Table of Contents

• Lobbyist-In-A-Box Main Page or Profile List Page
• User Preferences
• Create a Profile
• Email Notification Only
• Bill Tracking and Email Notification
• Properties
• Maintain, Edit or View a Profile

Lobbyist-In-A-Box Main Page or Profile List Page

When you initially log in to the Lobbyist-In-A-Box site, it brings you into the LIAB Main Page or the Profile List page.

Also, if it's your first time logging in to Lobbyist-In-A-Box, you will see the phrase, "Create a new profile for... email notification only or bill tracking and email notification." Following one of these two links will allow you to create your profiles.

If you have already created Lobbyist-In-A-Box profiles, you will see a list of your current profiles. Please note that the names of the profiles are links. These links will allow you to maintain, edit or view your profile, as well as access secondary navigation, including the Composite View, Report and CSV File. You will also want to note the small check-boxes to the left of each of your profile names. Checking these boxes and clicking the "Remove Checked Items" button, located just below the list of your profiles, will permanently Delete the Selected Profiles.

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User Preferences

By selecting the User Preferences link on the Lobbyist-In-A-Box main page, you may establish yourself as the primary user for your Lobbyist-In-A-Box account and decide to enable or disable email notification for all of your profiles.

If you are the only user of your Lobbyist-In-A-Box account, or are the Legislative Coordinator for your organization, you may want to establish yourself as the primary user for your Lobbyist-In-A-Box account. To do this, simply enter your email address in the text field under the statement "My Primary Email Address." Then, click the "change" button. From now on, whenever a profile is created using your username, your email address will automatically be inserted in any field where an email address must be inserted.

Enabling or Disabling email notification on the User Preferences screen applies the chosen action to ALLof your Lobbyist-In-A-Box profiles. Please be warned that for those of you that are sharing user ids, disabling email notification in Preferences will disable notification for all of your colleagues' profiles, as well. It is probably best to disable notification in your specific profiles only.

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Create a Profile

Users have two options for the types of profiles that can be created: email notification only and bill tracking and email notification.

Email Notification Only
Those users who do not wish to track specific bills throughout the entire legislative process, but want to know when, for example, a specific patron sponsors a bill, may want to establish an email notification only profile.

To create this profile type, click the "email notification only" link on the Lobbyist-In-A-Box main page. Clicking this link will take you to the profile view page. On that page, you'll see navigation that includes "profile list," "properties," and "help". You'll also see that the Lobbyist-In-A-Box system has already named your profile, "My Profile: created on … at…" For most, this name is not indicative of the profile information you will be collecting. To rename your profile, simply click the "properties" link and enter the new name in the first group of text boxes and click "change". More information regarding the additional "properties" features can be found under the "properties" heading of this tutorial.

Now that you have named your profile, you want to put in search parameters that will determine what type of information will be included in your email notification.

Should you be interested in receiving email notification when a particular member(s) sponsors legislation, click the "Patron" link. This will bring you to a new screen with two scroll lists, one for House of Delegate members, one for Senate members. To select a patron, simply click on his/her name. To select more than one, hold the "Control" key while clicking. Then, click the "Submit/Return" button. This will bring you back to your profile's maintenance/view screen.

This same process applies when choosing to receive email notification when bills are referred to a committee(s), although by clicking the "Committee" link.

You may also choose to receive email notification when a bill that pertains to your particular topic of interest is introduced. For example, as a dog lover, you may want to know when bills are introduced involving dogs, domesticated animals, leash-laws, etc. To perform this action, simply click the "Phrase" link. This will bring you to a new screen with a text box in which you can insert a phrase or phrases. Using the dog-lover example, you would want to type in, " dog* (the * works as a wild-card) or leash or domesticated and animal."

Please note:

The three different search phrases are separated by the words; “and”, “or”, or “not”.
The quotes (") will not be necessary, nor is the period(.) at the end of the
phrase

Once you have typed in your phrase, click the "Submit" key. This will return a new screen which includes your search phrase and a list of bills in which that phrase(s) is mentioned in the full text of the bill. These bills are returned so that you know that you have performed an accurate search. Under the text-box where you have typed your phrase, you will see a little check-box next to the phrase, "put this phrase on email notification list." By checking that box, you will receive email notification whenever a bill containing that phrase(s) is introduced, engrossed, enrolled or submitted as a substitute.

