Q1: How does the Legislative Notification System work?
A: As a proposal moves through each step of the
legislative process, entries are being made into a legislative database - from
the initial drafting of a bill; its introduction; committee referral and
action; amendment introduction; floor action in both houses; to the final
action by the Governor. Many staffers from different legislative
support agencies, as well as the committee clerks, enter this data as the
proposal moves through this process.
As a subscriber to this service you can search and choose which legislation
to track. Items can be tracked by bill number, author, committee or
subject. You also get to select which activities will trigger
your email notifications. By default, all activities are selected when
your account is first activated.
Then each night, the Legislative Notification System searches the legislative
data, and in accordance with the criteria you have chosen, creates a list
of all of the proposals that had any action taken that day. It formats
that information and groups the results according to your preferences,
including the inclusion of a relating clause, so you can easily identify what
the bill relates to. Then, an email gets sent out overnight to all
subscribers who have the Daily email option chosen. If you have the
Weekly email option selected, then you will receive only one email, over the
weekend, with all the action according
to your activities for all of the proposals on your list from
the previous week.
Q2: Can I have the notifications sent to additional email
addresses?
A: Notification emails will be sent to your
account's email address only. To receive emails at multiple email
addresses, you must create an account for each of them. (To create a new
account, you need to log out first). You can also set a rule of your email
program to forward any emails that were sent by "Notify" to another email
address. Please check your email program for instructions on how to do
this.
Q3: The notification email I got is too long and has
duplicate entries. Can it be shorter without the duplications?
A: The default email style groups the notification
entries by the items you are following. This setting might cause
duplications because you could be following several items that trigger the same
notification entry. For example, if you are following AB 555 and the
committee on Health, and AB 555 gets referred to committee on Health, this
information will show for both the bill AND the committee. You can change
the "Email Format/style"
preference to group
notification entries by "Activity" or "No Group". Both of those will
not produce duplicate entries and might shorten your email. For the
"Email Format/style"
preference you can also
choose whether to show the proposal's relating clause on the email.
Turning that off or choosing "Partial" instead of "Entire" can also shorten the
email.
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Q4: I will be out of town for a while and I do not want
to receive the notification emails while I am gone. Should I unsubscribe?
A: No, you do not have to unsubscribe. On the "Preferences"
page you can set your email schedule to "Daily", "Weekly" or "Suspend
Notifications". By choosing the suspend option, your email notifications will
be suspended until you change it again, but your account will stay intact.
Q5: I want to be notified about any legislative activity
on "Deer hunting" but noticed there are two places to search by subject.
What's the difference and which one should I use?
A:
The basic difference is you can search for proposals that are already
introduced that have the words "deer hunting" in the relating clause, or you
can follow the words "deer hunting" and it will notify you when any new
proposals get introduced with those words or a study committee has a
hearing on that subject.
1) To search for introduced proposals with the words "deer hunting"
in the relating clause, go to the "Add Items" page and click on the "Proposal"
button and choose "Key word" for the search engine. Type in "Deer
hunting"(no quotes) and click "Search". You will get a list of introduced
proposals that have the word "Deer hunting" in the relating clause. You
can then check the ones you want to follow and click the "Add" button.
With this option you will only get current proposals that have already been
introduced.
2) To follow activities on ANY proposal (even ones yet to be introduced) and
study committess about "deer hunting" go to the "Add Items" page and click
on the "Subject" button. Type in "Deer hunting"(no quotes) and click
the "Add" button. You will be notified about activities of current and
future proposals that relate to "deer hunting". You will also be notified about
public hearings that are associated with that subject.
Q6: I signed up for some items a few days ago and I never
received any notification emails. Why is that?
A: There are several possible reasons why you have not
received any emails:
* When you first create an account you must activate the email service. You
should have received a confirmation email instructing you how to activate your
account.
* Your login email address might be unreachable. Please make sure your login
email address is the correct email address where you want the notifications to
be sent to. Some email account give you options that you can choose to only
receive emails from certain email address or block any unknown email address.
If your email box has the "blocking" setting, please make sure the email
address "WisconsinLegislature.Notification@legis.state.wi.us" is on your safe
list. All the notification emails will be sent from that email address.
* You will only get notifications when any of your selected activities happens
on an item you are following. On the "Activities" page, make sure the
activities that you want to be notified of are checked.
* Also check the notify schedule on the
Preferences
page to make sure it is not suspended or set to weekly, in which case you would
not get your first email until the weekend.
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Q7: What happens at the end of a two-year session?
Do I have to sign up for everything again?
A: At the end of a two-year legislative session, all
proposals will be disposed of, in one way or another. We will clear out
the database of all proposals, members and committees, since there will be
changes in all of those areas. All the items you were following will be
removed. Your account stays intact and all of your preference settings
will not be affected. Once a new Legislature is sworn in, you will be
able to sign up for new items (Proposals, Authors and Committees) after
Inauguration Day.
Q8: Can I follow LRB numbers being drafted for the next
session before a new Legislature convenes?
A: No. The entire database will be cleared out
after the Legislature completes its work for a two-year legislative
session. To be able to get any notifications for a new session, you have
to sign up for new items after the new Legislature is sworn in.
Q9: I changed some of my Activities choices but they did
not take effect?
A: After checking or un-checking a box next to an
activity on the Activities page, make sure you hit the "Save" button at the
bottom of the page.
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Q10: I entered an LRB number to follow that I know was
drafted, but have not received any emails. When will I get a
notification?
A: LRB numbers are unique numbers given each proposal by
the Legislative Reference Bureau. You will receive your
first notification after that draft is officially introduced and it
becomes a proposal. However, if a committee holds a hearing on an LRB
number you are following, even if it has not been introduced yet, you will
still receive a notification for that hearing for that LRB number.
Q11: I signed up to follow an individual
legislator. Why didn't I receive a notification email when
that legislator offered an amendment?
A: We do not offer notifications for amendments by
author at this time. However, you will get notifications about
amendments that are introduced or adopted to a proposal if
you are following the author of that proposal.
Q12: Why does a proposal that I did not sign up for show
up on my notification email?
A: There are two situations in which a proposal will be
added to your list automatically:
1) If you are following a committee and chose the option to "Add proposals
to my notify list when they are reported out a committee that I am following.",
then any proposals that are reported out of that committee will be
automatically added to your list of items you are following. You can turn
that option on, or off, by going to "
Notify
Activities" page and choosing the "Committee" category.
2) You might also be following a LRB number, and when that LRB number
is introduced and becomes a proposal, that LRB number will disappear from
your list and the corresponding proposal will instead show in your list of
items you are following.
Q13: What time of day do emails get sent, and
what day of week do the weekly emails get sent?
A: The daily emails will be sent around 5:30
AM every day to cover the activities from the previous day. Weekly emails will
be sent every Sunday around 5:30 AM, which will cover the activities from the
previous week.
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