Getting started
Getting Started with Lobster
Lobster transforms the way organisations do Public Affairs by bringing people together to work as one unified team. It’s easy to use — and getting familiar with a few core concepts will help you hit the ground running.
Start here
Two short guides to get you — and your whole organisation — up and running.
Your advocacy work
Everything, organised in one place
The Advocacy view in the top menu is where all of your lobbying operations live. Work is organised into themes and projects, then brought to life with TODOs, actions and goals — the building blocks below.
The core building blocks
Five simple concepts power every campaign you run in Lobster.
Themes
Broad, strategic areas of lobbying at the core of your organisation — a logical home for the projects beneath them. Themes are like umbrellas covering multiple projects.
Projects
Where most of the work happens: plan, coordinate and track each file. Every action is reported under a project, which also feeds Transparency Register reporting.
TODOs
Task lists that help you plan projects and quickly delegate work across your team.
Actions
Stakeholder meetings, events, campaigns and other project-related meetings — the record of what you actually did. Actions are the bread and butter of your lobbying work.
Goals
Track the progress of your projects, so your team can learn and steadily improve the impact of its work. Goals gives you the possibility to track your progress.
The data
Thousands of ready-made stakeholder profiles, plus your own — searchable and GDPR-compliant.
Search
Lobster’s search is the key to finding relevant data and adding it to your projects, TODOs and actions.
Lobster’s data
Key information on several thousand stakeholders, ready to use in a few clicks — so your time goes to planning, not data entry.
Your own data
Add your organisation’s own data to a strictly separate, sandboxed Lobster — visible only to users in your organisation.
GDPR Audit
An admin tool that helps keep your organisation’s local data GDPR compliant.
Monitoring & reporting
Stay on top of a changing political landscape — and report it without the busywork.
Data monitoring
Political information changes constantly. Automated tracking keeps an eye on the topics that matter to you — fast, simple and effective.
Transparency Register
When your advocacy is documented in Lobster, disclosures go straight to Finland’s Transparency Register — no Excel, no retyping.
Verify your lobbying data →
Automate your reporting →
Authentication for mass reporting →
Error reports & the API →
Pinning to timelines
Pin news, tweets and links onto project timelines to show how your team’s actions connect to the world around you.
Questions? We’re here to help
Something missing or unclear? Our team is always happy to help you get the most out of Lobster.
Contact support