Release notes
What's new in DoorLine
Every feature and fix campaigns can see, newest first. Most entries link to the guide that explains the feature in detail. Last update: September 23, 2026.
Leave a note the sign crew can read
A note on a sign request shows up for the people installing it — on the map, the list, the paper sheet, and the morning email. The apartment box no longer swallows a longer message.
- Public form: Note for the sign crew, on a new request, a damaged report, or a removal. Unit / apartment stops at 20 characters.
- At the door, when someone wants a sign, the same note is saved on the request.
- Marking installed, replaced, damaged, or declined can add a note. A new note stays with the one already there.
See an earlier knock without erasing it
Opening a door shows teammate chats and older lists as a read-only note. Saving yours adds a new row. Houses the campaign already visited on another list get a colored ring around the black pin.
- Tap a door: if someone already logged it, expand the amber note for name, phone, and notes. Your form stays empty so you are not editing their row.
- Saving adds another visit. It does not change earlier ones.
- On the map (and in the list), a black pin with a colored ring means not on this list yet, but the campaign has been here. The ring uses the same colors as a finished pin. Tap it to read that earlier result.
Unhide a long-running canvass, and find it in the list
Auto-hide no longer assumes an old list is done. Set the threshold on Canvasses, pin one back onto volunteer phones, and search or filter the archive.
- At the top of Canvasses: we auto-hide canvasses at least X% complete and Y days old. Defaults stay 60% and 14 days — change them if your crew pecks away for weeks.
- Hidden · auto is not complete. ⋯ → Show to canvassers puts that row back on phones. On phones · kept means you pinned it.
- Search by name or turf. Filter to On phones or Hidden, by kind, or hide rows past 50%, 75%, or 90% complete.
Project how many signs you will need by a date you pick
Signs → Plan uses the same pace math as GOTV: recent weeks, a gentle rise if requests are climbing, capped so one Saturday does not become a hockey stick. The dashboard now shows requested and installed as two lines.
- Add a printer cutoff or election day. The table shows requested, installed, still to plant, and how many of each size you still need to cover.
- Type what you have on the truck to turn that into a buy number.
- Imports count in today but not in the weekly pace — a dumped spreadsheet is not next week's rate.
Drop a public sign pin from the install map
Hold the sign-team map to plant a board at an intersection or island. Public pins are the location — not a house — and size is required so later repair or teardown knows what tools to bring.
- Hold the map, then pick yard sign (search a house) or public sign (label plus size).
- Public pins are squares with a Public pill, and they filter next to Upgrades on the crew map and the admin list.
- Resident damaged reports that drop a pin without an address stay public pins too.
Upgrade an installed sign, and name your own sizes
After you call and they say yes to a bigger board, queue the swap from the Signs list or map. The crew sees it as an upgrade, not a new install.
- On an installed sign, pick Upgrade to Small or Upgrade to Large (or any size you have added).
- It lands in the same To-do as new installs, with an amber Upgrade pill on the map and the list.
- The installer taps Upgraded when the board is swapped. Cancel upgrade puts it back if you flagged the wrong house.
- Signs → Operations: rename Small and Large, or add another size. Those two defaults always stay.
Dashboard: watch vote IDs and signs climb week by week
Two running-total charts on the dashboard show how identified supporters and installed lawn signs have grown — not just the current count.
- Vote IDs: first time a door became a 4 or 5, added up each week.
- Signs: boards still in the ground, dated when they were marked installed.
Sign map pins are back
The install map went blank after this morning's large-sign update. Pins show again; large boards still read bigger with the amber ring.
- List was never wrong — only the map layer failed to draw.
Large vs small signs: filter them, see them, import them
8x4 and rebar signs take a different crew than a lawn sign. Flag size on any request, filter the list and maps, and import a messy sheet that already says which ones are large.
- Requests, the admin map, the sign-team map, and Sign Turfs all filter by Large, Small, or Either.
- Large pins are bigger with an amber ring so the crew can spot them at a glance.
- Change size on an existing request any time. Import keeps name, email, notes, and size — including lists with a title row or two tables on one tab.
GOTV planning table: project vote IDs to the dates you print for
Add advance-poll and election-day dates on GOTV and see how many first-time vote IDs, sign requests, and donate or volunteer asks you are on track for by then.
- The table uses your recent weekly pace. If new IDs have been rising it keeps a gentle rise, capped so one busy Saturday does not become a hockey stick.
- Pick 5s, 4s and 5s, or 3s up for the projection without changing the target list you will knock.
- Volunteer hours are left to you — door density and travel change that more than a formula would.
