button removes the individuals who are either been marked as dead, moved, national change of address, suppressed, or have already voted.
Pending Criteria Group
Remove Last Criteria Group - Clicking the link removes the last added criteria group from the universe, without updating the universe count.
Refresh Pending Universe - Clicking this button will refresh the count number in the universe. This is used after a pending criteria group in the universe has either been moved around, or removed, or the logic of the universe was changed, as the count number will not update automatically.
Up Arrow - Moves the criteria group up.
Down Arrow - Moves the criteria group down.
X Button - Removes the criteria group without recalculating the universe.
Drop-Down Menu - Allows you to change the operation of the criteria group.
Data Fields Tab
The Data Fields tab is displayed when you open the Create People Universes page. The tab features the following sections: Status Contact Methods, Entered Data From / To, Contact Data Source, Modified Date From / To, and Quick Targets.
- Status –All people are classified as one or more of the following Contact Types:
- All Contacts – This includes everyone in your Contact Database.
- Donors – Active Donors who have made one or more contributions.
- Donor Prospect – Contacts identified as potential donors.
- Volunteers – Active Volunteers who have worked a volunteer shift or made calls from the online phone bank.
- Volunteer Prospects – Contacts identified as potential volunteers.
- Members – Contacts who are designated as members of your organization.
- Member Prospects – Contacts identified as potential members of an organization.
- Staff – Contacts associated with your organization by the status of volunteer.
- Registered Voters – Contact records that are matched to the voter file.
- Contact Methods
- Home Phone – Contacts with home phone numbers.
- Work Phone – Contacts with work phone numbers.
- Mobile Personal – Contacts with mobile personal cell phone numbers.
- Mobile Work – Contacts with mobile work cell phone numbers.
- Fax – Contacts with fax numbers. (please let them know what year it is)
- Miscellaneous Phone – Contacts with phone numbers that do not fall into the above categories.
- Email – Contacts with emails addresses.
- Email Opt-In Only – Individuals who have opted into receiving your emails via web form.
- Mailing Address – Contacts with a mailing address.
- Facebook – Contacts on Facebook.
- Twitter – Contacts with Twitter handles.
- Blog – Contacts with blogs
- LinkedIn – Contacts on LinkedIn.
- Datasets – All of the data in the contact database is created from different sources such as copied from the voter database, manual entry, or bulk import. The Datasets field allows you to identify various sources of data. You can also query by the date when a contact’s record was entered or modified.
- Modified Date Range – Allows you to filter datasets based on when the records were modified.
- Quick Targets -
Geography Tab
The Geography tab allows you to filter your universe to a specific geographic area. The tab features two separate sub-tabs: Quick District Find and List of Districts. The Quick District Find find sub-tab allows you to quickly query for geographic areas for individuals who are in both your Voter and People database by freehand typing the name of the district into a textbox. The List of Districts sub-tab allows you to query for geographic areas for individuals who are purely in your people database, as well as individuals who are located in both databases, by selecting the area from a list.
Quick District Find
The Enter Geography Here textbox allows you to type in the name of the district you would like to add to your criteria group. Once you have begun type the name into the textbox you will see a pop-up featuring a list of districts that match with the text entered in the textbox. In the pop-up, click on the district you would like to add. You can select as many district types as necessary to generate your criteria group. If a district was added in error click on the X button to remove the district.
List of Districts
The List of Districts sub-tab features 3 different sections: the Voter File Geography section gives you the ability to pick geographies for the People who also reside in the Voter Database, the Contact Address Geography drop-down menu which allows you to select the geography for people in your People Database, and the last section is the Geographies section which will display the actual districts of the selected district type from either the Voter File Geography section or Contact Address Geography section.
In the Voter File Geography section, the process for selecting geographic district in the List of Districts sub-tab starts by using the List of Contact Districts drop-down menu to select the district type you would like to add to the criteria group. The program will then list all districts that overlap with your accounts geography in the Geographies section. These districts can then be selected by activating the checkbox of the district which will it to your criteria group. If the list of districts is too large, the list can be filtered by selecting a second geographic type and specific district name in the Only Areas and Areas drop-down menus respectively. For example, for an account covering the entire state of California, you can filter a list of cities in Los Angeles County by selecting City in the List of Districts drop-down menu, you can then filter the list of cities by selecting County in the Only Areas drop-down menu and Los Angeles in the Areas drop-down menu. This feature is especially useful to filter precincts or zip codes with numerous values.
