Select Contact Fields

Contact Fields specify which contact information constituents can or must include when responding to an action alert.

Certain fields are required to successfully deliver an alert to a target, because the target requires the information. You can also get constituent information for your site by making other fields required or optional.

Tip: Fewer required fields makes it easier for constituents to complete an alert. Consider that a large number of required fields can possibly deter constituents from participating.

Targets differ with what contact information is required to accept an alert:

  • Custom targets require First Name, Last Name, Phone Number, and Email, but you can specify all fields.

  • Legislative or executive targets (provided by Luminate Online) require First Name, Last Name, Phone Number, and Email, as well as other fields that vary by target.

Fields that are required by a target are automatically grayed out and you cannot change them. However, you can configure other fields so that they are required, optional, or hidden. To hide a field from constituents, clear both check boxes.

Note: If you are unable to configure these settings, enable advanced layouts by going to the Design Alert page, and selecting Yes, enable Layouts and Themes.

White House alerts

White House alerts require a constituent's first name, last name, full address, email, and phone number, or it will not be accepted. Review required fields at https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact. Ensure your alert requires those same fields.

Gather Additional Constituent Data

You can gather additional data from your constituents, such as a mobile phone number, by adding custom questions on the Include Questions page. You can configure each question to update (map the responses to) a field in the constituent profile in Constituent360. You may need to add a new field to the profile for that purpose.

Carla creates an action alert that targets the CEO of a corporation. Because the CEO is a custom target and does not require constituent-matching, there is no need to collect a full street address. And because the message is not being submitted to a webform, there is no need to collect data for the Title field. On the Select Contact Fields page, she selects only First Name, Last Name, Email, and City. She also wants the Mobile phone number for each constituent taking action, so she adds it as a custom question on the Include Questions page.

Contact Information Stored from Alerts

If an email address provided by a constituent matches an existing profile, the constituent's profile in Constituent360 is updated with information entered by the constituent. The following Site Options (SDPs) must be set to TRUE to overwrite existing constituent information with what is entered on the alert:

  • ADVOCACY_UPDATE_CONS_CONTACT_INFO_LOGGED_IN (By default, this is TRUE)

  • ADVOCACY_UPDATE_CONS_CONTACT_INFO_NOT_LOGGED_IN (By default, this is FALSE)

Select contact fields

  1. On the Select Contact Fields process page, use the check boxes to specify which contact fields to include in the alert. First Name, Last Name, Phone Number, and Email are always required for any target.

    Note: To ensure deliverability to White House targets, such as the President, review the required fields on the White House form and ensure your form requires the same fields.

  2. For Email Opt-In, select one of the following options:

    • Click No to hide the email opt-in check box and automatically opt constituents in to email.

    • Click Yes to show the email opt-in check box, then enter custom text for the opt-in check box label. If you do not enter text, a default label displays.

  3. Click Next to go to the next process page, Include Questions.