| Discussion: Configuring X2 Election™ for a student union is a 8 step procedure. You should allow for two weeks time previous to any election to make sure you have time to set up everything properly. Even the best system can not correct the worst input.
Setup 1: Login and Change Password.
Login to the control panel using the link provided at time of sign up. Change your CRO password (this can be found in the account info section)
Step 2: Upload logo.
Upload your schools logo, so that the system won?t say it?s a demo.
Step 3: Set up the departments.
You will require at least one department to run an election. The department already in the list "All" is a special department that lets everyone vote for any candidate that is running under it.
We recommend you set up other departments though. You will need to add all the departments that you have voters in. (Eg. 'Engineering', 'Political Science'...)
When you set up the departments you should add the number of seats that the department will allow to be elected for the position ("All" is set to 1). This was designed to allow Students Council positions to have different numbers of seats in different departments.
Step 4: Set up the positions.
You will need to add all the positions that will be run for in the election. But first remove the 'Remove Me' position... You probably are not running any one for that position :)
Positions are things like President, VP External, VP Finance, Students Council.
Students council is usually the only one of the previous positions that will not have candidates running in the "All" department. Students Council is a single 'position' in which multiple candidates battle [to the death] for seats in different 'departments'.
Step 5: Upload candidate photos and add the candidates.
You may upload photos now of the candidates that are running in this election. You can then add these candidates and select the position and department they are running for (remember to select there photo from the list and add a description, it lets voters make informed decisions).
Step 6: Prepare your voter list and upload it.
This is the fun part; different schools maintain their voter lists differently. Of course, it would be cost prohibitive for us to set up special conversion utilities for each school so we require you to follow the instructions on the 'upload list' page for formating your lists.
When you make your list the 'Departments' must be exactly the same as the ones you entered in step 3. If they are not the user will get a notice stating that no candidates are running in their department that position. This applies to any non "All" department position.
Remember, as the site and tutorial tell you: The List must be a TAB-Delimited-Text file or it will not work.
Note: If you are using Excel the Find-Replace command can come in handy for formating the list properly.
Step 7: Confirm everything worked!!!
Make sure everything you just did worked. Search the voters, are they listed (system can only display a max of 50 voters when search parameters are changed), do you have candidates? Are the candidates in the correct 'departments'? Do your 'departments' match the 'departments' that you have your voters in?
If this is all fine move on to step 8, otherwise contact your sales rep to set up an appointment to help you fix your election. Charges may apply for support.
Step 8: Start the election.
Now you are ready to "START" the election. Don't be to hasty tho, it logs the time (time appears on the results page) you start it and can only be run once. So click that mouse only if you really want to start the election.
By:Jason McNeil (X2 Elections Project Manager)
© 2002 X2 Studios, ltd.
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