Organization Settings

If you've ever stumbled upon your organization's settings page, you were probably a bit overwhelmed by the number of checkboxes. To help you overcome any residual fears, this article will take an in-depth look at the different options and what they do. 

To get to the Settings page, go to the admin homepage and click Settings. The different sections of this page are: Basics, Categories, Contact, Content, Custom Fields, Deliverability, Email Opt-In Types, Event Types, Header & Footer, Integrations, Labels, Local Map, Options, Post Action Flow, Privacy, Promoted Petitions, Regions, SMS Opt-in Types, Social Media, Stories, Teams & Permissions, Themes, Time Zone & Locale.

Basics

The Settings > Basics page deals with your organization's identity and branding settings.

Note: Depending on how your organization's site is branded, the options you see on this page may vary.

 Name

• The site Name is generally the name of your organization. This is the primary name that is used throughout the platform, including in places like the site's tab name and emails that include a "The [Organization Name] Team" sign off.
• The Parent Name is optional. The main place this name is used is in the site's footer, where a "Powered by ParentName" line will be included.
• The Long Name is optional. You can use it if you want a longer version of your site name to be used where space permits. Depending on your organization's configuration, this name may appear in email opt-in language. 
• The Organisation Name for Events is also optional. This may be helpful if your site name is not the name of your organization, and will be used in texts inviting users to join your organization's events and groups.

To provide translations for any of these names, click the Translate names to other locales link. When you're done, click Save.

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Logo

If your organization is not using Themes, the section allows you to update your site's logos. If you are using Themes, these settings can be updated from the Settings > Themes page. 

The Header Logo is the logo that's displayed in the top left corner of your site. This is generally your organization's main logo though it may also be a logo specific to your ControlShift site's brand. 

To add or update your logo, click the Edit Logo Images link. If you're planning to support your site in multiple languages, you can also use this link to specify different logo images per locale. When adding new logos, we recommend using a high res, optimized image that's wider than it is tall and has a transparent background. If your organization already has an uploaded logo, you may wish to stick to the same dimensions as your current logo image. If the logo has a different size or a differently-colored background, it may not display correctly. 

To edit an existing logo, first click Destroy to remove the existing logo and then click Add Logo to upload a new image. After choosing your file, specify which language (locale) this logo is for. When you're ready, click Save to begin the upload process. If your organization does not already have a logo uploaded, click Add Logo to begin the process.

Also in this section, you can set your site's favicons. The regular Favicon is the image displayed next to the site's name (like the "C" in the image below). The larger Touch Favicon is used when bookmarking a site on certain mobile devices (also like below).

Hostnames

The hostnames section allows you to specify the URL(s) for your site. Most organizations begin with a controlshift.app hostname. You are welcome to use this as the primary URL for your site, or you can specify a different URL which could be a subdomain of your main site or a completely new domain. To add a new hostname, click New Hostname and follow the instructions.  The wizard in this section will walk you through the process, but we also provide additional guidance.

Organizations may have as many hostnames as they'd like, and the same content will be visible to site visitors regardless of which hostname the user is viewing the site on. (Though the fonts and colors used to wrap the site may vary by hostname if your organization is using Themes.) A user with a full account will be asked to log into the site again if they switch between hostnames. If your organization uses multiple hostnames, you can also choose which hostname is the primary hostname. The primary hostname will generally be used in emails and sharing content (unless your organization has configured other behavior in Themes).

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Categories

Organizations can specify categories that are used with petitions. Categories can be helpful in allowing admins to track the types of petitions that are being created and to understand the issues that your supporters care about. Categories can also help prospective signers to find other campaigns they may be interested in signing. 

To begin using categories go to Settings > Categories and add your first category by clicking New Category. Once a category has been added, the site will update in a few ways:

• Petition creators, leaders, and admins will see a prompt to set categories on the petition page.

  

• Once chosen, the category selections will be shown in this section of the petition page and will be visible to all site visitors. 

  

• If a user clicks one of the category names, they'll be brought to that category in the site directory (found at /categories ) from which they can find additional campaigns in that category.

  

  Dog Image by Alvan Nee on Unsplash
• Moderators will now see and may update category information in their moderation queue. Petition creators and leaders will also see the option to change category selections on the petition's edit page. 

Organizations can add as many categories as would be useful, and the list of available categories can be updated at any time.

