This integration guide goes into effect after June 6, 2022.
Introduction
The local government contact data provided by Power Almanac is even more valuable once integrated into your CRM for use by account executives, business development representatives, and marketers via integrated marketing automation tools.
Because organizations use different CRMs, and configure them to suit their needs, Power Almanac provides a universally importable set of CSV files that contain Account and Contact level fields. This guide will help you configure your CRM to accept, maintain, and leverage Power Almanac data.
PRO TIP: This guide assumes that you have experience adding fields to your CRM and importing data from different data sources into your CRM. If anything contained in this guide gives you pause, please consult your CRM administrator.
Step 1. Prepare Your CRM Account and Contact Objects
Adding the following fields to your CRM will make it easy to import Power Almanac contacts into the correct accounts in your CRM. The “Local Government Accounts” file needed to complete this guide can be found in the Power Almanac application under the main menu.
Required Power Almanac Fields
| Field Name | CRM Object Level | Type | Sample Data |
| Power Almanac Account ID | Account | text | 201100100100000 |
| Person ID | Contact | text | 201200200100000-F780E4F |
PRO TIP: Don’t use email address as a “unique identifier” for contacts as many local governments (especially smaller ones) use the same email address for multiple people AND/OR they use a generic “role-based” email (e.g. clerk@local-gov.com) that stays constant even if the person (e.g. the head clerk) changes.
PRO TIP: When you open Power Almanac .csv files in Excel the program transforms the Power Almanac Account ID into scientific notation. To deal with that, format the column as “number” with 0 decimal places.
Step 2. Match CRM Accounts to Power Almanac Accounts
Rather than manually adding the Power Almanac Account ID to every account in your CRM (which could take a while), we recommend a faster, more automated approach. The video below outlines how to use the free “Fuzzy Lookup Add-In” for Microsoft Excel to speed up the matching process. Though not demonstrated in the video below, the same procedure can be accomplished using the “Fuzzy Lookup Add-In” for Google Sheets.
PRO TIP: Be careful when matching your CRM account names to Power Almanac’s account names as states frequently have multiple local governments with the same name within that state. For example, there are over 40 “Washington Townships” in Indiana. BUT . . . there is never more than one local government with the same name in the same county.
If you’re just starting out, you might consider using Power Almanac’s data to preload local government accounts into your CRM. A good naming convention could look like; “Government Place Name”, “County Location”, “State Location” e.g. “Washington Township, Adams County, Indiana.”
Step 3. Integrate and Import Additional Account and Contact Data
Power Almanac comes with a host of useful data that can inform your sales and marketing efforts. The tables below show the available account and contact level fields that you can add to your CRM and populate with the data Power Almanac provides. You may consider locking fields with data that comes from Power Almanac.
Optional Power Almanac Account-Level Fields
| Field Name | Sample Data | Field Type |
| Census Bureau Gov ID | 05203380100000 | text |
| GEO ID | 1600000US0636434 | text |
| FIPS State | 06 | text |
| FIPS County | 065 | text |
| FIPS Place | 36434 | text |
| Government Category | municipality | text |
| Government Place Name | Indian Wells | text |
| Government Category Name | City | text |
| Government County Location | Riverside | text |
| Government State Short | CA | text |
| Government State Long | California | text |
| Government Web Address | http://www.cityofindianwells.org | text |
| Government Main Phone Number | 760-346-2489 | text |
| Government Street Address | 44-950 Eldorado Drive | text |
| Government City | Indian Wells | text |
| Government Zip Code | 92210 | text |
| Fiscal Year Ending | June | text |
| Election Month | November | text |
| Population | 5317 | number |
PRO TIP: The following fields can be useful when joining other local government data to your CRM data for analysis: Census Bureau Gov ID, GEO ID, FIPS State, FIPS County, and FIPS Place.
PRO TIP: Power Almanac’s “Local Government Accounts File” also contains an additional 156 fields that reflect local government spending and full-time employee data organized into high-level categories.
Optional Power Almanac Contact-Level Fields
| Field Name | Sample Data | Field Type |
| Person ID | 201100100100000-5C3D6AD | text |
| Power Almanac Account ID | 201100100100000 | text |
| Role | Head Clerk | multi-select pick list |
| Title | County Secretary/Clerk | text |
| First Name | Charlotte | text |
| Last Name | Eason | text |
| Email Address | Charlotte.Eason@autauga.com | text |
| Phone Number | 334-358-6700 | text |
| Phone Number Ext | 123 | text |
| Street Address or PO Box Number | 135 North Court Street | text |
| Suite Number | 123 | text |
| City | Prattville | text |
| State | AL | text |
| Zip Code | 36067 | text |
| Last Verified Date | 5/10/2022 | text |
| Update Status | SAME | text |
Multi-Select Picklist Values for the Role Field
Making the Role field a multi-select picklist is strongly recommended as individuals may occupy more than one role.
PRO TIP: It’s important to capture “role” as well as “title” because it makes it much easier to segment your audiences. Titles vary widely from government to government, and are not a predictor of their responsibilities.
- Top Elected Official
- Governing Board Member
- Top Appointed Executive
- Deputy Top Appointed Executive
- Head of Health Services
- Head of Facilities Management
- Head of Finance
- Head of Public Works
- Head of Law Enforcement
- Head Clerk
- Head of HR
- Head of Purchasing
- Head of IT
- Head of Communications
- Head of Buildings
- Head of Parks and Recreation
- Head of Planning/Zoning
- Head of Economic Development
- Head of Water Supply
- Head of Fire Protection Services
Step 4. Manage Updates
Managing updates well is key to getting the most out of Power Almanac. The solution will alert you if people you’ve downloaded in the past change. Alerts will come by email and will also be reflected in your “My SAVED Searches” dashboard.
Each person that is updated will be classified in one of the 6 categories below. The classification is reflected in the contact-level Record Status field of the updated contact download file.
PRO TOP: The statuses below only apply to the “Person ID” download file which is more CRM compatible.
- CHANGED: one or more fields related to this person has been changed since the last time you downloaded it as part of this file.
- SAME: this person’s details have NOT changed since the last time you downloaded this file. If this is the first time you have downloaded this file, the status for all records will be SAME.
- ADDED: this person has been added to the database since the last time you downloaded this file and meets the same criteria/filters as the other people in this file.
- DELETED: this person has been deleted from the database since the last time you downloaded this file.
- INCLUDED: this person previously existed in the database the last time you downloaded this file, but was not included because the person did not meet the file’s criteria. Now the person meets the file’s criteria and is included.
- EXCLUDED: this person was in this file the last time you downloaded it. However, while this person is still in the Power Almanac database, this person no longer meets the criteria of this file and is excluded.
Further Support Questions
If you have additional questions or comments, please direct them to support@poweralmanac.com.