The Advocacy module pulls U.S. Congressional data from GovTrack (http://www.govtrack.us).
What data is pulled?
We pull:
- Congressional offices, and save them as organizations in the MatrixMaxx database
- Members of Congress are saved as the primary contacts of these organizations
- Key staff are pulled. (We do not define ‘key staff’; we take what is supplied to us)
- Committees
For the individuals, we pull basic name and contact info, only. We have sometimes pulled photos, but this data quality and availability has varied through the years.
We do NOT pull email. This is not provided. Public email addresses for congresspeople are not published; instead, they officially publish a URL to a web page where you can submit an email, rather than a traditional email address. This is intentionally done to require a real address and prioritize constituent emails.
We import this contact link into the office’s website/URL field.
There are some rumblings that Congress is working to eventually provide real public email addresses, but at the moment the web contact forms are their only official online point of contact.
How often is data refreshed?
Each night, we refresh some of the data. It takes anywhere from a week to a month to complete a full cycle that refreshes all of our data (districts, names, key staff, committees)
What data is replaced? Will modifications to the MatrixMaxx records stay in place?
We replace/overwrite only the data we pull. e.g., Name, address, etc.
So if you change a Senator’s name (e.g., you change “Barbara” Boxer to “Barbie”), this will be overwritten and reset to the data we are obtaining from GovTrack.
But if you add additional info to the record — relationships, demographics, comments, communications, meeting registrations, etc. — this data will remain in tact.
If you add additional staff to a congressional office, they remain attached and unchanged through the updates.
How can I track visits by my Members to Congresspersons?
You can input it as a ‘meeting’ communication in the base product, some users track it in MeetingMaxx, and others have an add-on called ‘Appointment Scheduler’. Any of these can work well.
What happens when a Congressperson leaves office?
When the congressperson leaves office, their office is marked as “Out of Business” and they are no longer flagged as the congressional representation for the district/state. Since the organization is out of business, the staffers will be marked as Former Staff that night (by default)