Save DoorLine on your phone; GOTV and Lit Drop split like Signs
Add the app to the home screen so it opens full screen. GOTV lists are no longer stuck at 1,000 doors. Lit Drop and GOTV use the same preview-and-pack tools as sign turfs.
- Canvasser home and the canvass screen point at iPhone and Android install steps.
- GOTV: List, Map, and Split tabs. Preview polygons, drag them, then create. The whole target list loads, not the first 1,000.
- Lit Drop and Signs: split into N lists, or cap each list at N doors. The Lit Drop map frames your doors, not downtown.
Canvass map shows the pieces; undecideds stay at your 4/5 rate
The Canvasses coverage map now frames your lists and writes the door count on each polygon. Estimated Votes spells out that undecideds are counted at your 4/5 support rate, not as if they all become yours.
- Coverage overview zooms to the canvasses on the list instead of sitting on a default downtown view.
- Each polygon is labeled with doors done / doors on the piece.
- The waterfall step is now “At your 4/5 rate (the percent)”.
Schedule sign teardown for election night
Set a date and time and DoorLine flips the crew map to pickups after the polls close — or start it yourself if you are ready now.
- Signs → Operations: pick Election Day after the polls close, then Schedule. An hourly check starts teardown when that time has passed.
- Manual start teardown is still there, with the same typed confirm.
- Signs → Deploy is now Sign Turfs. Same split-into-N lists, clearer name.
The public sign form stays inside the ward
Residents can only request a sign at a door in your universe. An address across the ward line is turned away instead of landing on the install map.
- Typeahead only lists doors in your ward.
- If they type an address outside the boundary, the form says we cannot deploy signs outside the ward.
Split into N keeps the number of lists you asked for
A Saturday sign or lit-drop split no longer quietly merges small pieces back together, so nine volunteers can get nine lists.
- Signs → Deploy and Lit Drop → Split into N now create that many canvasses, even when each list is only a handful of doors.
- Use Signs → Deploy for a sign blitz so the pieces show under Signs on volunteer home, not Lit Drop.
Sign install map starts on the work queue
The sign layer hides installed boards until you ask for them, and a typed address on the public form is matched to a door even if someone skips the dropdown.
- Sign crew sign in as usual and tap Sign install map — they never see admin. Admins get an Open sign install view button on Signs → Map.
- Tap a pin for the address, sign size, and who asked. Location on the map shows what is nearby.
- Installed pins start off. What you see is new requests, damaged reports, and removals.
Live sign alerts, and damaged public signs without an address
The sign captain can get a text or email the moment a request lands — or keep the morning digest — and residents can pin a damaged public sign on the map when they do not know the address.
- Signs → Operations: Digest (morning list), Email now, and Text now are per person. Tick what each crew member wants. The live email links the sign map so they can mark the pin Installed when it's up.
- On the public form, Report a damaged sign → I don't know the address → drop a pin. That pin shows on the sign layer as damaged.
- The standing map is the day-to-day job. Weekend deploy is still there when you want extra hands.
Installed signs on the map say Sign Installed
The dashboard map legend no longer says Sign in, which looked like a login button.
- Navy pins are labeled Sign Installed.
Start teardown is a button, then a typed confirm
After election day you tap Start teardown, then type start tear down so it is harder to flip the crew map by accident.
- The public-form off checkbox lives in that confirm box. You can still undo teardown.
Volunteer home can search and sort; one tap to close a canvass
Canvassers can find a piece on a long Saturday list, and admins can finish a letter-drop weekend without hide-then-complete.
- On the volunteer home: search, filter by Signs / GOTV / Lit Drop / Doors (and Mine if a piece is labeled with you), and sort by newest, name, remaining, or progress.
- On the canvass ⋯ menu: Drop remaining, complete, and hide — leftover doors become Lit dropped, the canvass is marked done, and it leaves phones. On a split, do every piece at once.
- Stale canvasses on the admin list now show Hidden · auto (same rule as volunteer phones, checked when the page loads — no nightly job).
Estimated Votes says percent, not “points”
The ± on your 4–5 support rate is now written as a percent, with one line that spells out what that range means.
- 40% ± 5% means 35–45% — added to and subtracted from the rate, not 5% of 40%.
- The big ± next to the vote estimate is still votes (how many ballots the range covers).
Sign rollout pieces show installs — and you can add one on the fly
A Saturday deploy now counts signs actually in the ground. If a neighbour wants one too, or you spot a damaged sign, log it from the field.
- Each sign canvass shows how many of its doors are installed, same numbers as the Signs page.
- On a sign canvass or the sign-team map: Add a sign. Installed just now, Request (come back later), or Damaged. Normal canvassers on a rollout can do this — it is not admin-only.