Now that you have selected the parameters for which you would like to receive email notification, you need to enter your email address. Enter your address in the field under the phrase, "Notify me at this email address," and click the "change" button. You can add more than one email address, up to 100 characters. Multiple addresses will need to be separated by a comma (,).

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Bill Tracking and Email Notification
Most Lobbyist-In-A-box users create profiles for bill tracking, with the option of receiving email notification. To create this type of profile, click the "Bill Tracking and Email Notification" link on the Lobbyist-In-A-Box main page. Clicking this link will take you to the profile view page.

You'll notice that this page is divided into two sections: "Put Bills In This Profile" and "Set Up Notification For This Profile". The "Put Bills In This Profile," or left side of the screen will show you what bills you are tracking under this profile, and/or what search parameters you used to add those bill to this profile. So, this is the "bill tracking" function of this profile. The "Set Up Notification For This Profile," or right side of the screen will show you what, if anything, for which you would like to receive email notification, making this the email notification function of this profile.

Also, on this page, you'll see navigation that includes "profile list," "properties," and "help". Additionally, you will see that the Lobbyist-In-A-Box system has already named your profile, "My Profile: created on … at…" For most, this name is not indicative of the profile information you will be collecting. To rename your profile, simply click the "properties" link and enter the new name in the upper-most text boxes and click "change". More information regarding the additional "properties" features can be found under the "properties" heading of this tutorial.

Now that you have named your profile, it is time to search for and/or add bills to your profile. To return to this profile's two-sided view/maintenance screen, click the "This Profile" link. You'll notice that this screen is a

Add Bills Using the Bill Number
If you already know the bill number of the bill(s) that you would like to track, type the bill number(s) in the text box at the bottom, left-hand side of the screen, or under the "Put Bills On My List" heading. Then click the "add" button. If you would like to add more than one bill, separate them by a comma (,). For example, "hb6,hb9,hb64,hb92,hb200,sb80,sb10,sj15." Clicking the add button will cause this page to "refresh" and you will see those bill numbers listed at the bottom-left side of this page.

Add Bills Using the Patron Search
If you do not already know the bill(s) that you would like to track, but you expect a certain patron to sponsor legislation of interest to you, you can search for bills that a particular patron has sponsored. To use this type of search, click the "patron" link under the "Put Bills on this List" heading, or left side of the page.

This will bring you to a new screen with two scrollable lists, one for the House of Delegate members, one for Senate members. From these lists, select the patron(s) that interest you by click his/her name. To select more than one patron, hold down the "Control" key while clicking. Once you have selected the patron(s), click the "List Bills" button. This will bring up a page, you will see each selected member's name, a check-box next for setting up email notification, and a list of bills that you may want to add to your profile.

Use the linkable bill number(s) to review the bills available to you. If you would like to add a bill to you list, simply click the check-box next to that bill number.

You may find that the patron(s) you selected has not yet introduced a bill that you expected he/she to sponsor. You may wish to receive email notification when a bill that he/she sponsored has been introduced. To receive this email notification check the checkbox next to the phrase "put member on email notification list."

Once you have selected all of the bills you wish to add and have chosen whether or not to receive email notification, click the "submit/return" button. This will take you back to your profile maintenance/view screen. On the left side of the screen, under the phrase "offered by patron," you will see the patron(s) who's bill(s) you have chosen to add to your profile. This is to help you keep track of how you added bills to your profile. If, later in the session, you were to click on the name one of the patrons listed on the left, you would be presented with a list of his/her bills. Bills that you have already added to your list will be marked with an asterisk. The bills that you added using this patron search will be displayed at the bottom, left side of your screen.

On the right side of the screen, the email notification side, you see the names of the patrons for whom you will receive email notification.

Add Bills Using the Committee Search
Often, committee referrals are useful ways to find bills that might interest you. For example, you can expect that the House Committee on Science and Technology is likely to take action on Internet legislation. To search for bills based on committee referrals, click the "committee" link under the "Put Bills on this List" heading, or left side of the page.

This will bring you to a new screen with two scrollable lists, one for the House of Delegate committees, one for Senate committees. From these lists, select the committees(s) that interest you by clicking the committee(s) name. To select more than one committee, hold down the "Control" key while clicking. Once you have selected the committee(s), click the "List Bills" button. This will bring up a page, you will see each selected committee's name, a check-box next for setting up email notification, and a list of bills that you may want to add to your profile.