If you cannot find a district in your account that should be listed, the district is likely not configured in the Account Settings -> Viewable Data Options -> Districts to Display page.
In the Contact Address Geography section you will use the Contact Address Geography drop-down menu to select the Contact Geography Type you would like to use. Once a Contact Geography Type has been selected, you will then activate the checkboxes for the items you would like to add to your criteria group in the Geographies section.
My Flag Data Tab
The My Flag Data tab displays flag and survey data that has been acquired or generated by your organization. The My Flag Data tab features two sub-tabs.
- All Flag Data - This tab lets you query all flag data and even view shared flags from other friendly organizations.
- Email Status Flags – This tab lets you query people based on email receipt information.
All Flag Data
The All Flag Data tab allows you to query your flag data by many different parameters. This tab can be as simple or complex as you need it to be. Flags have many data points associated with them. If you only need to query a single flag response, you can select the value in the Flag Response drop-down box menu add the criteria. If you want to filter your query using the associated Candidate, Survey Question, Acquisition Type, Issue/Position, or Entry Date along with the person who collected or entered the data, you can use any of the drop-down menus in the tab.
For most of your simple queries with flags, using only the drop-downs menus will be sufficient. As you acquire more flags you may outgrow the basic functionality of the drop-down menus and require the more advanced feature in this sub-tab.
Activating the Show Flag Grid Below checkbox changes how the whole page functions to allow for more complicated functionality. The drop-down menus are now used only to filter value options listed in a Flag Grid table to the right. To add criteria, you must activate the checkboxes of the rows from the Flag Grid associated with the ID Flags you wish to use. The Flag Grid table makes it possible to select multiple ID Flags at the same time and even view a breakdown of your flags by their metadata. The data in the table can even be split by acquisition type and date.
Activating the Include External Shared Data checkbox changes the list of the Flag Grid by adding additional ID Flags that are being shared to your Organization Account from friendly Organization Accounts. The external flag data can only be queried when the Include External Shared Data checkbox is activated. We do this to ensure that the data from other Organization Accounts does not get mixed up with your data.
Email Status Flags
When you send emails to voters or contact from the PDI Email Module, the status of the emails are sent back to the system and can be used for querying new universes. The system records the deliveries sent, categories, results, and dates sent. Selecting elements from multiple categories will limit the criteria group to only the voters that meet all of the selected options. For example, if you select a delivery and the Read Email result, this will limit the criteria group to only the individuals who read the email from the selected delivery.
Volunteers Tab
The Volunteers tab was designed to help you organize your volunteers and volunteer prospects into People Universes. recruit, schedule, and manage your volunteers. The Volunteer tab allows you to query a volunteer’s time availability, skills, preferences, etc. to help make your recruitment and scheduling efforts easier and more successful.
Many of the sections on this page need to be pre-configured from the Account Data Configuration page by a user with administrative access. There are no specific rules on how you use each field so just use the options as you think best reflects the needs of your organization. The options include the following:
- Volunteer Organizers - Allows you to query for people who are assigned a particular Volunteer Organizer.
- Volunteer Status - Allows you to query by an individual's current Volunteer Status.
- Volunteer Levels - Allows you to query by the user assigned Volunteer Level.
- Volunteer Zones - Allows you to query by the user assigned Volunteer Zone.
- Availabilities - Allows you to query by the user assignedAvailability.
- Volunteer Teams - Allows you to query by the user assigned Volunteer Team.
- Volunteer Skills - Allows you to query by the user assigned Volunteer Skills.
- Preferred Work Types - Allows you to query by the user assigned Preferred Work Type.
- Currently Scheduled - Allows you to query for individuals who are or are not currently assigned an upcoming shift.
- Days Since Worked - Allows you to query for volunteers who last worked in a particular time frame.
- Flake Score From / To - Allows you to query for volunteers by the odds of them showing up for a shift.
Events Tab
The Events tab allows you to query individuals invited to or attending various events created by your organization account. You can create a query based on the Event Invitations, Attendance, Confirmation, or an individual’s RSVP status. The top row of options controls the table that lists the events. To use the table activate the checkboxes for the events you would like to query.
Table Controls
- Calendar - Allows you to select a Calendar so you can filter the events list table.