To add a new category, click the New Category button. To translate or delete a category, click the Edit link next to the category name. 

Depending on your organization's CRM connection, you may also see an option to set the category's External ID. The External ID allows you to match a ControlShift category with an issue/category in your CRM. This connection may be useful if you're building lists of people who have taken action or shown interest in a specific issue.

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Contact

From Settings > Contact you can customize various email and mailing addresses for your organization.

• Notifications: notifications are generally managed from each admin's My Account page. However, if your organization is interested in having notification sent to a shared email address or listserv/distribution list address that isn't tied to an admin account, then you can configure the notification settings from here.  More information about notifications.

• Contact Email:  This is the email address that's displayed when emails are sent through the platform. While emails to supporters are sent via ControlShift's email infrastructure, they will show as coming from this Contact Email. This includes emails from petition creators to their supporters and the automated emails that are sent whenever a user takes action on your site. Email replies may be sent to this address; therefore, this email should be able to receive replies.

  When customizing your site's Contact Email, we strongly recommend also configuring your deliverability settings. These settings help to ensure that emails are delivered to your supporters' inboxes.

• Mailing address: this information is used for tax purposes, record keeping, and when sending mailings.
• Data protection, billing, and technical contacts: As staff at organization changes, it's important that ControlShift knows who to contact should we have questions or information to share. We ask that organizations keep this information up to date.

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Content

In Settings > Content, organizations can update the default content that's used on the site and/or provide translations into additional languages. The content that can be customized from this section includes things like: automatic emails to the petition creators and signers, emails to hosts and attendees, help for petition creators and event hosts, terms of service, etc.

For more information about the specific pieces of content, please see the related section of our help center. 

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Custom Fields

By default, petition signers and event attendees are asked for a standard set of information on all petitions and events. However, for some petitions or some events, you (or your event host/petition leader) may be interested in asking for additional information from supporters. Custom fields can be added to an event or petition from the event or petition's admin Settings. If the organization allows, petition leaders and event hosts may also be able to add pre-approved custom fields to their own petitions and events via the pre-defined custom fields that are configured on this Settings > Custom Fields page. 

Even if your organization does not wish to allow petition leaders or event hosts to add custom fields to their petitions and events, pre-defining regularly used fields will make it easier for admins to add the custom fields to the appropriate petition or event. Pre-defining fields also allows for better data consistency. 

To add a new pre-defined field, first click the Petitions or Events link to specify for which form this new field should be available. Then click New Default Custom Field.

From here, enter the information for your custom field:

• The Short name is for internal use. It will appear as the column label in the petition's signature CSV export. Depending on your CRM, it may also be used when syncing signatures or RSVPs to your CRM.
• Next, choose the Type of field you want to use. The text field option will allow the signer to type a full text response. The checkbox option will be shown as a 1 or 0 in the signature CSV export. If a 1 is shown, the box was checked. If a 0 is shown, the box was left unchecked. The dropdown option will add a dropdown menu to the form. You'll be able to specify the options included in the dropdown later.
• The Label is the public-facing text that is shown to the signer or attendee on the action form. 
• The Disclaimer is optional and allows you to provide additional context or special information for an individual field. The disclaimer text will appear immediately below the field.

When you're done entering information, click to Save. If you chose to add a dropdown, you'll then be prompted to set the dropdown options. Here you'll see two columns: the Value and the Label. The Label is what will be shown to action takers and the Value is what will be included in the signature CSV, CRM sync, webhooks, etc.

Once your field has been added, you can choose whether to make your field Public or not. If a field is public, it will be included in the list of fields that are available to petition leaders and event hosts from their petition/event's Settings page (in the leader tools). 

When needed, admins can return to this page to edit (using the pencil icon ) or remove (X) pre-defined custom fields. To add additional options to a dropdown, click to Configure.

More information about custom fields for petitions and custom fields for events is available.

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Deliverability

From Settings > Deliverability organizations can configure SPF/DKIM records to prove that ControlShift is allowed to send emails on behalf of the address that was entered into the Contact page of Settings. This is an important part of the setup process that helps ensure emails are successfully delivered to supporters inboxes and not automatically marked as spam by email providers.

We strongly recommend configuring these settings, and the wizard on this page will walk you through the process. We also have more detailed information about deliverability setup and its benefits. 

