VAN Syncing Campaign Process

You can sync data from your ThruTalk campaign to your VAN account by using a VAN group and script. This ensures that canvass results and survey responses are automatically recorded to your VAN account, making it easier to track engagement and follow up with contacts. 

This guide will detail the process for creating your VAN script and campaign to sync your calling results.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Steps at a Glance
• Create a VAN Syncing Script
  • Starting Question - Canvass Results
    • Canvass Result Details
  • Script Questions - Survey Responses and Activist Codes
• Create your Campaign > Choose VAN Group
• Sync Calling Results for ThruTalk
  • Important Syncing Facts

Steps at a Glance

Before you begin, make sure you’ve completed the following:

1. Set up your VAN Integration: Get your API key and enter it on the Integrations page. See our folder: VAN Integration Management.
2. Create a VAN Group: Import your contact list directly from VAN to create a group. Check the step-by-step process here: Creating a Group from a VAN Imported List. 

Once you've done this, you'll be ready to follow the steps in this guide.

1. Create a VAN Syncing Script: Select which side of VAN to sync to and create a script.
2. Import VAN Questions: Pull survey questions or activist codes created in VAN directly into your calling script.
3. Create a ThruTalk Campaign.
4. Add your VAN Group and VAN Script: In the targeting step of campaign creation, select a VAN group and VAN script.
5. Record the Responses: As you make calls, make sure responses are recorded for VAN imported surveys and activist codes.
6. Review the Sync Outcomes: Review the dials exports to see if your data successfully synced.

Create a VAN Syncing Script

When you have an account with a ThruTalk-enabled API key, your VAN script can sync VAN Canvass Results from the starting question. You can also add VAN survey questions or activist codes in the following questions.

From the Scripts Index page, you can select which VAN committee each script is connected to. To begin creating a VAN integrated script, select MyVoters or MyCampaign from the Create New Script drop-down.

Starting Question - Canvass Results

The starting question sends canvass results to VAN based on the response selected by the caller. Customize the starting question to send back custom responses.

1. Rename Script: When creating your VAN script, you can start by clicking Rename Script to give it a name.
2. Edit: Click to start setting up your starting question. After clicking edit, you'll see the following:

1. Survey Question: Enter what you'd like the caller to say to introduce themselves. 
2. Survey Responses: There are 9 default Survey Responses for the starting question that can't be deleted. Each one sends a unique Canvass Result to VAN, except for Talking to Correct Person - more on this later.
3. Add: Click to add additional Canvass Result options pulled directly from your VAN account. Selected custom canvass responses will sync with their corresponding canvass code in VAN.
4. X: Click X to remove a custom option
   
5. Save: To save changes click the Save button.
6. + Add a question: To add your next script questions, select the + Add a question option.

Canvass Result Details

In VAN, a canvass result is the result of a contact attempt (like Not Home, Refused, Wrong Number, etc.). In ThruTalk, the starting question tells VAN which of those results to record, based on the response the caller selects.

As ThruTalk dials, it separates unanswered calls from live connections. This produces two types of results: 

• System Results: Collected from calls that aren’t answered.
• Script Results: Collected from calls that a caller connected to. These results are selected manually in the starting question.

When ThruTalk records a system result, here’s how ThruTalk maps them to VAN canvass results:

When a caller selects a script result from the starting question, here’s how ThruTalk maps them to VAN canvass results:

To learn more about each result, refer to our guide System Call Results and Script Results.

Script Questions - Survey Responses and Activist Codes

After you finish creating your starting question, you can add additional questions. Here, you can import VAN surveys and activist codes directly from VAN into your script. 

1. Title: Begin by giving a title to your script question. 
2. VAN Sync: From the script's Type drop-down, select either VAN Survey or VAN Activist Code. 
   • When you select VAN Survey or VAN Activist Code, a Survey Question field will appear. Click on the field to see your VAN committee's available questions or activist codes. You can type in this field to search the name or ID to find a VAN Survey or activist code.
     
   • Please note that only VAN Survey and VAN Activist Code are VAN syncing questions. Data will not sync to VAN if you use any of the following non-syncing question types: Script Text Block, Instant Follow Up, Checkbox Pick Many, Freeform, and Multiple Choice (Pick One). You would need to bulk upload that data into VAN.
3. Save: Click Save to save any changes and confirm your question setup.

Create your Campaign > Choose VAN Group

Using External Contact Lists, you can create your VAN syncing group. For more information on creating a VAN group, please check out our guide Creating a Group from a VAN Imported List.

After a script has been created with VAN surveys and your groups are ready, campaign creation can begin. 

On the targeting step of campaign creation, select a script for either VAN - MyVoters or VAN - MyCampaign, and only select groups or past campaigns with VAN IDs that were mapped correctly at group upload. Failing to use groups that are mapped to VAN or using groups that are mis-mapped will cause the sync to fail.

After campaign creation is complete and you have launched your campaign, callers can start taking calls and collecting script data to sync with VAN. Read more about campaign creation here: Launching a ThruTalk Campaign.

Sync Calling Results for ThruTalk

As callers make calls, they will record survey data on their script. A canvass record will be added when survey data is synced at the end of each call. Survey questions imported from the MyVoters committee to a MyVoters script will save to your MyVoters file, while those imported from MyCampaign to a MyCampaign script will save to your MyCampaign file.

Important Syncing Facts

• If a caller selects any starting question response other than "Talking to Correct Person", only the canvass result from that question will sync to VAN. No additional responses - like survey responses or activist codes - will sync. Ensure that callers select "Talking to Correct Person" if you wish to sync anything beyond the canvass result.
• If the caller selects "Talking to Correct Person" but doesn’t log any additional VAN data (such as a survey response or activist code), ThruTalk will sync back a canvass result of "Not Home" instead of "Canvassed". Make sure that you add at least one VAN question type to any VAN script, and train callers to select an additional response whenever Talking to Correct Person is chosen.
• System call results will sync back automatically as ThruTalk makes calls while script results will sync back after the call is completed. 
• If your campaign is set up properly, the survey data will sync automatically as callers move to the next call. There are no additional steps to sync the results from your campaign.
• You can check whether your data synced to VAN from your dials exports. Create an account-level or campaign-level dials export and see the outcome in the sync_status column. You can read more about ThruTalk exports in this folder: ThruTalk Exports.