Use the linkable bill number(s) to review the bills available to you. If you would like to add a bill to you list, simply click the check-box next to that bill number.

You can expect many more bills to be referred to this committee(s). So, you may wish to receive email notification regarding referrals to this committee(s). To receive this email notification check the checkbox next to the phrase "put committee on email notification list."

Once you have selected all of the bills you wish to add and have chosen whether or not to receive email notification, click the "submit/return" button. This will take you back to your profile maintenance/view screen. On the left side of the screen, under the phrase "referred to committee," you will see the committees(s) who's bill(s) you have chosen to add to your profile. This is to help you keep track of how you added bills to your profile. If, later in the session, you were to click on the name one of the committees listed on the left, you would be presented with a list of bills that have been referred to that committee. Bills that you have already added to your list will be marked with an asterisk. The bills that you added using this committee search will be displayed at the bottom, left side of your screen.

On the right side of the screen, the email notification side, you see the names of the committees for which you will receive email notification.

Add Bills Using Phrase or Keyword Search
You may choose to add bills to your list based on a topic of interest, or using a keyword or search phrase. For example, you may have created a profile called Internet and you want to find bills referring to the Internet or World Wide Web. To perform this search, click the "phrase" link under the "Put Bills In This Profile" header. This will bring up a new page, with a text-box in which you can enter a search phrase. Using the Internet example, you would want to type in, " Internet or Web or Technology."

Please note:

Valid Search examples, including wild-cards and Boolean techniques are available by clicking the "examples" link on the "phrase" page.
The three different search phrases are separated by the words; “and”, “or”, or “not”.
The quotes (") will not be necessary, nor is the period(.) at the end of the phrase

Once you have typed in your phrase, click the "List Bills" key. This will return a new screen which includes your search phrase, a check-box for email notification, and a list of bills in which that phrase(s) is mentioned in the full text of the bill.

Use the linkable bill number to review the bills and decide if you would like to add them to your profile. If you would like to add them, click the check-boxes to the left of the bill numbers.

Under the text-box where you have typed your phrase, you will see a little check-box next to the phrase, "put this phrase on email notification list." By checking that box, you will receive email notification whenever a bill containing that phrase(s) is introduced, engrossed, enrolled or submitted as a substitute.

Once you have determined which bills you would like to add and have chosen whether or not to receive email notification, click the "submit/return" button. This will take you back to your profile maintenance/view screen. On the left side of the screen, under the statement "that contain a phrase," you will see the phrase you used to search for bills, which you have added to your profile. This is to help you keep track of how you added bills to your profile. If, later in the session, you were to click on the name one of the patrons listed on the left, you would be presented with a list of his/her bills. Bills that you have already added to your list will be marked with an asterisk. The bills that you added using this phrase search will be displayed at the bottom, left side of your screen.

If you chose to receive email notification for bills that include this search phrase, the phrase will appear as part of the email notification function, on the right side of your screen.

Add Bills Using Date Search
On the first day of session, you may want to make sure that you have had the opportunity to review all pre-filed bills. The best way to perform this search would be to click the "date" link on the "Put Bills in this Profile" header. This will bring you to a screen in which you can type any date, using the "mm-dd" format. Once you have typed in the date, for example, 01-09, click the "submit" button. The screen will refresh and return a list of all bills introduced on that date.

Use the linkable bill number to review the bill and decide if you would like to add it to your profile. If you would like to add them, click the check-boxes to the left of the bill numbers. Then, click the "submit/return" button. This will bring you back to your profile maintenance/view screen. On the bottom, left-hand side, or the bill tracking side, you will see the bills that you have added to your list.

Bill tracking through Email
Now that you have set up your bill tracking and email notification profile, including search parameters and bills, you'll want to make sure that you are notified of legislative actions. First, you will want to select a schedule of notification from the "properties" options. You can choose not to receive notification, hourly notification, or daily notification. Then, you will need to give Lobbyist-In-A-Box your email address. This is done on the profile maintenance/view screen on the right side. You will see a text-box where you can enter your email address. The text-box will hold approximately 100 characters. So, you can put in more than one email notification per profile. Each address will need to be separated by a comma (,).

