Written by: Karen Suhaka | December 22, 2013

So you would like to keep your members up to date with the latest movement on some important bills.  We think that’s a perfect ambition; getting people passionate and knowledgeable about a topic involved in the process is exactly how the democratic process is supposed to work. We’d like to make that process as painless as possible for you, and make sure you always have the most up to date information on your website.  Our widgets also provide fresh, and deep, content for you site, to give you that much more credibility on your topic.

What is a widget

Our widgets are a little bit of javascript you drop onto your site to get a box full of bills that we update daily. You can set up the list by individual bill number, or by keyword. You can add and remove bills at any time. You can see an example widget on our home page, or some live examples are shared on our widget page.

You can change the size, appearance, content, and lots of other aspects of the widget to fit your site. Notice you can click on the bill title to read any of the bills; your readers will be able to do this too. Once you’ve clicked on a bill you can click on the sponsor’s name if you’d like to know more about them, such as how to contact them.

How does it work

Widgets are one of our premium features that requires a subscription, along with alerts and stakeholder pages. Subscriptions start at $550/year if you only need one state or one topic, up to $3,500/year for unlimited searches. Once you have saved your search you will be able to create as many widgets based on it as you need. Your subscription also covers unlimited use of all our tools.

Once you create the widget you simply copy the java script we generate and put it on your website wherever you would like it to be.  If you need help with that, we’re happy to set up time to walk you through the process. We can also help you customize the widget to match the appearance of your site.

Then, whenever a reader goes to your web page, the widget will grab the bills and latest status from us and show it on your page. That way any changes you make (like adding or removing a bill) or updates to the bill we make (like latest action) will be shown the very next time someone looks at your page.

How to make a widget

To make a widget first you have to identify your list of bills. Register for your free account, and then click on Quick Search to start looking for bills.  We have a whole post about how to use quick search, but long story short, simply enter some words that you think will appear in the bills you care about, making sure phrases are enclosed “in quotes”.

You don’t have to get a perfect list at this point, we’ll fine tune it later. Right now you are just trying to get in the ballpark. Then save the search and step through the purchase screens. You can also start by choosing “make a new bill sheet” and going through those steps (some advice on that process here).

Once you have your bill sheet, you can see the list of all of the bills that have your search terms. You can click the little x to hide any bills you don’t want on your bill sheet and/or you can go to the query tab to add or remove search terms. You can also add bills by bill number. So you can make your bill list exactly the bills you want. If your search includes search terms (instead of being just a list of individual bill numbers that you entered) then when new bills are introduced they will automatically be added to your widget. People visiting your site can click the bills in your widget and be taken straight to the bill to read it (they won’t need a BillTrack50 account or password).
When you are looking at your bill sheet, you’ll also see a Widget tab at the top.
On this tab you can see a sample of your widget, and customize the size and appearance of your widget, as well as decide how you’d like to sort the bills, and limit the number of bills that appear (to keep it quick , if that’s a concern).
You can also switch to a map type widget if you have a large number of bills spread across the country. The map widget also allows you to share custom information to include with each bill, like your summary or position or call to action. Then click the “Generate Script” button to get the snippet of code you will need to add to your website. You can modify the settings on our website, or you can directly edit the script to suit your needs.
Widget Script Screenshot

If you need any help we’re always just a call away. Contact us anytime!

 

 

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.