Work Assignments in the Profiles Sub-Department
Introduction
Assigning work is an essential part of managing the Profiles Sub-Department. This involves creating effective and efficient tracking documents that will allow Profiles to stay up-to-date with scheduled roster checks, biographical/contact information research, committee assignment checks, etc.. It also allows Profiles to prioritize research in an efficient manner, allowing the sub-department to stay on top of it's responsibilities during election years.Creating Tracking Docs
In Profiles, tracking sheets allow everyone to stay on the same page as to what states or which candidates/officials have already been researched and which ones still need to be looked at. They help Profiles prioritize what research needs to be done first and helps keep Profiles on track. When creating tracking sheets, it's important to make note of what information the Profiles Sub-Department is looking to collect. Once that has been determined, making the docs becomes a lot easier. For example, in an election year, Profiles aims to collect biographical information, contact, information, social media and photos. In an off year, Profiles aims to collect official websites/social media, contact information, biographical information, photos, committee assignments, and leadership positions.The next and most efficient step is to run a query that will pull the names of candidates/officials the department wants to research. During election years, the best query to use is the Candidate Lists query that allows you to pull every candidate running in a specific state for a specific, non-special, cycle (primary or general). During off-years, the best query to use is People Currently In Office. You can also reach these same queries through the Profiles folder in the research drive: Profiles > QC > Queries.
Once all of this information has been put into a tracking doc, the research can begin. Examples of these tracking sheets can be found under Off-Year Research and Elections Research.
Assigning Schedules
Assignments should be based on scheduled updates, which can be found on the Data Standards page. Using the Frequency of Updates section, this page tells profiles how often per year certain research should be done.Off-Year Research
The research Profiles does varies per office during an off-year. For this reason, the tracking docs used will vary in appearance with the office being researched.Offices that only get Biographical Research, Roster Checks and Address Checks are:
- President/Cabinet
- Gubernatorial
- Statewide
- Federal Judicial
- State Judicial
Here is an example of what these tracking sheets look like. At the end of a research sweep, the project manager should download a copy of each tracking sheet into the research drive: Profiles > Officials Tracking > [Level of office]. The research drive copies should not replace the tracking sheets of previous years and should be named as: [Level of office] Sweep Tracker [off-year session].
Ex: Cong. Sweep Tracker 2017-2018
Offices that get Biographical Research, Roster Checks, Address Checks, and Committee/Leadership Checks are:
- Congressional
- State Legislative
Here is what the overall tracking sheet looks like.
Here is what the tracking sheet for each state looks like.
In addition, there are unique tracking sheets for updates for leadership and Committees research. Here is what the leadership tracking sheet looks like, and Here is what the committee tracking sheet looks like.
As mentioned above, these Google sheets should be updated on a continuous basis but when saved into the research drive, tracking sheets of previous years should not be replaced. Naming should also follow the same format.
Elections Research
During an election year, Profiles will do a full research sweep on candidates running for most offices covered by Vote Smart. Due to the number of candidates that are researched at this time, the tracking docs are more standardized than the ones for off-years. The sub-department uses 2 different types of tracking sheets during the election season.Here is the tracking sheet that allows Profiles to track which states have been researched and helps the sub-department prioritize in order to meet election deadlines.
Here is an example of a tracking sheet that was used during the 2020 Election year that allowed researchers to keep track of which candidates had been researched and what data had been collected.
Unlike with off-year Google sheets, a new folder with new tracking sheets should be created for every election year in the Google Drive. Once an election has passed, all these docs should be downloaded to the research drive: Profiles > Elections > [Year] Election > [Level of Office].