- A sign added on a rollout piece is saved on that piece so it does not vanish into the shared list only.
Old canvasses leave volunteer phones; rename from the list
A turf from July that is mostly done should not still be on every phone. And you can put a person’s name on a piece without locking anyone else out.
- If a canvass is more than two weeks old and at least 60% knocked, it drops off the volunteer list. That 60% is the low end of real ID canvasses — letter drops that finish at 100% are not the bar.
- Admins still see those rows, marked Hidden · auto. Hide one earlier from the ⋯ menu if you want it gone today.
- Pencil beside the name to rename. Label a person so the card shows who it is for; Use name copies their name onto the title. Anyone on the campaign can still knock it.
A dashboard that shows the race, not the address count
Admin home is now a snapshot of the campaign: doors, identified votes, the estimate vs the win line, and a map of your 4s, 5s, and signs in the ground.
- Cards for doors knocked, vote IDs (support 4 and 5), estimated votes with +/− vs the win line, and signs requested vs deployed.
- Support rate over time and an all-time doors leaderboard sit on the same page — tap through for the full Analytics or Estimated Votes views.
- One map of identified supporters plus installed lawn signs.
- On a volunteer phone, canvasses are grouped — Signs, GOTV, Lit Drop, then door knocking — so a seven-piece sign split is not buried under older turf lists.
Sign operations: digest, weekend deploy, teardown
The sign crew can opt in to a morning email, split a big install or pickup into canvasses, and mark “I put it in today” at the door.
- Operations: opt in to a daily snapshot email (needs an email on the person). Open the live sign map to everyone on the campaign when you need extra hands.
- Deploy is optional — split requested (or still-installed) signs into driving canvasses and paper sheets. The standing crew can still work the whole shared map. Preview pins are coloured to match each piece; the number is those pins. Photograph filled sheets later: Manual Input reads sign In / Dmg / Skip, GOTV V / R / NH / X, and Lit Drop C / NH / Lit.
- On a knock, after Wants a lawn sign: Sign team will come, or I put it in today.
- Start teardown after election day. The field to-do becomes signs still out; the pin action is Taken down.
- Import reads NationBuilder people exports (street and unit columns) instead of requiring a column named address. The review table shows the unit and how many rows have one.
Sign emails match what people asked for
Asking to take a sign down no longer sends a “thanks for requesting a lawn sign” email. Removal needs the original email; a damaged-sign report does not.
- New-sign, damaged, and removal each have their own confirmation email and button (Yes, take the sign down / Yes, the sign is damaged).
- To request a removal, the resident must use the same email as the original request, then confirm that email. Damaged reports still take any email.
- The wording you edit on Share & form still applies to new sign requests only.
Sign embed grows with the form
The website embed now tells the host page how tall the form is, so supporters scroll the page instead of a box inside it.
- Copy a fresh snippet from Share & form — it includes a small script that stretches the iframe to the form.
- An older iframe-only snippet still works. Replace it if the form is cut off.
- Changing background or button colour updates the snippet in DoorLine only. Recopy it onto your website — the live embed does not update itself.
- Generating a new public link requires typing “generate new link”. That is irreversible: printed QR codes fail, and any embed on your site must be swapped too.
- Extra space under the embedded form uses the same background colour as the page, so it no longer flashes a different white.
- The embed snippet centres the form on the host page.
- After submit, the host page scrolls back to the thank-you so it is not left above the fold. Recopy the snippet for that.
Signs form: set the button to your campaign colour
The public sign form and the embed snippet can now use your campaign button colour, not just the page background — so it matches a NationBuilder theme.
- Share & form has a Button colour picker next to Background, with a live preview of the submit button.
- The embed snippet carries both colours. Light buttons get dark text so they stay readable.
Signs: navy pins, and how to embed in NationBuilder
Requested signs are navy so they read on the map. Share & form now tells you where the iframe actually goes in NationBuilder.
- Requested pins are navy, installed is a richer green, and damaged stays red — on the map, the list, and the counters.
- Share & form has a short NationBuilder note: put the iframe in a custom page Template, not the Content box.
- The lawn signs guide walks through keeping your existing page and slug, a custom Template (not Content), publishing that template, Signup vs Basic intro copy, and importing your existing list once.
Signs map: turfs stay off until you ask
The Signs map is for pins, not canvass areas. Turf outlines no longer cover the pins by default.
- The Map tab on Signs starts with pins only. Use Show turfs if you want the canvass outlines as a backdrop.
GOTV: get out the vote
Everything you learned at the door becomes a voting-day plan. DoorLine builds a list of your identified supporters, cuts it into canvasses for your teams, and tracks who has been reminded and who has voted.
