The Rhythm and Google Civic integration allows you to quickly see who the state and federal government representatives are for your contacts. The integration uses the Home Address field to determine who the contacts’ representatives are. The information will appear on the Contact CRM 360 screen in the console and can be queried.
What information is needed before setup?
Reach out to your Rhythm point of contact to ensure the integration is enabled for your tenant.
What needs to be configured?
Basic Setup in Rhythm
Since the Home Address field is needed for the integration, we need to make sure it’s on your CRM forms.
- Navigate to the CRM app.
- Select Setup from the left toolbar.
- From the left toolbar, select Contacts and then select Forms from the drop-down.
- Edit an existing form by clicking the pencil icon. It can be a portal or console form.
- Either edit an existing field group or click Add Component and add a Field Group to the form
- Search for the Home Address field.
- Add the field to the form.
- Save Changes.
How do we test the integration?
Contact Record Test
- Navigate to the CRM app and select a Contact record to test.
- Click the “Edit this Contact” button.
- Enter an address into the Home Address field.
- Save Changes.
- Back on the Contact 360 screen, click the Google Civic tab.
- Verify that the state and federal representatives are correct for the address entered in the Home Address field.
Query Test
- Navigate to the CRM app and select Queries from the left toolbar.
- Click the “New Query” button.
- Select the Contacts > Contacts query type.
- Click Continue.
- In the Output Fields browser, search for “district.”
- You will be able to query the following fields:
- National District
- National District OCD-ID (the Open Civic Data division identifier of the United States congressional district)
- State Lower District
- State Low District OCD-ID (the Open Civic Data division identifier of the US state lower (House) district)
- State Upper District
- State Upper District OCD-ID (the Open Civic Data division identifier of the US state upper (Senate) district)
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What information is added when the Rhythm + Google Civic Information integration is activated?
When the Rhythm + Google Civic Information integration is active, the following fields become available in any query where Contact records are available:
- National congressional district
- National congressional district Open Civic Data Identifier (OCD-ID)
- State upper (Senate) district
- State upper (Senate) district OCD-ID
- State lower (House) district
- State lower (House) district OCD-ID
On the Contact 360 screen in the console, the following information is displayed for officials who currently represent the Contact in their national, state upper, and state lower districts:
- Name
- Party
- Addresses
- Phone Numbers
- URLs
- Image
- Email Addresses
Q: If a contact has multiple addresses, which one will be used to populate these fields?
District fields are populated using the Home Address on the Contact record.
Q: Will contacts see Google Civic information in the portal?
At this time, there is no Google Civic information available to be displayed in the portal.
Q: What if a contact does not have a Home Address populated, but does have other types of addresses?
In this case, district fields will be empty. Fields other than Home Address do not necessarily indicate residency or voting eligibility and therefore are never used in calculating districts.
Q: Are districts tracked for addresses outside the United States?
At this time, districts are only recorded for addresses within the United States.
Q: What are the OCD-ID fields used for?
The OCD-ID fields are used to link geographic locations to candidates, polling stations, and elected officials. They are also used to join datasets like campaign finance information and legislative vote history.
Q: Can queries using district information be integrated with e-marketing platforms?
Yes, you may create queries with data from the Google Civic integration and sync it with any of Rhythm’s email marketing integration partners. This allows you to use Rhythm’s query engine to build lists that filter on specific districts, or output the district fields to the e-marketing platform of your choice. If you want to learn more about our email marketing integration partners, please visit our knowledge base.
Q: If the representative for a district changes, do we need to update our district queries or e-marketing lists?
No. Rhythm only allows users to query for the districts related to an address. Representative information is retrieved in real-time for display in the console. Representative information is never stored for querying, therefore a change in representative has no impact on your saved queries.
Q: What happens if an address is involved with redistricting?
District information is retrieved when the Rhythm + Google Civic Information integration is first enabled and any time a Home Address changes. This information is stored offline within Rhythm to enable queries. However, Rhythm will automatically re-verify the district information for every Home Address once every 90 days to check for any changes due to redistricting.
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.