Help Sheet 20

 Petitions
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Petitions

The Petition feature allows you to run online petitions about issues that affect your community. The signatures are gathered in a digital format and can be emailed or printed off.

Setting up a petition

• You first need to enable the petition by going into ‘Manage Website’ then ‘Use standard pages’
• [To add a petition to your page you need to click 'Administrate, (ignore 'Apply for a petition' here as this is for members of the public to ask for a petition to be started) ]
• Click the small ‘Create a Petition’ link on the right hand side of the screen
• Here is where you create your petition, give it a title and description (these can be edited at a later date). You then need to set your petition a schedule, each petition must have a start date (which must be in the future) and a closing date. Click ‘OK’
• Once you have set the petition up you are taken to the main petitions administration page and you will see your petition in there in the middle of the screen. From here under the 'Actions' you can ‘Edit’ the description and schedule of your petition, ‘Unapprove’ it (remove it from the public), and ‘Download Signatures’ you may already have in a CSV format which can be opened in Excel or other spreadsheet programs.

Editing a Petition

• From the ‘Administration’ screen if you click on the name of your petition you will bring up options to edit and change the schedule of your petition.
• Clicking the ‘Details’ tab next to your petition brings up the ability to edit the basic details. Click ‘Edit’ to change the 'Principal Petitioner', 'Name' and 'Description' of the petition. Click ‘OK’ when you are happy with your changes.

Changing the Schedule

• Clicking on 'Schedule' tab lets you change the dates that your petition starts.
• You can start your petition now by clicking ‘Make Current’ next to ‘Accepting Signatures’ and then ‘OK’.  This will make your petition available to sign by the public immediately.
• If you want to end your petition earlier than you had originally scheduled click ‘Make Current’ next to ‘Awaiting Submission’ or ‘Concluded’.

Downloading Signatures

• From the Petitions page click ‘Administrate’. Then click on ‘Download Signatures’ next to the petition you want.
• You will then be asked whether you want to open or save this file. The file will either be open or saved in CSV. This can be opened and edited using Excel or other spreadsheet programs.
• The detail contained in the CSV file is a unique signature id number, the name of the person signing, their address and their postcode.

You can reach the Help Desk on: 01245 436559 or via email support@essexinfo.net

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