Action Builder Update | December 7, 2023 – Action Builder

In This Update:

📍 Profile — Address Autocorrect (aka Address Normalization)

The latest update to addresses in Action Builder introduces an enhanced address standardization process. Regardless of the method used for adding addresses — be it through upload, manual entry, API, or sync — each address now undergoes a comprehensive standardization process. This significant improvement enables more accurate address comparison and effectively minimizes the occurrence of duplicate entries.

Issue Addressed:
Before, our system saw every different way of writing an address as a totally separate thing, which made it hard to spot when the same address was entered more than once. We've changed that now!

What's New:
We've added a cool feature that makes all addresses look the same in terms of format. This means our system can now easily spot and get rid of any repeats, making everything neater.

Note:
While address normalization significantly improves data handling, it's important to acknowledge that it's not infallible and occasional errors may occur. To safeguard original data integrity, we preserve the original address format. In the event of any discrepancies, users have the option to revert to the original address using the provided functionality. This ensures complete control and flexibility in address management.

Users can also hover over the address to see the original.

We are being pretty conservative with this feature so we mangle as little as possible, so we’re only normalizing addresses that have a very high degree of accuracy. If an address hasn’t been normalized, it won’t have this little hover effect.

Another Note: The above process will happen for all addresses added from this release moving forward. In order to normalize and de-duplicate existing addresses in our system, we will run a script across the existing database as part of this release. If any of the duplicate addresses are ‘confirmed’, we will mark the remaining one as ‘confirmed’. Same for ‘bad’ and ‘do not contact’. If there are status conflicts, the remaining address will have a status following this ranking:

verified (‘confirmed’)
do_not_contact
bad
user_added (no status)

We will also retain/merge in other address attributes such as hand-entered lat/long coordinates, ‘geocode bad’ status, etc.

📈 Activity Stream — See when an Entity was removed from the Campaign

Our new Activity Stream feature, which allows you to see when an entity was removed from your campaign. It's simple and effective for monitoring your campaign's changes.

We've also made some updates to how we organize things. Now, you'll find the list of activity types in the sidebar arranged more logically, making it easier for you to find what you need.

Note: This activity is only available from this point forward. It will not show entities that had previously been removed from the campaign.

📊 Wall Chart — Updates to Standard Export

We have organized and improved the standard export interface.

What’s New:

Grouped things all nice: Name, Demographics, Contact Info, Other Profile Data, Notes & Connections, Fields
Option to select a specific type for email address and phone numbers (and up to 3 ‘best’ [email and/or phone] for each entity)
Choose which IDs to export (AB ID is always included)
Most recent note or 2
Added Legislative Districts

.Gif demonstrating the new export selections

✉️ Updates To Invite Email

We made a little update to the invite email that gets sent out to new users, in hopes that it will make it easier for folks to remember their instance URL and bookmark it somewhere. We know that admins still get a lot of annoying questions from users about how to find their instance, and we’re considering other solutions as well. New part is highlighted below:

[First Name],

[First Name of User] has invited you to organize at [instance name] with ActionBuilder.

Get started by clicking the link below.

Accept invitation

This invitation will be valid for 5 days.

Once you have created an account, you will be able to login at https://url.actionbuilder.org. Each of our partners has their own separate URL to access Action Builder, so bookmark this link for easy access in the future.

If you don't want to accept the invitation, please ignore this email. Your account won't be created until you access the link above and set your password.

— The Action Builder Team

🛣️ Routing Enhancements

Following up on our last release’s ‘householding’ feature, we’ve made a bunch of little tweaks to make various mapping and routing functionality work more smoothly.

Households were consolidated into one address in home visit driving directions.
We improved performance for fetching addresses and determining if routing could be done.
We enhanced performance for determining if the map feature could be used when cutting turf.
We fixed a bug where non-rooftop addresses had the same latitude/longitude for multiple addresses, leading to incorrect driving directions.
We added information explaining why an entity was not included in the route (either because it was completed, or the geocode wasn't routable).
We introduced the ability to see only the best address when cutting turf, ideal for creating turfs for home visit canvasses so that the address the user sees matches the turf that was cut.

🪲 Bug Fixes

Connection Info Stays in the Right Campaign Now: Good news! We fixed that annoying problem where connection details were getting mixed up between campaigns. Now, all your connection info stays right where it belongs, in its own campaign.
Addresses on the Wall Chart Hide When You Want: Ever got frustrated because addresses wouldn't hide on the Wall Chart even when you unchecked them? We fixed that! Now, if you uncheck an address, it stays hidden, just like you wanted.
Making Turf Assignments Easier: We made assigning turfs simpler by getting rid of the 'Select All' option in the search. This should make picking and choosing a lot smoother.

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