Thank you for choosing Political Data! Below are some quick start tips to get your account running smoothly and successfully.
Quick Guide Topics
- Help Center
- Login and Password
- Online Training
- Adding Users
- File Pickup Password
- Create Universes
- Surveys
- Create Lists & Files
- Phone Banking
- Predictive Dialer
- Texting
- Mobile App
- Billing Center
Help Center
You can always find our complete documentation and Help Center by logging into your account and clicking the question mark button at the bottom left of the screen. If you need to contact our support team, you can submit a support ticket from inside the Help Center.
Login and Password
Your login and password can be found in your initial account set-up email. You can sign into your account on this page. Make sure that you click the checkbox below the password agreeing to the account terms and conditions. The sign-in button will remain grayed out until you agree to the account terms.
If you’ve forgotten your password, you can request a password reset by clicking on the Forgot Password? link at the bottom of the login page.
Online Training
We recommend watching our online training videos before diving into the system. There are many interlocking pieces and these videos are a great start to learning the ins and outs of the PDI Online Campaign Center.
Intro Training
Advanced Training
Field Canvassing Training
Once you’ve mastered the initial training videos, take a look at the other videos on our support channel for even more tips and instructions on getting the most out of your PDI Campaign Center Account and our Voter Data.
During the busy election season, we also host live trainings where you can ask a PDI support professional questions that may not be covered in the pre-recorded videos.
Adding Users
Click the gear button on the bottom left of the screen to open the Admin menu and select Add/Edit User Accounts. Select Add New Use (top right in green text).
To learn more about adding users or user permissions, visit the help page for Adding Users.
File Pickup Password
Your file pickup folder is where you can download any files that you create in the system. The file pickup password defaults to “pickup” without the quotations. If it is ever changed, you can find it by going to the Admin drop down and selecting Account Settings. On the left side of the page there is a File Pickup Management tab. In there you will see your password.
To learn more about the file pickup folder or the file pickup password, please visit the help page for File Pickup.
Create Universes
Voter Universes are at the core of most processes in the PDI Online Campaign Center. A Voter Universe is simply a saved search of voters that meet a certain criteria. An example of a Voter Universe is “all registered Democrats in Santa Clarita who voted in the last two presidential elections”. You’ll create and use your saved Voter Universes to create your mail list, phone lists, and walk lists in other parts of the system.
People Universes are almost identical to Voter Universes. The main difference is that People Universes only include contacts that you’ve added to the system. Because they are not in the voter database, they do not include many of the default fields included with voter records, such as voter history.
To learn more about Universes, please visit the help page for Voter Universes or People Universes.
Surveys
A Survey is where you will group multiple survey questions together for your paper canvassing tools (Walk List & Phone List). The PDI system uses separate surveys for printed lists and electronic lists (Mobile Canvassing App/ Online Phone Bank) . You’ll need to create separate surveys for each.
To learn more, please visit the help page for Surveys.
Create Lists & Files
You can create traditional printed phone, walk, or mail lists inside of the PDI Campaign Center by clicking on the Actions in the top bar menu and then selecting Actions, Lists & Files, and then Process Lists and Files.
To learn more about creating printed files, please visit the help page for Process Lists & Files.
Phone Banking
Creating a Phone Banking project is very easy in the PDI Campaign Center. Once you create a Voter Universe, you can create a phone bank project by clicking the clipboard icon on the left side of the screen to open the Organizing menu, clicking on Phone Banking and then clicking on Manage Phone Banks. Click the 'Create Phone Bank' button at the top right to create a new phone bank project.
To learn more about Phone Banking, please visit the help page for Phone Banking.
Predictive Dialer
The “Click to Call” predictive dialer that we have integrated into our system is a service provided through Progressive Contact Technologies (also called CallEvo). Please visit their website for info on the predictive dialer pricing, set up and other specs.
To learn more about the Predictive Dialer, please visit our Progressive Contact Technologies website for more information.
Texting
Texting integration is provided by ThruText. To configure ThruText to work with your PDI Campaign Center account, you must have active accounts on both systems. To activate the integration with ThruText, please visit the help page for ThruText.
Mobile App
The PDI Mobile Canvassing App allows you to dispense with printing costs and send walk lists directly to the phones of your volunteers or field staff. The PDI App is available on iPhone in the iPhone App Store and Android in the Google Play Store. Before you can send walk list assignments to your walkers, you need to create a voter universe, create a mobile project, cut turf, and then assign the turf to your walker. Before diving directly into this, we strongly encourage you to watch the training videos for beginners, advanced users, and field canvassing.
You can send an email to a Voter Universe using the PDI Campaign Center to any voter with an email address that we have on file. In order to create send a mass email to voters, you first need to create a Voter Universe and then create an email template. Our help file for Creating and Editing Emails can help you with this.
Billing Center
You can view and pay your PDI invoices for any PDI-provided services (software, data, files processed, polling samples, etc…) in the PDI Billing Center. You are able to create multiple billing profiles and associate different credit cards with those profiles in the Billing Center. To access the Billing Center, click on Admin in the top bar menu and select Billing Center and then select the specific menu item that you need.
Any invoices that you receive from a PDI partner, such as ThruText or Progressive Contact Technologies, must be paid to the partner.
To learn more about the PDI Billing Center, please visit the help page for the Billing Center.