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Email Opt-In Types

From Settings > Email Opt-In Types, you can choose what email opt-in behavior is shown on the platform (checkboxes, radio buttons, etc.) and the language that's used. See our article about email opt-ins for more information.

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Event Types

Event types are public-facing categories for events. These event types are often things like: phonebank, training, rally, etc., but can be customized based on the type of events your organization is supporting. Once event types are added to the site, event hosts in appropriately configured calendars will be able to choose the event type for their events. Additionally, prospective attendees will be able to filter event lookup pages to see only specific types of events. 

To add a new event type, go to Settings > Event Types and click New Event Type. Then enter the name of the event type and click Save. You can add as many event types as you'd like.  Once event types are added, you can click the name of the event type to edit its name, provide translations, and/or configure CRM-specific settings.

Information about event types and calendars is also available.

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Header & Footer

If your organization is not using Themes you'll see the option to configure your site's Header and Footer. If your organization is using Themes, you won't see this option. Instead, configure your site's Header and Footer from Themes.

On this page, you'll see three options:

• Header Links allows you to control the links in the site's header. You can use this for templatized campaigns, donation links, links to create events, links to join groups etc. 
• Footer Links (Desktop) allows you to control links in the footer. These links are displayed on desktop-sized screens only.
• Footer Links (Mobile) allows you to control links in the footer. These links are displayed on mobile-sized screens only.

Once a link has been added, you can edit or remove it when needed. The Translate link can be used if your organization is operating the site in multiple languages. Finally, you can rearrange the order of the links by using the arrows or clicking and dragging the link to reorder it. 

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Integrations

From Settings > Integrations, you can see the third-party tools that your ControlShift site is connected to. All integrations in this tab are optional and may include things like: your CRM, tracking and analytics services, webhooks, Slack, etc. 

You can find more information about the available integrations in our help center. To connect with your CRM, please send us an email. 

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Labels

Labels are ways of tracking different sorts of events, petitions, groups, and members. Unlike event types and petition categories, labels can be used across each of the different features. By default, labels are admin-only and are not visible to the public. However, labels can optionally be made public, which allows site visitors to filter for specific labels on event lookup pages and the local organizing map. 

To add a new label, go to Settings > Labels and click to add New Label. Then enter the label you'd like to create (you can also create a new label from the Label section of a petition/event/group/member's admin page). 

Once the label has been created, you can click the name of the label to go to its edit page. On that page, you can make the label publicly visible (which will add it to the advanced filters section of event lookup pages and the local organizing map of events and groups) or delete the label if needed.

More information about labels is available.

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Local Map

The Settings > Local Map page allows admins to embed the local organizing map of events and groups (which is also available by adding /local  to your platform's URL) on an external site. 

The script code at the top of the page can be copied and pasted onto an external site. However, you can also customize the embed by adding filters at the bottom of the page. First, you can choose to Filter by type  to restrict the embed to only events or only groups. You can also Filter by location by entering a location name or drawing a bounding box.

You can also choose whether to include the sidebar in the embed. As you change the filters that are added to the embed, the code at the top of the page will update.

More information about the local organizing map is available.

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Options

The Options section of the Settings page contains various configurations available in different parts of the platform. If needed, you can skip ahead to: Admin, Membership, Homepage, Moderation, Partnerships, Petitions, Events, Local Groups, or Disclaimers.

Admin

• Require admins to set up two-factor authentication: Two-factor authentication (2FA) is a security setting that requires a user to enter a one-time, randomly generated code, in addition to their password, when logging into the site. We recommend that all admins enable two-factor authentication regardless of their organization's admin settings, but checking this box will notify the admin that they need to set up 2FA.  More information about 2FA.

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Membership

• Phone number not mandatory for user registration: By default, people creating full user accounts (e.g. accounts for petition or event creation, group members and organizers, admins) have to provide their phone number. If you want to give your users the option of not giving their  phone number during the registration process, check this box.
• The organization admin who will take over assets that have been orphaned by a user deleting their account is the person that events and petitions will be reassigned to when an account is deleted. If there is no user set, users who have created petitions or events will NOT be able to delete their accounts. Instead these accounts can only be deleted by administrators. We strongly recommend assigning an admin via this dropdown. When assigned, the chosen admin will be notified when a user with assets deletes their account.
• Display Checkbox for Terms & Conditions: By default, when someone signs up for a new account on the site, they'll be shown a disclaimer explaining that they're agreeing to abide by the site's terms of service. If you'd instead like the user to manually accept a checkbox on the account creation form, you can update that setting here.
• External URL for Terms & Conditions: By default, references to the site's terms of use will link to the terms of service page at /tos . However, if you'd prefer to link users to an offsite terms of service page (e.g. the terms of use that your organization publishes on your main site), enter the URL here.

