i360

Leveraged Technologies

Platform Integration

Core Capabilities

We Mobilized i360’s Volunteer Survey Technology

Seisan combined our expertise with geospatial technology and mobile applications to create a customizable canvassing application to support clients of i360.

Objective

Create a fully-customizable multi-platform mobile canvassing application for use in the field.

Solution

A mobile application on iOS and Android platforms that integrated with i360’s powerful data warehouse and backend portal to provide political campaign volunteers the tools necessary to survey voters.

Sometimes, technology can replace direct social interaction. Sometimes, good ol’ fashioned pounding the pavement is needed to get the word out. But even when that person-to-person experience is desired, there’s plenty of room for a smart technology solution to bolster the efforts.

Case in point: our work with i360 to develop a versatile mobile canvassing application to provide volunteers with real-time directions, data collection and storage, and custom surveys with dynamic scripting.

As data integrity of information collected by the application was of utmost importance, Seisan performed independent geospatial testing to ensure proper handling of low/no cellular signal, no GPS fix and network outages to develop a local cache storage system which allows the application to upload and synchronize data when able. Seisan was able to deliver and launch a mobile application for iOS and Android and continues to maintain and deliver enhancements to the application – including gamification – to provide motivation to volunteers.

Project Overview

i360 engaged with Seisan to develop i360 Walk – a custom mobile application meant to put the power of their back-end portal and data warehouse in the hands of campaign volunteers in the field. Seisan worked together with i360 designers by providing our expert knowledge of mobile application user experience to create a user-friendly interface which provides easy access to tools needed for volunteers surveying households.

i360 Walk enabled volunteers of a political campaign to create lists of households to visit and survey, called “walkbooks”. Volunteers are provided with real-time walking directions to reach their destination and are presented with data about the household before they reach the door. Once they engage with a household member the mobile application guides them through a customized set of survey questions including the ability to dynamically shift survey questions and their order based on the answers they receive. i360 Walk also includes a Voter Lookup tool to tag and survey voters on Election Day and an Event Check-in feature to organize campaign events and track attendance.

Technology Details

At the client’s request, Seisan had evaluated and provided experience related to potentially utilizing a Hybrid mobile platform to reach as many devices as possible. After analyzing the requirements of the mobile application and identifying both data integrity and a speedy Native User experience as being top priorities, Seisan recommended creating the mobile application on the native iOS and Android development platforms so as to avoid limitations with Hybrid platforms that would not allow the customization needed and smooth user experience.

Seisan worked with i360 to understand and implement web services from their back-end portal and data warehouse to power mobile applications for the Apple iOS and Android Platforms, integrating i360’s Microsoft .NET api web services into the mobile applications using the JSON data format to easily ingest data into the application and send collected data back to i360.

i360 Walk utilizes the volunteer’s GPS location to provide reliable information at all times including providing an optimized order of households to visit, real-time directions to reach each household and, as they are approaching a household, relevant information about the household and its residents to maximize their time.

Due to the nature of the application being mobile and being used on volunteer’s personal devices, along with the experience of users having low or sometimes no cellular data connectivity, Seisan needed to come up with a robust local storage solution to preserve all survey data captured by the application. In turn, Seisan developed a solution to cache all data captured by the device and only send the data to the servers when connectivity is reliable. Data is preserved even when connectivity is cut off or reduced in flight.

Seisan developed i360 Walk iOS and Android applications that are designed to be white-labeled for i360 clients. The mobile applications were designed to be customized by allowing the client’s campaign logos and colors to be utilized throughout the application.

Automation

i360 Walk give volunteers access to real-time directions, automatic data collection and analysis while in the field.

Customized Surveys

i360 Walk uses customized surveys with dynamic scripting and ordering logic, while providing household information to volunteers for giving surveys to voters in their homes.

Data-Driven Icons

Volunteers easily see which homes have been interviewed through colorcoded icons. Numbers suggest best route options to maximize results.

Results

Seisan delivered a fully-customizable mobile application for both iOS and Android platforms that is now used by numerous i360 clients to bolster their campaigns. By equipping volunteers with a tool that’s as easy to use as it is reliable, i360’s clients are satisfied knowing that their volunteer force is operating as efficiently as possible, staying on message and capturing data that’s vital to the success of their campaign