Impactive offers a flexible, user-friendly phone banking/predictive dialer tool to help you make calls to your audience. Like other action types (Peer-to-Peer Texting, Friends and Family Messaging, etc.), Phone Banking is an action type that is published to Impactive users, which they can access via the Impactive volunteer interface for web or mobile.

The below article offers specific details on all of the settings and components of running a Phone Banking action. But to begin, here's a general overview of the steps/prerequisites that are typically required to run a Phone Banking action:

To create a new phone banking action, head to Actions > Phone Bank and click + New Action in the top-left corner of the table. You'll be taken to the action's edit pages. There are two pages of settings for a phone banking action: the first page with basic action settings, and the second page to write the phone banking script.

Optionally, assign this action to one or more folders. Learn more here about using folders as an internal organizational system within Impactive.

A contact list is required; this is the list of contacts that you'll call during your phone bank. Read more here about importing contacts.

Optionally, add an image that will appear alongside this action for users; users will see it in their action feeds (for web or mobile). We recommend uploading one to boost user engagement! 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; this article shares an example of these dimensions.

An action title is required. Users will see this title in their action feeds (for web or mobile). This title will not be seen by contacts; it is user-facing only, to give users context about the phone bank they're participating in.

An action description is required; users will see it in their action feeds (for web or mobile), and it will not be seen by contacts. 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?

Optionally, add a disclaimer that will appear when users open the action in their actions feeds (for web or mobile). A disclaimer isn't added very often; on rare occasion, it's used by clients who are fiscally sponsoring or otherwise providing in-kind to support to another campaign, and need to disclose that for compliance reasons.

Optionally, provide a comma-separated list (ex. 509,425) of preferred area codes for the phone numbers used to call contacts for this action. Impactive will use preferred area codes when available, but cannot guarantee area code availability. If left blank, random phone numbers will be used.

Optionally, designate a different start button label for users to click when they open this action.

Start date/time is required. Indicate the earliest date and time when users can begin making calls for this action. (Note that the action will not automatically be published at this date/time; the action must still be published separately.) Admins will not be able to start the phone bank before this date/time - see below for instructions on how to start a phone bank.

End date/time is required. Indicate the latest date and time when users can make calls for this action. (Note that the action will not automatically close at this date/time; the action must still be closed separately.)

It's your choice whether to use predictive dialing (which is the default), or turn predictive dialing off to create a "manual" phone bank instead. Read more about the difference between predictive and manual dialing here. One key consideration is that predictive phone banks require a minimum of three active volunteers, concurrently in order to function properly; if your phone bank will be smaller than that, turn off predictive dialing.

(Available to toggle on/off only after an action draft is saved.) It's your choice whether to use Answering Machine Detection (which is the default) or turn it off. If Answering Machine Detection is ON, Impactive will automatically filter out any detected answering machines and only connect users with contacts who pick up the phone. Answering Machine Detection is available for both predictive and manual phone banks. Answering Machine Detection is not 100% perfect - users may still be connected to the occasional voicemail - but it dramatically reduces the number of answering machines that users would be connected to if it was turned off.

Optionally, add additional tags and custom fields that will be displayed to the user when they connect to a certain contact. For instance, if you have custom field data in Impactive about a contact's neighborhood, or who their elected official is (custom data like this can be updated via the process here), you could display that custom field so that the user will have that context about the contact when they talk to them on the phone.

In phone banking actions, most of the data that you're interested in gathering will likely be collected via the script itself (read on below). However, if there are additional tags or custom fields that you want users to report on, outside of what's in the script, add those tags and custom fields here. Note that there are two ways that users can report on these tags and custom fields while phone banking; the report is available during the call (it's another "tab" of the user interface, next to the script tab), and it also appears after the call in the few screens that the user clicks through at the end of each call. Because the report is accessible both during and after the call, it's common to add a "Notes" custom field to the report settings, so users can take notes in the middle of the call.
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Note that you do not need to add the "Last Called At" custom field to Report Settings here (and Impactive will not allow you to do so); that custom field is automatically generated and stored when calls are made, it does not require a user report.

There are is one global Phone Banking setting designated under Campaign Settings > Phone Banking, which will apply to all Phone Banking actions created in your campaign; this setting is:

If turned on, this setting prevents contacts from being called within 6 hours of last receiving a call where they picked up the phone (they are not prevented from being re-called if a prior call resulted in answering machine, errors, etc.). Impactive strongly recommends toggling on this protection, to prevent any accidental list mess-ups.

Impactive's straightforward, visual script editor makes it easy for administrators of any skill level to create phone banking scripts - no complex coding (IF/THEN statements) required!

Phone banking scripts are composed of "blocks" - typically, each block represents a question that the user will ask the contact during the call. Therefore, each block contains a few elements: the script itself (what the user will say), the responses (the possible answers that contacts can give to that question), and, optionally, a custom field that is linked to the responses. There is no limit to the amount of script blocks you can add.

Each response within a script block needs to be linked to another script block (unless that response indicates the end of the conversation) - i.e. if the contact answers this, ask them this question next. Use the drop-down menu to the right of each response to select the desired script block that should come next after that response; we recommend titling your script blocks clearly (the title field can be found at the top of each block) so you can easily browse the drop-down list of blocks.

You can use dynamic variables in phone banking scripts to refer to contacts by name, personalize the message they receive, etc; read more about using dynamic variables in phone banking scripts here.

You can also optionally link script responses to custom fields. Use the Custom Field drop-down on the right-hand side of the script block to select your desired custom field for this script block; selecting a custom field will pre-fill the Responses for that script block with the various response options for that custom field. (If linked to custom field responses, phone banking script responses cannot be edited; you can edit the custom field responses directly under Data > Custom Fields if you'd like to add, delete, or rephrase the options.) If responses are linked to a custom field, it means that those custom fields will automatically be saved to the contact (and synced to other systems, if sync instructions are set up) when users click the buttons as they move through the script.

Once your phone banking action has been created and your script is set up, it's time to take the phone bank live so users can get involved!

Our article here gives fuller information about the various options for sharing actions with users. But in short, you can:

Once the phone banking action is shared with some or all users, it's time to start the phone bank (more info here, but in short - find the "Start Phone Bank" option on the action's results page), and then users can participate.

Find a full walkthrough of how users (i.e. volunteers) can participate in a phone bank at these links for web or mobile. And don't forget - Impactive offers template training decks to help train your volunteers!

Phone banks do not automatically begin when the action is published - an administrator must specifically Start Phone Bank in order for users to make calls.

To start a phone bank, navigate to the results page for the phone banking action in question. You can find the results page either from the action's individual page:

Or from the results link for that action within the all actions or all phone banking actions list pages:

From either place, you'll land on the phone bank's results page, where you'll see a Start Phone Bank option in the top-right corner:

After clicking Start Phone Bank, users will be able to make calls.

From the same location on the phone bank's results page, admins can Pause or Stop the phone bank. Note that stopping a phone bank is irreversible - the action cannot be reopened. So, it's best to just Pause the phone bank if all contacts haven't yet been called; you can return later to un-pause the phone bank and re-start (as long as the phone bank's end date/time hasn't passed yet.)

If you pause or stop a phone bank, users will immediately be disconnected from the phone bank, and they'll see a message letting them know that the phone bank is over.

Our article here covers everything you need to know about phone banking results, including how to track call outcomes, syncing phone banking data to VAN/EveryAction, and more.