Important Notes About Getting Your Account Ready for 2018

If your bill sheet query included 2017 we have added 2018 to your search when 2018 bills became available in your state(s). We will continue to add 2018 to bill sheets as the new sessions get rolling. So you don’t have to do anything to make sure you get the newest bills, we’ve got that covered for you. (This policy does not apply to archived bill sheets, of course, they will stay just as you left them).

Although adding years is automatic, we have decided to NOT automatically remove years from queries. So you are going to need to go to the query tab of your bill sheet(s) and limit the search to just 2018 if that is what you want. You may not want to make the change right away if you have a widget sharing bills on your website, or if you still need to write your 2017 final report, or for whatever other reasons. When you are ready simply open your bill sheet, go to the query tab, and adjust the timeline as needed. Or contact me and ask me to do it for you.

If you have a map or a widget based on a hot list, where you individually added bills you wanted to feature, you’ll need to do something slightly different to clear out 2017 (and older) bills from those bill sheets. Look at the query tab on that bill sheet and you will see all of the bill numbers listed. Those bills will be included regardless of how you have set the timeline. To determine which bills are from previous sessions simply scroll to the bottom of the list of bill numbers, and you’ll see a link that says “Remove bills not in the current session.” If you hover your mouse over the word “remove,” the bill numbers that will be removed will be highlighted in red. To go ahead and remove the bills click on the word remove.

For both the timeline and the “remove” link we treat bills in Congress and in states with a two-year 2017-2018 session as still being current bills. So bills introduced in 2017 are still considered part of the 2018 session and will remain on your bill sheet. A small note, New Jersey’s 2016-2017 session will be considered active through Jan 13, 2018. After that date, any NJ bill from 2016 or 2017 will be considered to be part of a previous session and will drop out of bill sheets searching 2018 only. But you will need to go back and use the remove link again later in January on bill sheets including NJ bills and created using only bill numbers.

For a list of some housekeeping items you might want to take care of as long as you are tidying up your account, see this checklist. And for a more complete list of new features you might enjoy learning about, see this roundup.

Good luck in 2018! As always, I stand willing to help you any way I can.