We have lots of different data available about each bill. By default you get the most popular set of columns. But you are a unique person with unique needs, so you may want to change the appearance of the bill sheet to better suit your needs.
If you just want to change how your bill sheet looks temporarily, use the gear button at the bottom of your bill sheet.
This will bring up a list of all available columns, so you can turn them on and off. For example you might want to see the bill summaries for a little while to help you sort through some bills, even though usually the bill summary gets in your way. The changes you make to your bill sheet using the gear button are only for this session; next time you come back your bill sheet will go back to normal.
If you would like to make a more permanent change you have to create a template. A template allows you to choose which columns you want in what order, as well as change the names and sizes of the columns. Once you have created a template you can apply it to any bill sheet you currently have, and it will also appear as a choice when you create new bill sheets. You can also share templates with other users in your account.
To create a new template log in to BillTrack50 and go to the account menu, which is the red button in the top corner with your name in it. Hopefully you will see a manage templates option. If not the account owner needs to go in to the account and set you as a template administrator.
Once you get to the manage templates screen, push the red add new template button, or you can choose to edit an existing template.
On the new template screen give the template a name. The template will be available to all of the users in your account, so try to make the name something that will be clear to everyone. Next choose which columns you want to appear. Notice there are “custom columns” at the bottom of the list; you can turn on as many of these as you like. Perhaps you want to not include the state bill summary, but rather add a custom column and write your own summary, for example. Or perhaps you would like a custom column where you can put private comments. Notice you can change the label of the custom column to something that makes sense to you (and change the label of any of the other columns too, for that matter).
Most of the available columns are self explanatory, but there’s a few that need more explanation:
- Subject List are the subjects provided by the state (if they provide any)
- Keywords is a list of important terms in the bill, as determined by Alchemy API‘s algorithms.
- Action Count is how many steps the bill has made through the process, to give you some idea of if the bill might pass (see this blog post for more)
- Version Count is how many amendments have been introduced, also giving you a feel for if the bill has momentum
- Read Count is how many people have clicked on this bill and read it on the BillTrack50 website, so you can see what’s been interesting to the public
- Tracked Count is how many people have this bill in a bill sheet, so you can see what’s been interesting to professionals.
The next section of the manage template screen shows a sample header row showing the columns you’ve chosen. This section is where you can change the order and size of the columns. Just pick the columns up and move them around. Maybe you want your comments or position to appear right after the bill number? Maybe the sponsors of a bill aren’t that important to you so you want to make them the last column.
Once you are done, save the template, and then click home to get back to the main dashboard. You can come back to this manage template screen any time to tweak your template until you are completely happy with it. Any changes you make to a template are applied to all bill sheets and stakeholder pages using that template as soon as you save the template.
To apply your template, go to your bill sheet, click on the manage tab, and you’ll see a drop down where you can choose a grid template to use. Once you have that set, save your changes with the save button all the way at the bottom of the manage bill sheet screen. You can tweak the template at any time by going back to the manage template from the account menu. You can change which template you are using (or go back to eh default) by visiting the manage tab of any bill sheet.
Stakeholder pages also use templates the same way. Simply open a stakeholder page and go to the manage tab and choose the template to apply. Note that the stakeholder page can use a different template than the bill sheet, if you want. So let’s say you have added one custom columns with internal notes you want to keep private, but the rest of the columns you want to publish on your website. All you need to do is make a new template that shows the columns you want to show and hides the columns you want to hide, save it, and then apply it to the stakeholder page. You may also want to change the column labels for your stakeholder page, to make it more clear to your readers what they are looking at.
As always please contact us if you have any trouble setting up or using templates.
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.