- Select Event - Allows you to filter the table to a singular event.
- Sort By Date - Sorts the list of events by date.
- Show Past Events - Shows events that have occurred.
- Event Date Range From / To - Allows you to control the date range of the events shown in the table.
Other Event Options
- RSVP Status - Allows you to query for individuals with a particular RSVP Status. Note: If at least one event is selected the program will search for people with the selected RSVP Status in the selected events.
- RSVP Status Date - Allows you to add a date range limitation on the RSVP Status check.
- Attend? - Allows you to query for individuals that have or have not attended an event. Note: If at least one event is selected the program will search for people that either attended or did not attend the selected events.
- Confirmed - Allows you to query for individuals who either Confirmed, or did not Confirm their attendance to an event. Note: If at least one event is selected the program will search for people that either confirmed or did not confirm the selected events.
- Confirmed Date - Allows you to add a date range limitation on the Confirmed status check.
Donors Tab
The Donors tab lets you query individuals based on their activity as a donor. This page is designed to let you specify a dollar range for a pledge or donation and then add filters for a variety of related fields.
Although the Donor functionality is primarily focused on fundraising, PDI is integrated with a full-featured compliance software. Contact your PDI representative for more information on ISP Compliance Software.
The Donors tab options include the following:
- Budget Category – This field is used for donation reporting and accounting.
- Election (Donation Period) – The donation period identifies an election cycle, calendar year, reporting period, or another meaningful period of time for classifying donations and pledges.
- Gender – Identifies the donor’s gender.
- Birthdate Range – Identifies an age range for donors.
- Occupation – This field allows you to record the occupation of the donor for reporting compliance.
- Employer – This field allows you to record the donor’s employer for reporting compliance.
- Payment Method – This filed identifies the payment method used for making a donation. A Check Number field will appear if the Check option is chosen.
- Status – This field identifies the donor’s activity status as Active or Prospect.
- Cumulative/Single – This field will determine whether to query your dollar amount range by single contribution/pledge or cumulative contributions/pledges.
- Transaction Type – This field identifies the type of transaction made such as “Monetary Contributions” or “Loans”. This can apply to your donors or third party donors (made to a different organization).
- Min$$ - Max$$ - These currency fields allow you to enter a dollar range.
- From – To – These date fields allow you to enter a date range.
- Days Since Donating – This field queries based on the date of the most recent donation.
- Cumulative/Single - This field will determine whether to query your dollar amount range by single contribution/pledge or cumulative contributions/pledges.
- Recipient - Allows you to query for individuals who donated for a specific recipient.
- Min$$ / Max$$ - These currency fields allow you to enter a dollar range.
- From / To – These date fields allow you to enter a date range.
Saved Universes Tab
The Saved Universes tab allows you to add previously saved universes to a Criteria Group, edit the universe, deactivate the universe from your organization account, and add universes as a Target We made it easier to manage the numerous universes created by organizations more efficiently. You can filter existing universes by folder, name, creator, and creation date. You can also access your previously saved Static List by activating the Saved Static List checkbox.
If you click on the name of the universe, a pop-up box will appear on the right side displaying the details of the universe, and provide you with the ability to deactivate the universe, add it as a target, or make edits. We advise you to be extremely careful when editing saved universes that could be nested within another universe.
- Saved Universe - Activating the checkbox displays a list of all of the universes created in the organization account.
- Saved Static List - Activating the checkbox displays a list of all of the saved list created in the organization account.
- Universe Name - This textbox allows users to search for a specific universe by name.
- Filter By Folder - This drop-down menu allows users to search for a universe by folder name.
- Filter By Creator - This drop-down menu allows users to search for a universe by the users name.
- From - Populates a calendar that allows users to filter the list by date.
- To - Populates a calendar that allows users to filter the list by date.
- Deactivate (Hide) - Activating this checkbox deactivates the universe and hides it from all pages in the program except the Manage Universes / List page.
- Edit Universe - Clicking the button will reload the universe allowing you to make changes to a preexisting universe.
Members Tab
The Members Data tab is usually reserved for large member organizations like labor unions or trade associations. The left side of the tab has three filter layers for drilling down smalls groups of members within a large organization. The right side of the tab allows you to query for membership dues, and an individuals payment status.
Please contact your PDI account representative if you would like more information about loading your organization’s member data into the PDI software.
