It’s a normal part of the human condition to support or oppose certain bills. Some of us may even go so far as to strongly support or strongly oppose certain bills. We get you, we really do. We would even say we salute you and your position.
Now we’ve made it even easier to share what you think.
We’ve always had custom columns where you can share your thoughts on a bill. Now we’ve added a new column specifically for your position. Just like any other column you can sort and filter on the position column, as well as include it on your stakeholder page to inform others. The advantages of using the position column are saving time, consistent phrasing (so sorting and filtering works better), and eventually being able to save your bill sheet as a scorecard (coming later this summer).
To start using the new column you’ll need to add it to your template.
- Go to your account menu (the red button at the top with your name on it) and choose manage templates
- Choose an existing template or make a new template
- If you’ve made a new template, give it a name
- Scroll to the bottom of the list of available columns and click the visible checkbox for the position column
- Push the save button at the bottom of the screen to save your template
- If you made a new template go to your bill sheet, go to the manage tab, apply your new template, and save
The position new column works like other custom columns; to enter a value double click in the cell you’d like to edit. This will pop up a box with a position drop down, simply choose the appropriate position and save.
The real value of using the position column will be for us to choose default scores for your bills when you make a scorecard. We’ll be using 5, 3, 0, -3, -5, as scores respectively, and not include bills you don’t enter a position for, or choose “monitor” for. The ability to save a bill sheet as a score isn’t quite ready yet, but it’s coming soon.
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.