The columns in your bill sheet are completely customizable. We hope you’ll be making lots and lots of bill sheets, so to make the process as painless as possible you can create templates for common formats you intend to use regularly.
Some example ideas for a template:
- You might want to see the introduced session when you are looking at historic bills.
- Show your position and a call to action link but not your internal notes when you are sharing bills in a map widget.
- Analysts might want a template including bill summaries and keywords.
- A manager might just be interested in the current bill progress and the last action date.
To get started, choose “Bill Sheet Templates” from the main account menu - click your name in the top right hand corner:
You will already have ‘default standard’ set as your default template. You can edit this or make a new one, the process is very similar. To edit a template, click edit next to it. To create a new template, click Add Template:
You will see This screen. If you're creating a new template, give it a name.
- The first column with the arrows lets you pick up and drag a column so that you can put the columns in whatever order suits your needs best.
- The Data and Header columns are for your reference. If you want to edit the Header Text you’ll need to go find that column in the column list (the bottom half of the template screen) and edit it there.
- Width in pixels. Change the width of each column as needed.
- Check which columns you do and don’t want visible for this template
- Initial sort lets you choose if you would like the bill sheet to open up sorted a certain way. Common choices are to sort by created date with newest on top (so you see the bills added to the database most recently at the top of your bill sheet) or sorted by Last Action Date or sorted by your own priority. If you don’t choose your bill sheet will default to being sorted by state and bill number.
To make this new template your default template check the box under the new template’s name. This will make all new bill sheets created going forward use this new template. This setting applies to the whole account, so will affect everyone using the system. Of course, you can change the template on a bill sheet anytime.
Don't forget to click Save!
You can also add as many of your own columns as you like by clicking the ‘Add Column’ button on the main templates screen:
You can then choose a data type (text, number, date, URL, or dropdown), type in the text you want as the heading of the column and enter values if you've chosen a drop down menu.
Once you save your new column it will be available to add to any bill sheet. Everyone with permission to make templates will be able to use the new column. This is great if you have a standard set of categories you want to be consistent across your whole organization, for example, you can just create that dropdown column and then everyone can use it
To change the template for a specific bill sheet, open the bill sheet, go to the ‘Manage’ tab and choose the template from the ‘Grid Template’ drop down menu. Stakeholder pages, reports and Map widgets also let you choose a template to use.
Watch this video for a walkthrough of making a new template. This video will show you how to add custom columns.