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Homepage

• From this section, you can see the URL that users will be sent to if they click your logo image in the top left corner of the site. For most organizations, this will take site visitors to the default ControlShift homepage. However, if you'd prefer to send users to a custom homepage, your organization's main homepage, or another page within ControlShift, click the edit button and enter your Overridden home page URL.
• If you never want anyone, even those who manually type the homepage URL, to land on your ControlShift homepage, check the Force redirection from home page to overridden URL checkbox. Users will then be automatically redirected to the Overridden home page URL, bypassing the ControlShift homepage entirely. 

• If your organization is not using Themes, you'll also see the Homepage Links section. This allows you to add, edit, or remove links from the homepage carousel. Generally, the link that's included in this section is an About Us link. 

  If your organization is using Themes, this link is configured within your Themes settings.

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Moderation

• By default, when petitions and events are created, they're immediately visible to those with the direct link to the petition or event. This means that the petition or event will not be included in search results or on public lookup pages, but someone who is sent the full URL of the petition or event will be able to see and sign/RSVP. The petition or event is still sent to the moderation queue, and admins decide whether to increase or decrease the item's visibility during the moderation step. Most ControlShift organizations maintain our default moderation strategy. However, if needed, organizations can Require pre-moderation for petitions and events. With this setting enabled, petitions and events are not visible to any members of the public, or the creator, until they've been approved by admins. More information about pre-moderation is available.

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Partnerships

Within ControlShift, each partnership can have its own settings that are tailored to your organization's relationship with the partner. However, organizations can use the settings in this section to make choices about what the default settings for partnerships will be if they're not overridden by admins.

• Default Signature Disclaimer: We strongly recommend informing users about how their data will be used when signing partner petitions or attending partner events. While each partnership can have a custom disclaimer, admins can set a default disclaimer that will be used on all partnership events and petitions unless overridden at the partnership level. As a reminder: if you haven't configured the partnership to have an opt-in, all users who take action on the partner's petitions and events will be subscribed to the partner's mailing list. 
• Display Opt-in by Default, Opt-in Label, and Default Opt-in value: If you'd prefer to give your supporters the option of opting into a partner's mailing list, you can use these settings to configure an email opt-in that will be used by default on partnership petitions and events unless overridden at the partnership level. Check the Display Opt-in by Default to enable a checkbox. The Opt-in Label is the text that the user will see next to that checkbox. The Default Opt-in value allows admins to choose whether the opt-in checkbox is pre-checked or unchecked. 
• Default value for Can Download Signers option: If you allow, partner admins will be able to export a list of the supporters who have opted into their mailing list. Checking this box will allow that permission, by default, for future partnerships. Unchecking the box will disallow the permission, by default, for future partnerships. 
• Default value for Hide New Petition button option: Generally, we display a start a campaign button on the partnership hub page. That button allows anyone – partner admin or random site visitor – to quickly create a new petition that's included in the partnership (and therefore automatically uses the partnership's settings). If you don't want to show that start a campaign prompt, by default, on future partnership hub pages, you can uncheck this box.

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Petitions

• Requires location for campaign: When this option is checked, the petition creator will be asked to provide a location for their campaign. They can either enter a specific location or indicate that the campaign is a national or international campaign without a specific location. This setting can be useful for targeting supporters of local campaigns or can be used to assign campaigns to specific organizers.
• If you're using ActionKit or Identity, one-click signing functionality is available. If you don't want to use one-click, check the box labeled Suppress one click signatures feature.
• If you don't want to collect signers' phone numbers, click to Hide phone number on signature form. Please note: by default, phone numbers are optional for petition signers. If you're interested in also making phone numbers optional for user account creation, please see the check box in Settings > Options > Membership.
• If you have categories enabled on your site, you'll usually want to allow petition creators to self-select the categories that their petition falls into. If you don't want petition creators selecting categories when they create their petition, uncheck the box labeled Show petition category on creation. Please note: this option only affects Effort and Landing Page petitions, which are created through our legacy flow.
• By default, categories are shown in a block of checkboxes (see below). However, you can instead choose to Show categories as drop down (also below). Using the dropdown option will limit petitions to one category only.

