Lobbyist-in-a-Box Watchlists

Lobbyist-in-a-Box is a tool that provides users with the ability to create "watchlists" (formerly known as profiles) for tracking and reporting legislation.  See Lobbyist-in-a-Box Overview to register for an account.

• Creating Watchlists
• Managing Your Watchlists
• Creating Reports
• Creating Comma-Separated Values files
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Training
• Contact Us

Once your Lobbyist-in-a-Box account has been established, you may begin creating watchlists.

Please see the New LIS LIAB User Training Guide to get started.

Creating Watchlists

To begin a new watchlist, under Create New Watchlist simply type in a name for your watchlist. Once the watchlist is created, it will open on your screen and by clicking the edit pencil you can also add a more detailed description for the watchlist.  

Managing Your Watchlists

Adding Bills: You add bills or resolutions to your watchlist by keying in bill numbers. Bills are added one at a time or in groups. Groups are added by keying bills into the entry form with a comma between each. For example: hb1, hb9, sb4, sb9. To delete a bill (or bills) from a list, select the adjacent check boxes and click the Remove button that is above the bill list.

You may also enter bills using the advanced search options on the left column of the LIS application under Find a Bill.  You may search for bills sponsored by House or Senate members, referred to certain committees, that contain certain keywords or keyword phrases, that are listed under certain subjects or that are listed in a given status at any point during the Session. When you view each search result, select the adjacent check boxes and click the Add button that is above the bill list to add bills to your watchlist.

Deleting Watchlists: To delete watchlists, in your watchlist name area on the left, select the link that says Your Lobbyist-in-a-Box Watchlists to view the list of all your watchlist names.  On that screen, select the adjacent check box beside the watchlist that you want to delete, and then click the Delete Watchlist button above all the list names.  We are not able to recover deleted watchlists.

Copying Watchlists: To copy a watchlist’s contents to a different watchlist, first create a new named watchlist.  Now go back to the original watchlist and click the Merge watchlist button.  On the next screen you will be prompted to select the new watchlist name and then click the merge button again.  All the contents of your first watchlist will now be in the new watchlist.  

Combining Watchlists: To merge two existing watchlists together simply select one watchlist, click the Merge watchlist button, select the watchlist into which you want to merge the current watchlist. Select the merge button again to complete the merge.

Watchlist Notifications: You may choose to receive email notification for each watchlist. You can be notified when:

• (any) legislation is introduced (toggle on the blue selector icon)
• a member of the General Assembly sponsors legislation (select names from House Members or Senate Members listings)
• bills are referred to Committee (select Committee names from House Committee or Senate Committee listings)
• key word(s), phrases, or Code Sections appear in newly offered legislation (click on Edit keywords and then type in keyword or keyword phrase click the green check mark to save your search term).

Status Notifications: You may choose to receive an email notification when the bills in each watchlist has a status change or other changes. You can be notified when:

• any of your bills has had a status change "updated by status change" (toggle on the blue selector icon).
• any of your bills appears on a House agenda or a Senate docket (toggle on the blue selector icon).
• any of your bills receives a new text version (toggle on the blue selector icon).
• any of your bills receives a new impact statement (toggle on the blue selector icon).

Hourly Notifications: You may choose to be alerted hourly (for those that wish frequent updates) or daily.

Adding Notes and Creating Reports: Once a watchlist is created, you can view all the bills in the watchlist with their current status. By pressing the blue callout icons, you can add and view personal notes to a bill. In addition to the bill list view, you'll also be able to create a report (an html-formatted file) showing bill number, patron, bill title, summary, etc; or a csv (comma-separated values) file, suitable for spreadsheet and database programs.

Note: To assist you with your watchlist organization, try the bill cross-reference.

Creating Reports

• Using the check boxes, select those items you wish to include in your report.
• You can use from / thru fields to filter your list. These are optional fields. If you leave both fields blank, the system will assume all bill numbers within the selected category. As an example: if you are viewing a watchlist which contains many bills but only want to include hb10 through hb20 in your output, enter those bill numbers in their respective fields. If you leave the thru bill number blank, the system will assume you want "thru" the last bill number within the selected category. Another example: If you want just House bills, you can enter from: hb1 thru: hb9999. Be sure to enter bill numbers in the correct format (i.e., hb1, sr6, sj245) with no intervening blanks and a maximum of 4 digits.
• You can choose to share your report, click the Share button on the top right of the report screen and type in an email address. The report will be emailed out immediately.