- New GOTV page in admin. Choose which support levels count (5s only, 4s and 5s, or 3 and up) and refresh the list from your canvass data whenever you like.
- Build voting-day canvasses from everyone still to turn out, split across as many volunteer teams as you have. Doors already on an open GOTV list are skipped so a second build covers only what is left.
- GOTV canvasses get a different door sheet: who to ask for, their phone, and one-tap Already voted / Reminded / Not home / Not voting / Moved.
- Voted doors drop off the list for everyone. Not-home doors stay on for the next pass.
- Phone-bank from the target table: mark Contacted or Voted per row, or export a CSV with names and numbers.
- Estimated Votes shows a separate Confirmed votes box — real ballots, kept apart from the estimate.
- GOTV walk sheets list who to ask for and leave off doors that have already voted.
Signs: one list, a public request form, and a sign-team map
Lawn sign operations move into DoorLine. Every request — from a door knock, your website, or an imported spreadsheet — lands on one map with a status, and your sign crew gets a mobile view of what still needs to go up.
- New Signs page in admin with Requests, Map, Import, and Share tabs. Filter by status, search by address or name, edit size and notes inline, export CSV.
- Every campaign has a permanent public request form with a downloadable QR code (PNG/SVG) for flyers and door hangers, plus an embed snippet for your own website with a configurable background colour.
- Requesters confirm by email before a request counts. The confirmation email is mobile-friendly, shows the address and options chosen, carries your campaign name, and its subject, message, and reply-to are editable in Share & form.
- Residents can report a damaged sign from the same form; it goes straight back on the install list.
- Import a sign list from NationBuilder or a spreadsheet — rows are matched to real doors with a review step.
- New Sign team checkbox on Users. Sign-team members get a mobile map and nearest-first list of signs to install, fix, or pick up, with Installed / Damaged / Removed buttons.
- Doors that said “wants a sign” at the door are pulled into the Signs list automatically. Installed signs carry a sign-installed tag in the NationBuilder export.
Canvass housekeeping, better search, and name fixes
Small things campaigns asked for after a summer of knocking: keep the canvasser home screen tidy, fix data-party gaps in one click, and find a person by name.
- Completed canvasses disappear from the canvasser home screen automatically; admins can also hide any in-progress canvass with the new ⋯ menu.
- ⋯ menu → “Mark all unattempted doors as Lit dropped” (or No answer) records the doors nobody typed in after a paper data party. The confirm dialog shows the count first.
- ⋯ menu → “Undo split” deletes the pieces of a split and moves any knocks back to the original canvass (or merges them into one list).
- Data & Export search now matches resident name, email, and phone as well as address, shows “X of Y” counts, and pages past 200 rows with Show more.
- Admins can fix a teammate’s name from Users → Edit, and inviting a number that already exists keeps the name you typed.
Estimated Votes: a real margin of error and stated assumptions
The vote estimate now says how sure it is, and why. The band is built from how much your canvasses disagree with each other and how much of the ward you have covered, so it tightens as you knock more.
- Margin of error combines three things: sampling spread between canvasses, turf-to-turf variation, and an allowance for the part of the ward you haven’t seen yet.
- Verdict reads “clearing”, “too close to call”, or “below” depending on where the win line sits relative to the band.
- The weekly trend band is recomputed from the canvasses finished by each week, so you can watch it narrow over time.
- New “How sure is this?” breakdown and an Assumptions section on the Estimated Votes page — doors aren’t voters, it assumes a two-way race, and at the end of the day it’s a model.
Lit Drop, printable walk sheets, and split-into-N
For sparse lists spread across the whole ward — warm lists, sign requests, letter drops — build a canvass from specific doors instead of a polygon, split it into driving routes, and print it.
- Lit Drop: filter your own responses (support level, sign/volunteer/donate, issue, date) or upload a spreadsheet of addresses; unmatched rows go to a review step before you commit.
- Split any canvass into N pieces. Streets stay together, pieces don’t overlap, and you can drag shared region edges to rebalance.
- Print sheet: a full-page map on the front, a small map on every address page, and boxes to mark results by hand — which the paper importer reads back in.
- Spreadsheet matching tolerates real-world list junk (unit suffixes, stray punctuation, “St.” vs “Street”) and shows real progress while it runs.
- New pills mark recently added features across the admin; hover one for a one-line explanation.
Edit teammate roles, and record supporters who can’t vote
Two fixes from campaign feedback.
- Users → Edit now lets an owner or admin change someone’s role (canvasser ↔ admin) or disable them after the invite — no need to re-invite.
