If you have a bill sheet based on search terms it will automatically roll over to the new session(s) when they begin. Bills from the old session will drop off, and new bills will be added as they are introduced. Any widgets or stakeholder pages tied to the bill sheet will similarly stay updated as new sessions begin. Perhaps this is exactly the behavior you would like to see. For example the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition widget will automatically roll over to the new session when it begins. However maybe you’d like to save and show your opinions about previous years, like the Colorado Republican Business Coalition does (notice the link below the stakeholder page to previous years).
If you are in the first category, and just want to keep rolling into the future, great, you don’t have to do anything, we’ll take care of it automatically. If you are in the second category, and like keeping track of where you’ve been, we recently introduced a new archive feature allowing you to freeze your bill sheet. But if you want to do both? Look forward and look back? We care about you too, and have added a new Copy function to the bill sheet to make it super simple to have your cake and eat it too.
You can now copy your bill sheet, give it a new name, and archive the old bill sheet. Your current stakeholder page and widget will continue to show what they show now, and the new bill sheet will show the new session. Or if you would like your widget and stakeholder page to automatically switch to the new session when it begins, then copy your bill sheet and archive the new copy you just made. You can now use the new archived sheet to make a stakeholder page which you can keep for historical reference, like the CRBC example.
Copying your bill sheet is easy, although there are a few steps involved. First, open the bill sheet you want to copy and go to the manage tab. At the bottom you’ll see the new copy button.
Pushing this button will take you into the copy process. First you give the new sheet a new name. Second you choose exactly what you want to copy:
You have to take the query definition (although you can change it later, after you have saved the sheet). The query definition includes keywords, bill numbers, hidden bills, and everything else that shows on the query tab.
Custom column data is your position and the comments you’ve written in the extra columns you’ve added to your bill sheet. If you are going to use this new sheet for a next year’s session, you don’t need to bother copying your comments. If you are going to use the new copied sheet as an historical record, then you probably do want to copy your comments.
User permissions are your user settings from the manage tab. If the same people should be able to see and alter the new bill sheet, go ahead and check this box. Again, you can change these settings after you save your copy, so if mostly the same people should see the new sheet go ahead and leave this box checked, and then tweak the settings after you’ve saved the copy.
Alert settings are everything on the alerts tab. If the new sheet is a historical record and you plan on archiving it, there’s no reason to copy your alert settings. However if this bill sheet will be the one you keep active, you definitely want to copy your alert settings so you stay updated with new bills being introduced. Of course you can change the alert settings on the new (and old) sheet whenever you need to.
The third step is to choose your subscription option. If you have an unlimited subscription you’ll see $0, otherwise you’ll see the appropriate price. The final step is to confirm your address, check the box to agree to our terms of use, and make your purchase. Your new bill sheet is a whole new bill sheet and isn’t tied to the old sheet. So any changes you make (like setting the archive option) won’t be reflected on the old sheet, and similarly changes to the old sheet won’t affect the new sheet.
Please contact us if you have any questions or would like help using the nee copy feature. We hope you find it useful!
About BillTrack50 – BillTrack50 is a user friendly free service that provides legislation research in all 50 states and federally. BillTrack50 also offers legislation and regulation tracking across the nation with tools to help organization stay on top of changes (bill sheets and alerts) and share legislation they are tracking with key stakeholders (legislator scorecards, widgets and stakeholder pages). If you are interested in learning more about how BillTrack50 saves organizations time and money, sign up for a demo and try it out BillTrack50 Pro for a month, for free.