In this blog post we will be taking a look at all of the new features that BillTrack50 introduced over the last year or so. If you prefer to watch a video going over the new features, then please look no further than this webinar recording.
We will be covering:
- Winter Updates
- New Committee Functions
- New Help Options
- Expanded Search Capabilities
- Roll-up Bill Sheets
- Event Schedule Calendar Feed
Winter Updates
New Alert Type: Event Schedule
- Event Schedule Alerts are daily emails listing which bills are scheduled to be heard in committee in the next 7 calendar days.
- Turn on this alert for specific bill sheets by going to the appropriate bill sheet and clicking on the alert tab, then tick the new “Send Daily Event Schedule Email” box in the bottom section of the screen.
- As with our other alerts, the Event Schedule Alert email is a digest of all the selected bill sheets.
- This post covers how to set up alerts in more detail.
Logos
- You are now able to add logos to your stakeholder pages and scorecards.
- Only the Company Admin can load logos into the account.
- Anyone can select from the available logos using the manage tab of a stakeholder page or scorecard.
- Here is a video cover both loading and using Logos
User Descriptions/Filtering Users
- If you have the Security Administrator permission, you can now add descriptions to user profiles.
- The description is included when you use the filter function on the Manage Users screen.
- To add a description choose “manage users” from the account menu. If you do not have this option in the menu, then you do not have permission to manage users. Once on the Manage Users screen simply click edit next to the user you want to update and add a description in the Description box in the top half of the Edit User screen. Be sure to click save when you are done!
New State Link Column For Bill Sheets
- A new column is available for both bill and regulation templates: state link.
- This blog post explains how to make or edit a template.
Copy Comments Checkbox
- In the past when you added a bill with comments to a new bill sheet, you had to check the “copy user data” box to carry your user entered data over to the new sheet along with the bill. We have changed the default behavior to always copy over your user entered data. If you didn’t want that info with your bill you will need to remove them from the new sheet manually.
New Committee Functions
- It is now possible to filter your bill sheet by which committee bills were assigned to. Narrowing by committee can be very useful for narrowing your search if you are getting a lot of unrelated results. For more information on searching by committee, please check out this blog post.
- There is a new Committee option in the Quick Search section of the navigation panel.
- We have created individual committee pages. These new pages show the committee’s contact info and a clickable gallery of its members. It also shows any subcommittees and committee staff.
New Help Options
- Getting Started Guide – helpful information for how to start using BillTrack50
- FAQ – tips on how to use more in-depth features of BillTrack50, such as how to add another user, or how to share a bill sheet.
- Release Notes – chronological notes about changes in BillTrack50, including any new features that may have been added.
You can find links to this new help information in the navigation bar, as seen below.
Expanded Search Capability
- When making a bill sheet query or a regulation sheet query, you can now pick a much larger number of search boxes, including multiple of the same kind boxes.
- For example, you can make a search with two “any of” boxes, allowing you to write a query that covers (A or B or C) AND (D or F).
- For more in-depth information on this topic, please check out this post.
Rollup Bill Sheets
- To make a roll up bill sheet make a new bill sheet and choose Rollup from the new “Type” menu on the create pop up.
- Rollup sheets let you combine multiple bill sheets (52 max), into a single bill sheet. The new bill sheet can have up to 5000 bills in it, just like normal bill sheets.
- You can choose a union or an intersection of the bill sheets.
- Additionally, if you have included any custom columns with data on any of the bill sheets, such as a position, you can choose to have this info included in the roll up.
- You can do anything that you can do with a normal bill sheet with a roll up. Specifically, you can make a map that uses data from multiple bill sheets.
- Rollups are updated every evening, but you can force an update by opening the rollup sheet and then save it again.
- For more information on rollups please check out this post.
Calendar Feed – Export your Event Schedule to your Calendar
- This new feature allows you to add your event schedule to your online calendar.
- Go to manage account in the top right corner, and then click on preferences. Check the box next to “Public Event Calendars” and save.
- Next go to your Event Schedule and click on the cloud icon which will provide you with a link.
- Now go to your online calendar and subscribe to your calendar. The method of doing this varies, but with google calendar all you need to do is click on the + next to “Other Calendars”, pick the option “From URL”, then paste in your URL.
- For more information, including instructions for Outlook and Apple, check out this video or blog post.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact us here. You can also use this link to schedule a zoom with us to go over the new features and how they can help you meet your goals in 2022.
Cover Photo by Simone Venturini from Pexels