Monitoring canvassers with live tracking
How to watch active canvassing sessions in real time, including who is out, how long they have been out, and their door counts, and what the view does not show.
On this page
Live Tracking is the part of the Canvassing tool that shows you who is out knocking doors right now, which territory they are in, how long they have been out, and how many doors they have knocked. Open Canvassing in your workspace sidebar and choose Live Tracking to reach it. It is open to people on your workspace team whose role includes the View canvassing dashboards and territories permission (owners and admins always have it); a member who is not on your workspace team cannot open it.
What the view shows
When canvassers have active sessions, the view displays a table with one row per canvasser. Each row shows:
- Canvasser: the name and profile photo of the person currently out
- Territory: the territory or assignment they are working
- Started: how long ago the session began (for example, "42m" or "1h 15m")
- Doors: the running count of doors knocked so far
The view shows who is out and their counts, never where they are: it has no map and does not display anyone's position. The view refreshes every five seconds while canvassers are active, so you see near-real-time progress without manually reloading the page. Polling pauses automatically when you switch away from the tab and resumes when you return.
If no canvassers are active, the view shows a notice that no sessions are running. Canvassers appear in the table as soon as they start a session on their device.
Session states
A canvassing session moves through these states:
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Active | The canvasser is currently out and the session is running |
| Paused | The canvasser has paused mid-session, for example to take a break |
| Completed | The session has been formally ended |
| Abandoned | The session was interrupted and not formally closed |
The live tracking view shows sessions that are active. Sessions in other states have already ended and are no longer listed.
Door locations and notes
When a canvasser logs a door attempt, the app records the device's location with it when the device allows. A canvasser can still log the door without it. The location, any notes they type and any photos are limited to the canvasser who recorded them, leads of the team that owns the walk list, and people whose role includes the Assign walk lists to canvassers permission (owners and admins always have it). Leads and people with that permission can access them, though no screen shows them yet. They never appear in Live Tracking, the dashboard totals or the activity feed. A walk list that belongs to no team has no lead, so only its volunteer and people with that permission can access what was recorded on it.
The result of each door is shared more widely than these details: see Who can see door-level data.
No route trail is recorded: OrganizeOS does not track a canvasser's movement between doors.
Offline canvassers
Canvassing sessions work offline: if a canvasser loses their network connection, the device keeps recording attempts locally and syncs them back once connectivity is restored. A canvasser who is offline will not have their door count update in the live view until they reconnect and the sync completes. This is expected behavior, not an error.
Why this helps
Live sessions let you catch problems early: a canvasser who has not moved may need help, a slow territory may need a reassignment, and the active-canvasser count tells you at a glance whether your knock day is staffed as planned. The running door count lets you track pace toward your daily goal without waiting for the post-session summary.