Hey there! You've found yourself on an archived article. You can find the up-to-date article here!
Peer to Peer Actions (for Admins)
How to Create and Manage Contacts
ARCHIVED
Contact Management
In order to build a P2P action and send texts, you need to choose or upload a list of contacts to send messages to. This article will provide an abbreviated tutorial on doing this, for a full how-to visit our contact management article.
Uploading a list
To upload a list of contacts to text using the P2P action, navigate to your admin dashboard, and click on contacts in the sidebar. Here you'll be able to see all of the lists currently uploaded into your campaign.
On the right side of the screen, click the 'Import List' button. This is where you'll need to upload a spreadsheet in one of the following file formats: .csv, .xlsx or .txt. Important note: in order for your contacts' information to be correctly mapped (such as first name, last name, phone number), you'll need to use a standard header format.
Additional columns to include:
- Integrating with NGP VAN or PDI?
- Include a column called "van_id" or "pdi_id" with the contact's ID on the upload so that Impactive knows which records to integrate with VAN.
- If you are integrating to a national or multi-state VAN instance, make sure to include the 'state_abbrev' column with state abbreviation as a value (ex: "VA" for Virginia). Read more about this workflow under "Integrate VAN nationally or across multiple states".
- Assigning contacts to particular users?
- Include a column called "assigned_user_email" with the user's email as a value. Read more about this workflow under "Assign volunteers to turfs, precincts and more with assigned users and keep assignments".
- Create custom dynamic variables
To view this format before uploading, click on the sample.csv link in the Import a List window. Clicking that link will download a sample spreadsheet that will show you how to properly format your spreadsheet.
Once you upload the list, you'll be able to see that it's status under Contact Lists. When the status changes from processing to ready, you can use it in an action.
Opt-Outs
For P2P actions, if a person replies with Stop, Unsubscribe, Remove, Quit, Stopall, Cancel, or End, Impactive automatically tags their number with a special tag named "Opt Out". When a contact is marked with Opt Out on Impactive, your campaign will never be able to send P2P texts to that contact again via Impactive, even if the same contact is part of future contact list. This logic cannot be bypassed.
If a contact uses other language requesting to be removed from the list, you can also manually tag them with the "Opt Out" tag to add them to the Opt Out List to be removed from future texting. Once added to the Opt Out List, contacts cannot be removed.
If your campaign creates an additional tag, such as Do Not Text, the backend of Impactive doesn't function the same way. That is a separate tag you can track on your own if you choose. However, Impactive will not add people with a Do Not Text tag or any other tag to the special Opt Out list. If they use for example a Wrong Number tag or use language to indicate that, the system will not mark that contact as Opted Out.
We recommend training volunteers to use the Opt Out tag, as it adds additional safeguards to protect your campaign and comply with federal communication law.