• Collect physical signature: adds a new column to the offline petition signatures form. The new column allows someone to add their actual physical signature to the form. 
• Allow global unsubscribes: gives members who wish to unsubscribe the option of unsubscribing from a single petition or from all platform communications. Learn more about global unsubscribes.
• Disable Comments: By default petition signers are automatically prompted to leave their reason for signing. These comments can be useful in storytelling about the campaign, in communications with the decision maker, to find new leaders within a campaign's supporters, or to offer encouragement to the petition leader. If you don't want to collect any reasons for signing, check this box. Please note: it is also possible to disable comments for an individual petition from the petition's Admin > Settings page.
• Main Effort: If your organization is only interested in supporting petitions that are part of templated, localized campaign, you can set your site's Main Effort. By default, the start a campaign prompts on the platform send users to the open-ended campaign form where they're able to create any sort of campaign they're interested in running. When the main effort setting is enabled, users will be sent to that effort's petition creation flow instead. Learn more about efforts.

• If you enter a URL in to the Blank offline petition signatures form link it will override the default behavior for offline signature collection.

  

  By default, when someone clicks the Printable Blank Form button, the system generates a pdf that includes the petition title, the petition ask, and rows for people to enter their name, email, phone number, etc. However, if you want petition creators to collect signatures on a different form, you can link to it here. This is not a setting we would recommend for most organizations because it's important that people signing the petition offline can see exactly what they are adding their name to. However, if your organization's campaigns require that signatures are collected on official forms or if additional information is required for all signers, you may wish to override our default forms. 

• Destination URL for the 'make a donation' button in the welcome modal: If your organization is using the welcome modal, there are three possible buttons that will be displayed: Start a Campaign, Make a Donation, and  More Campaigns. If your organization would like to collect donations from that modal, you'll need to enter a URL. If no URL is entered, then the donation button will not be included in this welcome modal. Learn more about collecting donations.
• Petition dormant threshold months: Your organization can set a timeframe after which a petition will be considered dormant if it has not had significant activity in that period. Our default threshold is 12 months. Once set, petitions will only be considered dormant if all of the following conditions are met:
  • the petition is older than chosen time period;
  • the petition has received fewer than 10 signatures during the time period;
  • the petition has not been edited within the time period;
  • the petition has had no blast emails sent, no timeline posts added (in the updates section), no events hosted or planned, and no messages sent to decision makers during the time period; and
  • the petition is not currently being promoted (in the after-action popups or on the homepage).
• If any of the above conditions are not true, then the petition will be considered active. Setting a dormant petition threshold allows admins to filter their admin-only petition lists to view dormant petitions. This can be useful for organizations whose privacy policies require that they delete or anonymize petitions that are no longer active.

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Events

• Virtual events by default: This will update the event creation form to default to the virtual event creation view. Prospective hosts will still be able to create in-person events. 
• Enable event discussion forums by default: Event hosts and attendees can receive access to an event-specific discussion forum. This forum can be useful to pose and answer questions about the event, discuss updates, or coordinate event details. If you do not want to allow access to event forums, uncheck this box. Please note: event forums can also be disabled at the event or calendar level. 
• Blank offline event attendees form link: Event hosts are able to recruit attendees on paper. Entering a URL here will override the default offline attendee signup form. This may be useful for your organization if you need to collect specific information from event attendees.
• Location search distance limit in kilometers: This distance limit controls which events are included in search results when a user enters their location into an event lookup page. 
• Default event image: This image will be used for any event that doesn't have its own image (or that isn't part of a calendar with an overridden default event image). We recommend setting a default image for events because many hosts will not upload their own image.

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Local Groups

• "Learn more about local groups" page URL: If your organization has the groups tool enabled, you can specify the URL of a page that has more information about your local groups. This page can include tips for running a local group, organizing suggestions, topics to discuss, and the responsibilities of a local group organizer. When a URL is entered here, a 'Read More' button will appear on the page that users are directed to after submitting their request to form a new group.

  

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Disclaimers

• The disclaimers section allows you to tell your supporters how you'll use their information. These disclaimers will be shown below the action buttons, on the offline actions forms, or at the top of the site in the cookies banner. We strongly recommend including disclaimers or opt-ins to inform site visitors about how their information will be used. Each of these fields can accept HTML for more advanced formatting. If your organization is operating in multiple languages, you can also provide translations. For more information about disclaimers, please see our disclaimers discussion.

