First, navigate to People>Search, and find the constituent. The constituent may or may not be in your database, but it is important to always check first so that you don't create duplicates in Fireside CRM.
Here are three common scenarios:
- You find the constituent who has a complete address profile.
- You find the constituent, but the personal information of their profile looks incomplete.
- You cannot find the constituent.
Scenario #1: If you find yourself in Scenario #1, click on the row of the constituent, and a hidden menu appear. Select "Log a Letter."
Skip down to the "Log a Correspondence" section below.
Scenario #2: If your search finds your constituent, but the search results are incomplete (missing address, email or phone number):
- Click on the person's name.
- Click the contact tab of their profile, and enter in the caller's complete address, email, and phone number.
- Click the "Save" button.
- With this new profile information stored, click the "Log a Letter" button.
Skip down to the "Log a Correspondence" section below.
Scenario #3: If your search does not return any results, you can add a new constituent. Here is a complete tutorial on adding users, but you can select the "New Person" button. With the new constituent created, click the "Log a Letter" button.
Log a Correspondence
The "Log a Correspondence" page first has the inbound details, which are preset. In the righthand sidebar you will notice the logging options, which are also preset, however, you have the option to respond to the call or just log the message. If you uncheck the "Send a response" option, the response part of the page will automatically become hidden. Type in the caller's message in the Notes box. If you are going to send a response, fill out the Response details in the right sidebar. If you are not sending a response, just click "Save."
Tagging the Message
Fireside CRM provides for three different tagging tools: legislative issues, personal affiliations, and bill numbers. Completely tagging each piece of correspondence is important to the outbound communication strategy of your office.
The Issues and Affiliations boxes provide an auto-complete search mechanism. Just start typing, select the desired attribute and hit the enter key. If you make a mistake, you can delete any tags with the "X" button. The bill number tag works a little differently. Use the dropdowns and bill entry box to identify the caller's bill. Remember to click the "+" button to add the bill tag.
Response Options + Form Letters
Your response will be preset to the letter type. You can choose to respond via a different medium by selecting phone or email from the dropdown.
Next, you will be prompted to select a form letter. Every response in the Fireside CRM starts out as a form letter. This is likely a departure from how you used to do things but in the end greatly simplifies things for you when you are logging in letters. Later on, when you are drafting the response to send your constituent, you can personalize your letter.
If you don't have a letter drafted yet, search for the "Blank Letter" form. Again, you can always change or customize the response later.
Finally, you have the option to add the reponse to a batch to keep things organized. To finish logging the email, click the "Save" button.
About Batching
Batches are a way to keep your pending email responses organized. A batch is essentially a folder. You can use batches to assign a week's worth of mail to a coworker or to keep all of the responses to an advocacy form letter together.
One of the best traits about batches is that you can update the tags and response options for all of the mail in a batch together at the same time. To create a new batch, you can just make up a name and type it into the batch text box. You will notice that the text box will look up the name of existing batches, too.
Here is some more information about batches.
About Templates - Note: Templates have changed slightly with the creation of Automations in the new inbox.
You may have also noticed we skipped over the buttons at the top and bottom of the "Log a Correspondence" page that say, "Use a Template" and "Save and Start a Template." So, what's a template? A template is a way to save all of the tag and response options you have entered on a letter and reuse them later.
It's most useful when you have a stack of letters or faxes that are identical (or nearly identical). If you have received a group of letters like that - letters that will all be tagged the same way, batched the same way, and assigned the same form letter - you should take advantage of this feature.
To use a template, log the first letter of the group the same way as described above, but instead of clicking the "Save" button at the bottom, click the "Save and Start a Template" button. You will be asked to name the template. After that, start logging the next letter by searching for your constituent, but when you get to the "Log a Correspondence" page, you can click the "Use a Template" button. Then select the template you just created, and Fireside CRM will quickly populate all of the same tag and response options.
Here is some more information about mail templates.
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