- New “Can’t vote” checkbox on the door form: record a real 1–5 for a non-citizen or out-of-ward supporter without inflating your vote estimate. All stats exclude ineligible doors.
- Typing in the address search no longer signs you out mid-search.
Public User Guides
Visual, step-by-step guides for every workflow — from loading a ward to badges — readable without logging in, with a ranked list of common questions.
- Thirteen guides with real screenshots, ordered the way a first campaign runs.
- Linked from the admin sidebar, the canvasser home, and the marketing site.
Map readability outdoors and easier turf drawing
Small changes that matter in daylight on a phone.
- Doors you haven’t knocked yet are drawn black so they stand out in sun; no-answer doors are grey so they’re not confused with 3/5 support.
- Drag any vertex while drawing a turf instead of undoing and redrawing.
Multi-unit building view
Apartments and condos no longer look “done” after one unit.
- Tap a building to open Building view: every unit with its own status, top floors first, and a + button to add units as you go.
- Live per-unit team visibility and a duplicate-knock guard so two volunteers don’t hit the same door.
- Campaign chooser disambiguates same-named campaigns, and double-submitting signup no longer creates duplicates.
Notes on Data & Export, live import progress, and import fixes
Data hygiene and import reliability.
- Data & Export shows a Notes column and a “Notes contain…” filter, so general notes are searchable without opening each response.
- Paper and CSV imports show live progress while processing; large CSVs no longer time out, and every row error is reported with its line.
- Visit timestamps are kept on import. Canvasses with responses can’t be deleted by accident — mark them complete instead.
- Invites can’t overwrite an existing member’s role, and owners can delete a whole campaign from Settings.
Custom intake fields, including multi-select
Make the door form match your script.
- Add campaign-defined questions (text, yes/no, single or multi-select up to 40 options) in Settings; answers show up in Data & Export and CSV exports.
- Edit existing fields in place without losing recorded answers.
Phone capture, public contact form, and ward boundaries from KML
Getting more campaigns set up faster.
- Capture a resident’s phone number at the door alongside name and email.
- Public contact form on the marketing site lands straight in the feedback queue.
- Load a ward by uploading a KML boundary when your city isn’t pre-loaded; CSV manual address input for anything else.
Batch paper upload, issue analysis, and live canvasser presence
Turn a stack of walk sheets into data and see what the ward is talking about.
- Upload a whole batch of photographed walk sheets at once; review the AI’s matches, then commit.
- Analytics gains issue analysis: free-text notes are grouped into the themes residents actually raised.
- Admin map shows where canvassers are right now while a canvass is running.
- Terms of Service & Privacy Policy, accepted once on first sign-in.
AI paper import, Estimated Votes, and admin on mobile
A big batch requested by campaigns already knocking on paper.
- Photograph a paper walk sheet and DoorLine reads the results, matches addresses, and lets you fix anything it got wrong before saving.
- Estimated Votes: a high-level projection of where you stand against the win line, built from your support scores and coverage.
- The admin section works on a phone, so you can check progress from the field.
Multi-campaign DoorLine: signup, isolation, and NationBuilder export
DoorLine became a shared platform: any campaign can sign up, and each campaign’s data is completely separate.
- Self-serve signup creates a campaign; people on more than one campaign switch from the header.
- Lawn-sign size preference (small / large / don’t care) on the door form.
- Edit an address in the field when the city’s data is wrong or a door is missing.
- Export formatted for NationBuilder import, with the support scale flipped to NB’s convention.
- Canvasser lists sort by street then house number, and the completion estimate is based on the whole ward universe.
Live sync, location sharing, leaderboards, badges, and turf ETA
Team features for the days you have a dozen volunteers out.
- Knocks sync live between phones; teammates’ locations show on the map while they canvass.
- Weekly and all-time leaderboards, with shareable badge images and an optional thank-you text.
- Each turf shows an estimated time to finish, based on door count and past pace.
Response management on Data & Export
Fix a typo or a mis-tapped support level after the fact.
- Edit or delete individual responses from Data & Export.
- Address universe editor: add, remove, or correct doors before cutting turfs.
DoorLine launches with team canvassing
The first release: a mobile canvassing app built for municipal campaigns, by someone who had just run one.
- Load a ward’s addresses, draw turfs, schedule canvasses, and invite volunteers by phone.
- Anyone on the campaign can join any canvass — no per-person assignment. Shared team progress shows support level by door with no personal information.
- Works offline: knocks save on the phone and sync when signal returns.
Missing something?
Most of what's on this page started as a note from a campaign. Use the feedback button inside DoorLine, or the contact form.
Send feedback