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Post Action Flow

In Settings > Post Action Flow admins can set default rules for what happens after someone signs a petition or RSVPs to an event.

When deciding what a user should see after taking action, we'll use the rules in this list – we'll start by checking if the first rule is true for this action taker. If not, we'll move to rule number two, and then rule number three, etc. 

Organizations begin with a default set of rules that can be edited, removed, or rearranged. By clicking New Post Action Flow Rule, admins can create new default experiences for signers or attendees. New rules can be used to do things like: automatically ask for donations after someone signs a petition, show a welcome message to a new attendee, or ask a signer to also sign a promoted petition in their area.

Detailed information about the different post action experiences is available. Please note: the rules that are configured here are defaults for the whole platform. Admins can then override these defaults at the petition or event levels. 

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Privacy

Your organization can configure various settings related to users' privacy, including how users' names are displayed and what information is shared with petition leaders and event hosts. Please see the associated article for more detailed information about these privacy settings.

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Promoted Petitions

Admins can choose to promote certain petitions to their supporters. This includes adding petitions to the featured campaigns on the homepage and including chosen campaigns in after-signing popup modals. 

The Settings > Promoted Petitions page shows which campaigns are currently being promoted. Campaigns can be added or removed from this list at any time. For more information about what each type of promotion looks like, and how to add a campaign to the promoted list, please see our article. 

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Regions

Regions allow an organization to divide their country or the world into separate geographic areas. Once regions have been created, content will be automatically assigned to the appropriate region based on its location, and admins can be granted permissions based on the region that they're responsible for. More information about regions, including how to create regions and why you may be interested in using regions, is available.

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SMS Opt-in Types

If your organization is collecting users' phone numbers for SMS messaging, you may wish to also collect SMS opt ins.

Organizations can customize the language and form of their SMS opt-in to meet their particular needs. To get started, go to the admin homepage > Settings > SMS Opt-In Types and click Enable. If your organization already has an SMS opt-in that you'd like to update, click the Update link on this page. 

On the enable/update page, you'll see options for different types of opt-ins:

• Implicit opt-ins will display as disclaimers immediately below the phone number field
• Pre-checked and unchecked checkboxes will both display as a checkbox that's shown below the phone number field. In both cases, the checkbox will be displayed immediately upon the form being loaded.
• Sliding pre-checked checkbox opt-ins will display as a checkbox that's shown below the phone number field. However, with this option the checkbox is not shown when the form first loads; instead, it only becomes visible once the user begins to type their phone number into the field.

These are examples of the implicit and sliding pre-checked checkbox opt-ins.

ControlShift provides default opt-in language that can be updated by clicking the Edit link next to the text. From this page you can also provide translations for your opt-in text. 

To view a history of your organizations SMS Opt-Ins, return to Settings > SMS Opt-In Types > Manage SMS Opt-in Types. This list will include the types of previous opt-ins and their creation date. 

When users take action on the site, we'll record whether they opted into SMS updates. This information will also be included in signature exports and webhooks.  

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Social Media

The Social Media settings page allows your organization to configure how platform content is shared on social media networks.

The top of this page, Sharing Channels, lists your currently-enabled social media sharing channels. These are the buttons that your supporters will see after signing or RSVPing (in the after-action social share popup), in the social media sections of petition and event pages, and in the post-action share emails. By default, organizations have email, Facebook, and Twitter pre-enabled. Organizations can disable channels, and optionally add Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp to the list of supported channels.

To add a new sharing channel, select the channel in the dropdown on this page and click to Add.

The order of this list will also reflect the order of the buttons in the various share prompts. You can reorder these channels at will.

Clicking to edit (using the pencil icon) next to a sharing channel will allow you to customize the UTM source parameters that we automatically append when someone uses one of the sharing buttons. Within the X (Twitter) and Bluesky settings, you also have the option of deciding whether you want your organization's X (Twitter) and Bluesky handle to be included in the tweets that are sent using the X (Twitter) and Bluesky button. Checking the Append Twitter (X) or Bluesky Handle will update the TX (Twitter) and Bluesky share message to add "via @YourOrganization"  after the petition URL. More information about tracking signature/attendee sources, and the UTM schema, is available.

