The goal of any electoral campaign is to get as many people to vote for your candidate as possible, so we need to load as many voters into the database as quickly as possible. It is possible to create voters and dwellings individually but if there are thousands of voters to track, entering them individually would be terribly time consuming. Using the Import Data function, many voters can be brought into the system at once. Ideally, you have an "electoral list" listing each voter you need to keep track of. Failing having such a comprehensive list, any list in the proper format can be used.

Before any list can be uploaded into the system, you must create a campaign. If no campaign is found, a "create a campaign" link will appear.

Import Data can handle the importation of 2 types of lists, each must be in a specific format. The uploaded list must be a text file in common-delimited format, such as a CSV file.

Before a file can be uploaded, its contents must be prepared or "massaged" so that it can be handled properly.

Preparing an Electoral List
Preparing a Voted List

Once the data has been prepared we have to upload it to the system. In Import Data, click the "Choose File" button and select the .CSV file containing your data. Enter a descriptive phrase in the "File Description" box, select an appropriate campaign and the select the appropriate list, either Electoral or Voted List. Once done click the "SUBMIT" button.

The uploaded file will appear on the left and you should have an "analyze" link in the "action" column, Click the link. Once the analysis has started you will see a count of how many voters were found in the list, and how many have been analyzed to this point. (To reduce stress on the server, the system is programmed to analyze or process 100 items at a time.) You can press the "refresh" link towards the top of the page to redisplay the page.

Assuming the "every minute" job had been set up properly your list will be analyzed by the system. You can keep clicking this "refresh" button towards the top of the page until the list has been analyzed."

Once analyzed, you will be informed as to how many lines are "unacceptable" and will need to be corrected before this data can be applied to the database.

If there are any errors at all, you should only have a "fix data" link. If there are not errors detected you will be able to "fix data" anyway, or go ahead and process the list which will apply the information in your list into the database.

The system allows you to upload and analyze more than one list, but it can cause confusion if the data

Fixing Data

Once data has been fixed (modified) you will have to analyze it again before it can be processed (applied to the database). You may go back a fix the data any number of times. After the file has been analyzed, if no errors are found you will have a "process" link which will apply the information in the list to the database.

You can keep analyzing and fixing the data any number of times. Once an analysis shows no errors you will have a link to process the data which will actually write the information into the database.