The layout of the app is easy enough to utilize and a much appreciated upgrade on the old methods of canvassing. With that being said, the execution is very poor. The load/refresh rate is abysmal and the app experiences constant crashes throughout usage. I can’t believe how many times I’ve had to reinstall the app just to get past the login page. Also, please allow a “capture all” option for households. It’s frustrating needing to individually mark every single member of a household that isn’t home. This app could have great potential, but needs a lot of work.
This is a great idea, but the execution is awful! Updating is so slow that I’d be better off using pen, paper, and carrier pigeon. Today was completely wasted, because I only had a couple of hours to walk, and spent the entire time trying to get the app to cough up my assignment list. This is a recurring nightmare, experienced by all of our walkers. It just sits there on “updating assignments...” for so long that you want to tear your hair out. Not a question of internet speed, at least on our end, because this happens even with high speed connectivity. Deleting and re-installing the app appears to help sometimes, but that’s also time-consuming. And when it does work, it takes precious seconds waiting for the next screen to load. Hard to cover ground when you spend so much time waiting for the app.
It sure beats a clipboard with paper precinct lists! If they’d just fix a few bugs in Version 8.2 (the occasional crash when Syncing, especially if HQ changes your turf while you’re canvassing it; switching All/Odd/Even while in Street View opens a different street; I’ve reported them all) it’d be great. I use it on an old iPhone with no cellular service, so I like that after I download my assignments via WiFi, it just works out in the field and Syncs when I’m back on a WiFi connection.
It’s so great to see what houses to go to and who lives there. The rest is truly terrible. Data collection is just horrible and the user can not tell if anything was collected at all. It takes 8 clicks to record that you reached someone and then you have to stand and wait for the data to be uploaded. You have no way to tell if it worked no way to see what you recorded. As a candidate I have zero access to my own data. I walked for two days and recorded nothing. No error handling. As someone who worked in software the app is Wry poorly executed.
The app crashes a lot when trying to load a page. It gets to the point where I can’t even use it for canvassing on my phone. I’ve deleted and reinstalled the App several times. It works maybe 3 times and then it begins crashing again. It’s needs a fix.
Latest update backed out the “done with whole household” button that was crashing the app, so that’s good although it would have been a good feature if it had worked. Extra steps back and forth to add info and comments are tedious but doable. A flag for non-English speakers would be nice. Really helpful would be for stats to show how many actual conversations happened, now just records number of doors knocked whether anyone was at home or not.
The concept of this app is amazing but the app still needs a lot of work to get there. I have been using this app for around 6 months now and it constantly keeps booting me off. This is especially annoying when you are canvassing or really needing to keep if an assignment was loaded really quickly. I continue to use it to “save to time” but it seems to me that I waste more of my time logging in than actually using the app. I really do hope PDI can solve these problems because this is INSANE!!!
This app is so slow in execution. It takes forever to upload data and often freezes on the screen, unsure of whether the program is advancing or not. We have had to wait for 20 or 30 minutes at times to wait for information to sync up and allow us to cover ground in our canvassing efforts. My hope is that the app developers are able to update and work past these annoying kinks.
Trying to sign up so I can canvass. Tried to sign on after creating password using my email. Didn’t recognize me and didn’t include option to ask for new password. Went to laptop and googled to find “forgot password?” Got message that my email doesn’t exist. That’s a first! Still stuck. Also, along the way something popped up asking for a credit card while promising this a a free app. Not doing that.
This tool makes canvassing much easier. The different map/street views are very much appreciated. I was shocked at how unstable it was, especially while synchronizing. Please consider reworking the disposition UX: use a popup with radio buttons, and bring up a “Apply to household” button when there are N people there. (Marking a house of five as being NH takes a minute).
Worked well on my walk. The live update is great...my partner and I could clean up the far corners of our turf effortlessly, each housecall synced on the go! Suggestion: Ability to drop a tack where I parked a car. Important when doing subdivisions.
As someone who regularly canvasses, PDI has broken down so many times I can’t even count anymore. This leaves a horrible taste in my mouth as a volunteer, because it wastes my time and prevents the campaign staffers who work so hard to put on canvasses from doing their jobs! No matter how much campaigns prepare for their canvasses, PDI ends up being the reason we can’t go out and have quality conversations with voters. This is a SHAME.
Our worst enemies won’t be Republicans but our own tech system. As a young volunteer, this makes me very cynical about the future of the politics. There are so many like me willing to canvass for Dems but are discouraged because our tech system fail us and there is nothing we could do about it. Get it fixed or we won’t ever go anywhere.
The app is great. I love it. One request: add a color (orange?) for “mixed” houses - houses where at least 1 person is canvassed. Currently that house remains yellow (the not canvassed color). When no one is home, the house color is yellow. When people are home and canvassed , the house color is red. When 1 person is home (canvassed) and the others are not home, the house stays yellow. I’d rather know how many houses have “zero” contacts, and so are truly yellow, and separately see how many houses have at least 1 contact made with the household. Thanks.
This app is good but it desperately needs to be able to tap on a house to change its color after you visit it to know what you’ve covered. Trying to remember 120+ houses visited in your head is almost impossible.
Very frustrating app. Constantly crashes and even when I restart the app or try and redownload it, the same issues continue. If I’m lucky and it doesn’t crash, the app is very slow and the constant updating as you go from place to place can slow you down immensely.
Unfortunately this is one of the only options for software for use of a political platform. The user interface and terminology is unnecessarily complicated. The program is terribly and utterly slow. Customer service is non-existent. I’m not sure if the app deserves a whole star. Can’t wait for another option.
used this three years ago and it would overheat my phone and crash but it’s much better than it was. logging out and back in to get updated data is annoying but beyond that no complaints
This app is barely functional. Constant freeze up. Frequently losing my and my coworkers stats. Losing contacts. I have to reinstall each day to use this. If I had a say, we would never have touched this app in the first place. I hope every future election avoids it like the plague.
This app always has issues and is very buggy. PDI is infamous for all the issues it has. It was even down one weekend when we needed it for our race. I would avoid it if possible
I was given this app to use to drop door hangers for the election. However the how-to video does not work, there is not place to register or sign up and I have no log in information. Really bad app!
I have a team of canvassers ready to go knock on doors and the app just crashes on us. We all have iPhones with that are up to date and compatible. What gives? ☹️
Canvassing had never been harder with PDI. That’s because with the new iOS update it ALWAYS crashes while you are trying to get in touch with voters. PDI has been the Republicans best friend. Thanks PDI!
Canvassing has never been easier. PDI Mobile Connect brings the power of The-PDI.com to your mobile device. With PDI Mobile Connect, your field operation is directly integrated with your campaign on The-PDI.com, saving canvassers time and giving the campaign confidence that their data is being collected quickly and accurately. Lists from The-PDI.com can be imported directly to your mobile device anywhere you have an internet or cellular connection. Once you are done canvassing, you can easily upload your data to your campaign at The-PDI.com. You’ll spend a lot more time canvassing and a lot less time collecting lists and entering data.