The Social Accounts section allows your organization to link to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. These links will automatically appear in the footer. 

The UTM Parameters section allows your organization to override the default UTM parameters we use in other parts of the site. (For the UTM parameters used in the sharing buttons, click edit (the pencil icon) next to the appropriate sharing channel.) Learn more about UTM parameters.

In the Homepage Settings section, you can customize how the homepage will appear when shared on social media. You can also set a default Image for this share at the bottom of this page.

Similarly, the New Petition Form Settings section will allow you to customize the settings for the new petition page. 

Finally, the Default petition social share image is used when a petition without a custom image is shared on social media.

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Stories

Stories are the images and captions that are show in the carousel at the top of the homepage. Organizations can have as many of these stories as they'd like, and these stories can be updated at any time. 

To add a story, go to the admin homepage > Settings > Stories and click New Story. Select the file of the image you'd like to add to the carousel, then set the Title and Content. You can optionally add a link, which can be a link to another page on your ControlShift site or an external site.  To add the new story to your carousel, you'll need to check the Featured box.

To edit or remove a story already in the carousel, go to the admin homepage > Settings > Stories and click the title of the story. Then click to Edit. From there you can make your changes or uncheck the Featured checkbox to remove the story from your carousel.

If your organization is operating in multiple languages, you can provide translations for the carousel stories by going to the admin homepage > Settings > Stories and clicking the title of the story. On this page, you can add translations.

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Teams & Permissions

Admin teams are how admin permissions are granted across the platform. By default, all organizations being with an Owners team. The Owners team has access to all items on the platform – they can manage moderation, update platform settings, perform member exports, etc. If your organization is interested in granting more limited permissions to a specific set of users, you can do so by clicking to create a New Team. From there, you'll be asked to name the team and choose its appropriate permissions.

In general, permissions are broken up by feature:

• Everything means that the user can access all parts of that feature
• Admin view means that the user can view but not edit items related to that feature
• Organise means that the user can access what are traditionally supporter tools for that feature (e.g. petition organise means the admin user will be able to access petition creator tools, event organise means the admin user will be able to access the event host tools, etc.
• Moderate means that the user will be able to view and change moderation statuses for that feature. 

When you're done choosing permissions click to Save. Admin teams can also be tied to Regions.

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Themes

The Themes page allows you to customize your site's look and feel. This includes: fonts and colors, logos, header and footer links, etc. Your organization can have multiple themes, which are then assigned to specific portions of the site. More information about Themes is available.

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Time Zone & Locale

In Settings > Time Zone & Locale, your organization can customize localization settings for your organization:

• Country: If your organization is only operating in one country, choose that option in the dropdown. Choosing a specific country here will update the list of auto-complete locations in the Google Maps API and the validations that we use when someone enters a postcode and phone number into the site. If your organization is interested in organizing in multiple countries, leave this option blank.
• Time Zone: Your organization's timezone will be used in exports, etc.
• Preferred Locale: This is the default language for your site. Even when your organization is operating in multiple languages, you'll need to choose a preferred locale. 

• Boundary Box: The boundary box changes the default view of maps on the platform. It's also used to pre-filter the auto-complete locations in the Google Maps API.

  
  
• To add or remove translations from your ControlShift site, click the Manage Locales link. Then, follow the steps for supporting additional languages.

Q: How does ControlShift decide what language a user should see the site in when our site has multiple translations?

A: If this is a new or unknown user, we'll  start by checking the user's browser language. If your organization is operating in their default browser language, then we'll show them the site in that language. If their browser language is not an available translation, we'll show them the site in your organization's Preferred Locale. The user will also see a language dropdown in the footer, which allows them to override our language choice.

If the user is logged in or cookied, we'll show them the same language that is tied to their user account or the language that they most recently viewed the site in.

You can also force the toolset to display in a particular language by adding ?preferred_locale=[the code for the language you want to display] to the end of the page's URL. For example: https://demo.controlshiftlabs.com/petitions/repair-the-yellow-brick-road-1?preferred_locale=sv will show the site in Swedish. 

For some pages, you can also add /{the code for the language you want to display}/ after your organization's domain. For example, if I wanted this petition: https://demo.controlshiftlabs.com/petitions/repair-the-yellow-brick-road-1 to display in Spanish, I'd change the URL to read https://demo.controlshiftlabs.com/es/petitions/repair-the-yellow-brick-road-1.

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