Doorstep Support

Doorstep opens on your rounds. If you have one active round, the app can take you straight to it; otherwise the dashboard lists the open rounds available to you.

The first account on a new installation becomes the initial administrator after the one-time setup secret is entered. Admins can approve accounts, configure email, manage users, protect access with multi-factor authentication, back up data, and set the installation licence.

Sign Up And Log In

Open your Doorstep site and choose Register. Enter a user name, display name, email address, and a password of at least 12 characters. After initial setup, a registration is a request: an administrator must approve it before the new account can log in. Admins can also create accounts directly.

Choose Log in and enter your Doorstep user name and password. Your profile link in the top navigation opens your account details.

From your profile you can change your display name, add or remove email addresses, log out, or log out every active session on every device.

Roles

• CanvasserCan see assigned rounds and record interactions.
• ManagerCan create and arrange rounds, manage activities and wards, maintain address data, and run imports.
• AdminHas manager access and can manage users, account approvals, blocked IP addresses, system settings, backups, and licences.

Open A Round

Use My Rounds to see the rounds assigned to you. Managers and admins can see all open rounds. Select a round to view its addresses and begin canvassing.

Use the All, To do, and Done filters to focus the route. A round can include shared notes and an uploaded map. Where location access is available, you can save an address position from the doorstep and open it on a map later.

Record An Interaction

• AddressOpen the address from the round list and check the resident records shown.
• PersonRecord the interaction against the relevant resident where possible.
• OutcomeCapture the conversation result, voting intention, likelihood, previous vote, and any notes that are useful later.
• HistoryUse the address history to understand previous conversations before adding a new one.

Plan And Arrange A Round

Managers choose addresses for a round, assign one or more canvassers, and arrange the addresses into a practical visiting order. They can edit the assignment, map, route, and open or closed status as plans change.

Managers can create activities to group canvassing work, connect rounds to those activities, and use ward or polling district data to plan where work should happen.

Activities have draft, active, and ended stages. Their results show responses from attached rounds and can be downloaded as CSV. Ward results can also be exported.

Ward settings group polling districts and help keep local geography consistent, which makes address filtering and round planning easier.

Import Address Data

Managers and admins can upload an electoral-roll CSV from Imports. Large files upload in parts, and processing runs in the background so the page can show queued, running, completed, or failed status and row progress. Doorstep records a detailed result and can send a completion email when mail is configured.

Review Suggested Moves

If an import suggests that a person may have moved from one address to another, Doorstep records the suggestion for admin review. Confirming a move updates the person record; rejecting it leaves the existing data alone.

A completed import can be undone. Doorstep removes records created by that import only when they have not subsequently been changed.

Manual Address Work

Managers and admins can create, edit, search, and delete addresses and maintain the polling districts, towns, areas, and streets used by the directory. Address detail includes residents, history, notes, and related canvassing information. Doorstep will not delete an address while residents are still attached to it.

Individual Data Requests

After recent authentication, an administrator can export an individual's Doorstep record as JSON or permanently delete that person. The export includes their address, notes, interactions, and suggested moves; deletion detaches their notes and interactions while removing their personal record.

Registration Approval

New self-registrations remain pending until an administrator approves them. When email is configured, administrators receive secure approve and decline links. They can also review an account in User Management, set its role, reset its password, revoke its approval, or delete it.

Administrator Authentication

Administrator accounts must set up a six-digit-code authenticator and save their one-use recovery codes. Sensitive actions—such as changing users, restoring a backup, or changing system settings—ask for recent administrator authentication. Use Log Out on Every Device after a lost device or suspected session exposure.

Blocked IP Addresses

Admins can block and remove client IP addresses from User Management. Use this only with care and make sure the installation's trusted-proxy configuration reports real client addresses correctly.

Email Settings

Admins configure SMTP from System. Set the server, port, security mode, username, sender address, reply-to address, and the public URL used in app links. The SMTP password is supplied securely by the server administrator rather than saved in the database.

Use Send Test Email after changing SMTP settings. Licence registration emails use the same SMTP configuration and do not include passwords, tokens, cached licence payloads, or other secret values.

Installation Licence

System includes the installed version and platform as well as the licence status, install ID, licensee, expiry, and last check time. Enter a licence ID supplied by Hexela to validate the installation. The footer inside Doorstep shows the licensed organisation once a licence is valid.

Backup And Restore

Administrators can download an encrypted backup containing the Doorstep database and uploaded round maps. Restore replaces the current data and maps but keeps the current installation licence. The server's backup key is required, so keep a protected copy separately and test recovery on a disposable installation.

Deployment

Doorstep is packaged for Ubuntu 24.04. The interactive setup configures PostgreSQL roles, runs database migrations, prepares the application and audit services, and can configure NGINX and HTTPS. Production service startup does not run migrations automatically.

Doorstep listens locally on port 9090 by default and can run on the same server as Proofline. Follow the security, backup, retention, and recovery runbooks supplied with the application when operating a production installation.

For Doorstep support, email Hexela with a short description of the issue. If the issue is about a specific round, address, import, or user, include enough detail to identify it.

Before You Write...

• Cannot see a roundCheck that the round is open and assigned to your user, or ask a manager to review the assignment.
• Cannot record an interactionCheck that you are logged in and that the address is part of an open round.
• Import failedOpen its detail page, check the CSV format, and include the import filename and error message when asking for help.
• Email failedUse the test email button and include the SMTP error shown in Doorstep.
• Administrator code failedCheck the device clock and use a saved recovery code if the authenticator is unavailable.
• Restore failedDo not discard the original backup. Include the exact message, installed version, and whether the same backup key is configured.
• Licence failedInclude the licence ID, install ID, configured Doorstep hostname, and licence status message.