This article covers the basics of volunteer-facing actions on Impactive - these are the actions that volunteers will use the web/mobile portal to participate in.
For specifics on how to set up Peer-to-Peer Texting, Phone Banking, Friends and Family Messaging, Canvassing, Social Sharing, and Open a Webpage, visit those linked articles. This article covers the initial basics to help you get familiar with how actions work, but does not cover the specifics of those action types.
(Note that other Impactive features - Broadcast Texting, Automated Texting, Voter Registration, and Forms - are not volunteer-facing actions accessed through the web/mobile portal, so information in this article is not relevant for them; details on those features are covered in those linked articles.)
What are Actions?
Actions are the individual opportunities for volunteers to make use of Impactive's features - ex. you'll publish Peer-to-Peer actions (a text bank), Phone Banking actions (a phone bank), and more. All features that begin with logged-in volunteer participation are published in the form of actions - that's Peer-to-Peer Texting, Phone Banking, Friends and Family Messaging, Canvassing, Social Sharing, and Open a Webpage.
Where do Actions Appear?
Volunteers can find actions published to them on their action feed on the home tab of either the volunteer web or mobile portal. You can customize the branding for each published action (image, title, and description) to help volunteers understand what they're doing and why it's important.
Action Statuses
There are five types of action statuses; here's what they each mean:
Draft: An action that has been created and saved, but has never been published to any users.
Scheduled: An action that is scheduled to be published to users at a certain date/time.
Published: An action that is currently published to at least one user list, and is visible to those user(s) in their volunteer web/mobile action feeds. Note that actions are listed as Published whether they were published to only a user list (or multiple), or published for all users.
Closed (same as Archived): An action that was previously published to at least one user list, but was subsequently archived by an admin (or, in the case of texting actions, auto-closed by Impactive due to texting errors). Closed actions are no longer visible in any volunteers' web/mobile action feeds, but admins can still view/duplicate the action and view its results.
Deleted: An action that was fully deleted by an admin, regardless of whether it was ever published or not. Deleted actions are no longer visible in any volunteers' web/mobile action feeds, and admins can't access them either - so they can't view results, etc.
There's rarely a good reason to delete an action - we recommend archiving instead, unless you're 100% sure that you'll never need content or results data from the action ever again.
The All Actions Page
The All Actions page lists all of your Impactive actions, regardless of their type:
On this page, you can filter by folder, by action status, and by action type. You can also export data from your actions; learn more about the various export types here.
Click any action to view or edit it, or click the results button to view its results.
You can also create a new action from this page (and then choose which type you want to create), which you can also do from the tabs for each type of action.
This page also displays information on the action's current state, represented as a combination of colored indicators:
Status: (Draft, Published, etc. - more info above, here)
Public: An action that has been published to all users
Private: An action that has been published to only a user list(s), not all users
Ongoing: A small number of out-of-the-box actions are permanently available in Impactive, and are listed as Ongoing. Added Reports is one such action; read more about it here.
The Individual Action Page
Upon clicking into a certain action, you'll see its action page:
You can take a number of steps from this page:
Publish the action: Use the Make Public button to immediately publish this action to all users, meaning it will appear in their action feeds. Alternatively, use the Send to User List button to immediately publish this action for only a certain list of users; it will then appear only in those users' action feeds, but will not be visible for anyone else.
View Results: Click View Results to view the performance statistics about the action.
Manage Action: A number of functions are available in the Manage Action dropdown:
Edit Action: Open the action edit page to edit the action's settings. You can also click the pencil icon (underneath and to the right of Manage Action) to edit the action.
Copy Action: Create a duplicate of this action; this duplicate will be a draft (it will not be published, even if the action you're copying is currently published) which you can then edit. Copying actions is great for re-using scripts and other settings from an action you previously created.
Mark Featured: Action feeds in the volunteer web/mobile portal have a section for "Featured Actions", which are the actions you can spotlight to draw particular attention to them. It's possible to have an unlimited number of actions marked as featured, but we don't recommend that (it doesn't make the featured action special!). We recommend only marking 1-2 actions at a time as featured, to really draw users' attention to those.
Archive Action: Close the action to remove it from users' action feeds; you'll still be able to view the content and results from the action, and can still copy it.
Delete Action: Fully delete the action; you'll never be able to access it again, so we don't recommend deleting actions unless you're 100% certain that you'll never need any information from it.
You can also copy/paste the URLs that lead directly to the action in the volunteer web or mobile portals; these direct action links are great for helping users find the action right away. You can post these URLs on social media, send them out in email, include them in a text message to volunteers, etc. - just keep in mind that users that click them will need to log in to Impactive if they aren't already (or sign up for the first time, if they haven't already) in order to participate.
This page also offers a shortcut to directly edit scripts for messaging-based actions (ex. Peer-to-Peer Texting); scripts can be live-edited while actions are published.
Action Settings on the Individual Action Edit Page
There are certain settings that can be customized for all actions, regardless of their type; those are summarized in this section. Each type of action also has settings that are specific to that action type; you can learn about those in the action-specific articles here: Peer-to-Peer Texting, Phone Banking, Friends and Family Messaging, Canvassing, Social Sharing, and Open a Webpage.
These settings can be customized on an individual action's edit page; this edit page will appear when you click + New Action, and you can also access this page on the individual action page under the Manage Action dropdown.
Action Image - Optional
An action image is optional, but we recommend uploading one to boost user engagement! Users will see this image in their action feeds. Recommended dimensions are 1,000px x 1,000px, though images are sometimes shown as a horizontal rectangle, so center content within the center 3/4 (vertically) of the square, as shown here:
Recommended Dimensions/Centering for Action Image:
Recommended Dimensions/Centering for Action Image:
Action Title - Required
An action title is required. Users will see this title in their action feeds.
Action Description - Required
An action description is required; we recommend including high-quality information here to boost user engagement! Tell users what they're doing, and don't forget the why - why will this action be impactful? Users will see this description in their action feeds.
Assigned Folder(s) - Optional
Optionally, assign this action to one or more folders. Learn more here about using folders as an internal organizational system within Impactive.
Start Button Label - Optional
Optionally, choose a different button CTA that users will see when they open the action in their action feeds.
Publish Date/Time - Optional
Optionally, set a date and time to schedule this action to be published to ALL users. This field is optional because you can still publish the action - whether to all users or a specific user list - anytime after the action is saved by clicking the Make Public or Send to User List buttons on the action's page.
Limit Publishing to Specific Language - Optional
Optionally, limit publishing of this action to only users who use either the English or Spanish version of the volunteer mobile/web portal(users choose which language they'll use when signing up). This is great for creating a Spanish-specific version of the action. Learn more about using Impactive in Spanish here.
Keep an eye out for tooltips throughout Impactive! Marked with a question mark icon like this, 
, you'll find tooltips next to many of the fields throughout the admin dashboard. Tooltips offer helpful descriptions that you can use to interpret what a certain field/feature will do.