View People in Pending Universe
Voters in the Create Universe process are usually represented by numbers, but there can be a greater value in viewing actual voters to validate a universe’s accuracy. By clicking on the View People in Pending Universe link, the system will display a list of names, address, age, party, and gender for the first the first 2,000 records in your pending universe. . NOTE: This feature is only available when at least one criterion has been added to the universe definition.
View Selected People
- Build your universe so it contains at least one active criteria group.
- Click the View People In Pending Universe link in the Counts and Save Universe section of the page.
- The View Selected People window should now pop up above the Create Universes page. This window includes contact information for up to 2,000 people in the universe, as well as any precinct, age, party and support status information available. This information is not editable. It is simply an at-a-glance view of who is within the universe as it is currently defined.
Knowing How Criteria Relate
Knowing how multiple criteria relate to each other is extremely important, especially when it involves universes that use both (AND) and (OR) operators. The order in which criteria are added and with what operator is just as important as the values of the criterion being selected. It is imperative that you give thought as to how best to build your universe before beginning the creation process. Grouping the criteria incorrectly may produce inaccurate results.
For example, look at the statement “Democrat & Female or Latino.” As written, it cannot be known for sure if the author intended for the Democrat to be grouped with the Female or the Female to be grouped with the Latino. The two interpretations would yield very different counts making it very important to know the correct grouping.
Option 1 - (Democrat & Female) or Latino
Option 2 - Latino or Democrat & (Female or Latino)
Since the program does not let users place parentheses within a universe, they must rely on the default process for associating multiple criteria. The program by default groups new criteria with the entire body of criteria that was previously added.
(Original Criteria)
[(Original Criteria) (New Criteria)]
[((Original Criteria) (Second Criteria)) (New Criteria)]
[((Original Criteria) (Second Criteria) (Third Criteria)) (New Criteria)]
This structure promotes the use of (OR) operators before (AND) / (And NOT) operators, as users should try to select all like criteria and then narrow, unless specifically looking to do otherwise. For example, (Dem or Female or Latino) and Permanent Vote by Mail. Each qualifying individual would need to be a PVBM.
- Intersect Criteria (And) - This option will intersect all prior criteria groups with the newly intersected criteria group. For example, if criteria group one contains Democrat, and criteria group 2 contains Republican with an OR logic operator between criteria group 1 and 2 , and we intersect a third criteria group feature the criteria of Latino, then our universe will only contain Democratic Latino voters and Republican Latino voters. Note: This option should be used when you want to filter your universe to particular criteria group.
- Expand Criteria (OR) - This option will expand your universe to include all voters that meet the qualifications in the selected criteria group. Note: This option should be used when you want to include an additional group of voters to your universe
- Exclude Criteria (AND NOT) - This option will remove the voters that meet the qualifications of the selected criteria group from the universe. This logic operator will remove the selected criteria group from all prior criteria groups in your universe.
- Exclude Dead Moved Voted and Suppress - This option will remove anyone who has been flagged as Dead, Moved, Voted, Suppressed, or National Change of Address from your universe.
Nesting Previously Saved Universe in New Saved Universe
Once a universe is saved, it can be used or “nested” within a new universe. This process makes it easier to build complex universes. Nested Saved Universes will display only their name in the Pending Universe Details box at the bottom of the Create Universes page.
- To build a Nested Universe simply select and add a previously Saved Universe to the Pending Criteria then click Add Criteria to Universe button or logic operator to move it to the Pending Universe Details area.
- Finish creating your universe.
- Click the Save Universe button and save your universe.
Nesting Saved Universes
- Construct the desired primary universe or list as outlined in Create a Saved Universe or Create a Saved List sub-section featured in the Step-by-Step Guide section below.
- In the Saved Universe tab, activate the checkbox of the universe you would like to nest in your universe.
- Select the desired operator button to bring this criterion to your universe.
- Click the Save Universe button.
- Use the Universe Name textbox to assign a name to your universe.
- (Optional) Use the Universe Folder drop-down menu to select the folder you would like to place the universe in.
- (Optional) If the desired category does not exist, it can be created by clicking the Add New Folder link.
- Use the Name textbox to assign a name to your folder.
- Click the Save button.
- (Optional) If you would like to save a Static List version of your universe activate the Save as Static List checkbox.
- Click the Save Universe button.