MiniVAN – Export canvassing lists

[App] miniVAN

miniVAN is a mobile canvassing application that integrates with websites provided by NGP VAN.

The miniVAN system allows users to export canvassing lists from VAN onto an iOS or Android device.

Canvassers can then enter data into their device as they talk to people on their list. When the canvassers connect their device to the Internet over a wireless or cellular network, they can upload their data back to the VAN with the touch of a button. Administrative users on the VAN can then review the data and apply it to the database in one quick step.

Canvassing with miniVAN allows NGP VAN clients to spend more time and resources on actually contacting people instead of on data entry. What’s more, it virtually eliminates the lag time between collecting canvass results and putting that data to work.

miniVAN user reviews :

I really wish this were better. Location detection misses my actual location by blocks, so it’s useless. App regularly fails to initially locate me, and so refuses to allow me to enter a list number until I try multiple times. There is no way to mark an entire household is not home, which is far and away the most common thing to have happen when canvassing. there’s also no simple way to mark that I was unable to locate a given address. It’s better than a pen and paper, but with some bug fixes and interface improvements, it could be so much more useful.

As others have reported, the GPS is completely off when using the map view, such that my location may appear anywhere from several blocks to multiple miles away from where I am. Compounding this problem is that you cannot copy/paste or share an address from the app into Google Maps, so I have to manually enter an address to see where to go next. The app otherwise is good, but this is such a fundamental flaw that I cannot reward the developers any extra stars.

Worked very well for political canvassing. The lists always worked, it was perfectly capable of working without data on (synced at the beginning and end of day), and very well optimized. All I would ask for is better integration with Google Maps (one click to set the destination from the app), and better team features.

Working as part of a pair of canvassers, app quickly drained partner’s phone battery so we had to switch to my phone. First phone indicated a sync, but second phone showed all of the initial houses unvisited. Then the app locked up 4 times and had to be reopened. Geographic locations of the houses on the map were off by as much as half a city block when using the map view. Would be nice to organize the houses by numerical order odd/even as most streets have houses arranged that way.

The map problems from the last update have been fixed, thanks devs! Accuracy has been steadily improving over the last year, but some rural areas are still iffy. Last problem: list progress gets deleted if you d/l a new one before finishing. Why not save progress to device for access later? Canvassing is not always a linear process, esp in rural areas.

So much potential but lots of issues and room for improvement. The good: Download lists w/o an account (list numbers). Viewing by map or household/people. The bad: I can mark an entire household as Lit Drop ONLY if you are in the household view. If you select a household from the map view you have to mark them individually if more than one person/address. The map itself had numbers far away from there actual location and or the actual house numbers on their map. The ugly: The “searching for location” loop it often gets stuck in when you try to load a new list.

This is a good app, but there are some small tweaks that could make it MUCH better. Suggestions: 1. From house numbers, being able to quickly mark if they refused, inaccessible, moved, deceased just like NOT HOME is a quick option. 2. From the house numbers, being able to quickly mark if the entire neighborhood was inaccessible.

The app really does drain battery, is there any possibility of a dark mode to save life on OLED devices? I’ve also had problems with the app crashing endlessly when trying to mark large groups as inaccessible. The service itself is super great for canvassing but there could definitely be some quality of life improvements.

Really useful tool when canvassing. I like to use the map for you to find my general area so I can navigate my way to it and then I use household view to make sure I don’t miss any houses. A cool feature to add would be the ability to navigate within the app using either Google Maps or Here Maps. Using this app probably allows it canvasser to quickly visit twice the normal amount of houses that would have been visited using the paper method.

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