Creating Comma-separated values files

Comma-separated values files CSV (also known as comma-delimited files) are suitable for spreadsheet or database input. Select those elements you are interested in as described in the "reports" section.

Frequently Asked Questions

I'm not getting my email!

Check your "spam" preferences. It's possible that our emails are being diverted/deleted, either through explicit action you've taken, or by your ISP (email administrator) on your behalf. Call your email administrator with questions.

I know a legislative event has occurred, which should have triggered an email alert, yet I never received it?

Some organizations, including a few state agencies, have chosen to block emails in an attempt to prevent viruses. Check with your email administrator to make sure your alert is not being held via email security protocols.

I received an email, supposedly containing an html attachment, but the attachment is not there?

Similar answer – some organizations, including a few state agencies, have chosen to block html attachments in an attempt to prevent viruses. Unfortunately, many of these organizations run software that cannot determine if the attachment contains live code, or if the sender is trusted versus unknown and, therefore, blocks all html attachments. Contact your email administrator for more information. This is not an issue with commercial ISPs, such as AOL, Earthlink, etc., where you define acceptable attachments, rather than the email administrator.

I seem to have lost some bills from one or more of my watchlists. What's going on?

Your watchlists endure across Sessions; however, prior year bills contained in those watchlists are only retained for the purpose of tracking continued legislation. Continued legislation is carried over from an even year (long Session), to an odd year (short Session). Please contact us if you have any questions.

Sometimes it appears that I'm viewing out-of-date information on your web site. Why?

Clear your browser's local cache. If you're still having problems, check with your ISP or tech support staff. Sometimes documents are cached locally on "proxy" servers which may give you misleading results.

When I pressed enter, after keying in my bills, I received the following message: "One or more bills not added." What does it mean?

This is caused by one of the following conditions:

• You may have used an invalid format. (use Hb1, hb 1, etc).. Press your back button to correct the format.
• The bill number you entered does not exist.
• The bill number you entered is already on your list.
• You have exceeded the bill limit.

When I am navigating through my watchlists and their respective bills, I sometimes see bills or watchlists which I have already deleted or modified in some way.

Because of the nature of web browsers (specifically the back and forward buttons, and browser cache), it may be necessary to use the reload/refresh button if ever in doubt as to the current status of your watchlists, or the bills on your watchlists. If you find yourself buried in history screens, use the drop down menu to navigate (or escape) to any part of LIS.

I received an email alert. When I went to look at the list of bills with changes, there were no bills listed?

This can happen for two reasons. If your email alert is more than three days old, the changes are considered "stale" and may have rolled off the change log. Also, if you remove or modify your notification configuration or you change notification to "don't" or "disable" after the email alert is generated, nothing will show up. You can always set your configuration back if you want to see the alert result.

I received an email alert, but when I went to look at the bills that supposedly had a status change, I could not detect any changes. Why?

While we do our best to accurately detect changes, the data capture process can become quite volatile during Session. It is sometimes possible for changes to occur and then be quickly reversed. The system will detect the change, but because of various circumstances, may not detect the change reversal. Also, occasionally changes are made to a bill to correct an error, or change a committee referral, which may not be reflected in the history date, but which do trigger an alert event.

Considering the hourly email alert, why do I see "from/through" times that do not reflect the "top of the hour" or exceed a span of one hour (or even a day)?

The process does run hourly. Let's look at an example: say the process runs at 10:00 a.m., but the last change took place at 09:30 a.m. Your "through" time would be stated as 09:30 a.m. in this case. Let's further say that the process that ran at 09:00 a.m. captured its last change at 08:15 a.m. In this case, your "from/through" times for an alert issued from the 10:00 a.m. process would be stated as "between 08:15 a.m. and 09:30 a.m."

Training

See Lobbyist-in-a-Box Training Schedule

Contact Us

For additional information and assistance with LIAB, please call Legislative Automated Systems (DLAS) at (804) 786-9631 or send an email to lis@dlas.virginia.gov, or contact Tyler Technologies (formerly Virginia Interactive) at (804) 318-4133 or send an email to va-customerservice@tylertech.com.