As you searched for bills, you probably chose to receive email notification for those search parameters. So, you've completed notification for the introduction of bills. Although, by clicking the "phrase" link on the right side, or email notification side, you can enter a phrase that Lobbyist-In-A-Box will compare with the full text of all introduced, enrolled, engrossed bills, as well as those submitted as a substitute. You will be notified of any matches.

Additionally, you probably want to know when major changes occur to the status of the bills that you are tracking. For example, you would like to know when House Bill 3 passes in committee, passes in the House, but fails in the Senate. You can receive email notification of such actions by clicking the "changed" link in the phrase "changed in this profile," on the right side of the screen. The page will refresh, and the word "enabled" will appear and let you know that you will receive notifications of will changes.

When you receive an email notification, the subject line will say "Legislative Information System Email Alert," and will come from Support@leg.state.va.us. The notification will contain a link. Click the link, which will direct you to Lobbyist-In-A-Box. If you are not currently logged in, the system will require you to log in. Then, you will be on a Lobbyist-In-a-Box page that will list each of your profiles separately. For each profile, you will see which bills had status changes, including a link to the summary history screen for that bill, in which you can see the last few actions, as well as breakdown of each search parameter and any bills that fit those parameters. Next to the new bills, you will notice check-boxes. By checking these boxes and clicking "add bills," you will be directed to the profile view/maintenance screen for you profile. You'll notice that the bills you checked in your email notification have been added to your profile. Click the "Back" button on your browser to return to the email notification screen and continue to add and/or review bills.

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Properties

The properties page allows you to name your profile, create a copy of your profile, establish timing for email notification and set a default profile.

Naming your profile:
To change the name of your profile to something more meaningful, simply type a new profile name in the text box located directly under the phrase, "Change this profile name and/or description to…" Then, should you want to add a more lengthy description of the profile, enter that description into the second box, which initially indicates when the profile was created. For example, if you were tracking Internet legislation for Virginia.gov, you might want to name the profile, "Internet," then describe the profile by entering your client name or, "Virginia.gov," in the description field. Then click the "Change" button. You should notice that the name of the profile has now changed from "My Profile…" to "Internet…," for example.

Creating a Copy:
This option is useful to organizations where several users share a single username and password and where those users are tracking similar information, but do not want to step on each other's toes by editing one another's profiles. For example, at Virginia.gov, Erin may track Internet legislation in her "Internet" profile and Valerie, who shares a username with Erin, may need to track the same legislation. Erin has already created her "Internet" profile, with search parameters in place, added bills, established email notification, etc. and wants to create a copy for Valerie so that they are not duplicating efforts. Erin would enter "Internet2" in the left-most text box under the phrase, "Copy this profile to…," and then enter "for Valerie's use," in the text box to the right. Now, when Erin clicks the "Profile List" link at the top of the "properties" page, she will see a link to "Internet2: for Valerie's use," as well as her original profile, "Internet: for Virginia.gov" profile.

Email Notification Timing:
A new feature to Lobbyist-In-A-Box, beginning in 2002, is that you can select how often you would like to receive email notification. Simply click the "radio button" to the left of your choice. Please note that if you select "daily," your email notifications will come to you some time during the night. So, when you check email first thing in the morning, you can begin the new day with a fresh "to do" list based on the previous day's actions.

Default Profile:
By clicking the "yes" button under the "Default Profile" heading, you are telling Lobbyist-In-A-Box that you want to enter this profile's View/Maintenance Screen immediately after logging in and that to view your complete list of profiles, you will need to click the "profile list" link. This option is particularly useful when you want to concentrate on one specific profile or group of bills. For example, the Department of Taxation may have one profile that has every bill that has anything to do with taxation. They may choose to make this profile their default.

To return back to your profile view/maintenance screen from the "Properties" screen, click the "This Profile" link.

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Profile View, Edit or Maintenance Screen

Once you have created your profiles, you may find that you want to edit the profile, or change or remove some of your email options. By simply clicking the linkable profile name from the Profile List or main page, you can access your profile. Do not check the check-box and then click the button, as you will permanently delete that profile.

You'll notice that the profile maintenance/view/edit page looks just like the screen on which you create a profile. At any time, you can add another patron, phrase, bill or committee to your profile, by using the same search process that you used to create a profile. To delete one of your patrons, committees, etc. from email notification, simply check the box located to the left of the name and click the "remove checked items profile" button. The same function applies to removing bills from your profile. Simply check the check-box to the