If you have a list of bills you already know you want to track, say in an email or a spreadsheet, there are a few ways to quickly get them into your bill sheet. To see me go over 3 methods and the considerations for using each in three minutes check out this video:
1 Quick Search
The best way is to pull up the quick search screen and paste in the numbers. To access the quick search put any keyword or bill number into the search box at the top and then hit enter or click the magnifying glass to search.
Then switch your search to “all of”, narrow to a single state, and paste in the numbers you’ve copied from elsewhere. You want your bill numbers to look like HB101, which no space between the letters and numbers (note some states use different letters). You can have just space in between your numbers, or a comma, or a semicolon, it doesn’t matter. You can also have a leading zero in your numbers like HB0101 to match the typical format of your state or not, either way should work. Then click search to get a list of your specific bills.
From here you just need to use the + button to add each bill to your bill sheet one by one, click click click. Of course, if you aren’t searching for bills in the current session, this method won’t work, so take a look at method 2.
Advanced Tip: If you have bill numbers from multiple states, you can pre-pend the state abbreviation to the bill number like this COHB101 and then search across multiple states. This is also a quick way, in general, to go to a specific bill using the quick search box.
2. Bill Number Box on Bill Sheet Query Tab
Using the search screen as described above is basically a shortcut for adding bills to the bill number box on your query tab.
You can’t paste the numbers into this box directly, but you can type them in one by one, or pick them from a drop-down list of all bills in the state. To get started, click in the box. If you already have bill numbers in the box, click in the white space after the last number, type in the state abbreviation, type the first letter of the bill number, and then pause for a second for the drop-down list to appear. Once the drop-down appears, you can either keep typing the bill number, or choose one or many bills from the list. Depending on how many bills the state has and how many numbers you have to add, this can be a pretty quick way to go.
Advanced tip: If you have multiple sessions chosen on your timeline, you’ll see multiple versions of each bill in the list, along with the session identifier so you can figure out which bill you want. If you’d like to narrow down the list to a specific session choose the correct year(s) on the timeline and save. Then come back to the query tab and your drop-down list of bill numbers will be limited to the session you’ve chosen.
3. Cheating with Any Of Box on Bill Sheet Query Tab
Finally, you can just paste your list into the any of box of your bill sheet query tab using the same rules as described above for the any of box on the quick search screen: no spaces between the letters and numbers of the bill number, spaces or commas or whatever between the numbers, leading zeroes or not in the bill number, and pre-prend the state code if your bill sheet covers more than one state. Make sure you are using the any of box and not the all of box!
The drawback with this method is that searching this way finds any bill with that bill number, not just the specific bill you are after. So during the next session, this bill sheet will match a different set of bills, unless you archive the sheet or limit the years you are searching. You will also get any bills that happen to mention one of your bill numbers (which is exceedingly unlikely but possible). The bills listed in the bill number box are tied to your specific bill, not just to the bill number, so entering bill numbers there will continue to give you the correct results indefinitely.
This strategy is quick and easy and works fine in certain circumstances. For example, if you are just trying to throw together a list that you intend to share in a blog post, so you are planning to archive the bill sheet anyway to lock it in place, searching this way is appropriate. You’ll need to decide if it makes sense for what you are trying to do.
4. Karen as Your Last Resort
If you have a very long list you want to add, long enough that none of these methods are really practical for you, just send your list over to us and we’ll get it loaded up for you. Send your list in whatever format you have it to Karen@Legination.com and let me know what bill sheet you want the bills added to. One of us will get it loaded for you as soon as possible.
