Vocabulary

CapitolTrack	Abstract
Tracking Form Filters	Tags
Report	Bill List
Report Filters / "Source"	Edit Settings (located in Bill List)
Today’s Events	Daily File

Uploading Reports as PDF (basic upload)

If you want to keep your reports from CapitolTrack for occasional reference, but don't need a dynamic Abstract Bill List to stay up to date on bill status, you can simply upload your CapitolTrack reports to Abstract as PDFs.

To do so, first download your report of choice from CapitolTrack as a PDF, by opening your report and clicking "Export" as shown below.

By default, your PDF will be named "ReportExport". You may want to rename your PDF download to more accurately reflect the report within.
Next, open your Abstract Library, and either create a new Bill List or open an existing one.
Locate the button that says "Attach File," and upload your report PDF from CapitolTrack.

💡 You can add up to 10 files to a Bill List. Files must be under 1MB. If your file is larger than 1MB, compress or use ilovepdf.com/split_pdf to split the PDF.

Workspace Replication Instructions:

In order to continue receiving dynamic updates on reports created with CapitolTrack, you must first recreate them within Abstract. To do so, follow the instructions below:

Once you’ve logged in to CT, locate the folder you wish to replicate. You can create this folder in Abstract by going to Library > Create > Folder. Name this folder accordingly.
In the image below, the left-hand column in blue contains Folders. To the right will be your Reports.

Click on a CapitolTrack folder to view the Report(s) within. Click on a Report to begin importing to Abstract.
In the below Report, there are a few key elements. First, next to “Edit Current Report” you will see the Source. This is similar to Abstract’s Edit Settings in a Bill List. Reports in CT may also be filtered by Tracking Form Filter, a customizable criteria by which you can sort your bills. Tracking Form Filters are like Abstract’s Tag Filter.

Tagging Bills

To recreate a CT Report with Tracking Form Filters as an Abstract Bill List, you will first identify all of the bills within the CapitolTrack Report, search for them within your Abstract account, and tag them accordingly. Below is an example of how to search and Tag bills in your Abstract workspace.

Learn more about Tags here.

💡 To search for bills en masse, use this format: AB 1 OR AB 2 OR AB 3 OR AB 4

Once you’ve tagged and added notes to all bills in this CapitolTrack report, it’s time to recreate the report as an Abstract Bill List.

Bill Lists

To turn your tagged bills into an Abstract Bill list, follow the instructions below:

First, Identify the search criteria for the CapitolTrack report that you are recreating as an Abstract Bill List. This search criteria ("Report Filters") can be found by clicking on "Source," located within the CapitolTrack Report. In the CapitolTrack Report example below, the report filters below mean that the search criteria is as follows: 2-year Client A bills that have been Chaptered or Vetoed.
Now you're ready to create an Abstract Bill List and populate it with the correct bills by referencing the “Report Filters” of the CapitolTrack Report. To input this search criteria, click on the “Edit Settings” button within your Bill List.
In the example below, we have a side by side comparison between CapitolTrack’s Report Filters and Abstract’s Edit Settings/Search Filters
The most important elements to the report filters are: Bill Filters (= Abstract’s Filters), Tracking Form Filters (= Abstract’s Tag Filter), and Keyword Filters (= Abstract’s keyword search bar)
- In CapitolTrack (CT) we see that the search criteria is "2-year Bills," “Chaptered, Vetoed,” and “Client: CLIENT A”. To replicate this in an Abstract Bill List, we go to Edit Settings and apply:
  1. "Client A" Tag in the Tag Filter
  2. Chaptered and Vetoed in the Measure Status Filter
  3. 2-Year Bill in the Type Filter

Repeat this process for every report in the CT workspace that you need replicated.
Be sure to sort the Bill Lists in Abstract into folders like you had them in CT so you know where to find everything!

Learn more about Bill Lists here.

💡 Any questions? Check out the Help Center!

Attach the Report as a PDF:

To upload the PDF of your CT report to Abstract, simply go to your Bill List and upload the associated report PDF using the “Attach File” button

💡 Abstract can support files up to 1MB. If your file is bigger than 1MB, compress or use ilovepdf.com/split_pdf to split the PDF.

How to add Notes to Bills:

Some bills will have Notes attached. You can see if a Bill has notes by looking below the bill text and tracking forms (Tags) on a CT Report
- In the visual below, the note is “Submitted letter to Author”
To add Notes to a bill in Abstract, simply click on the bill > click “Create” in the Notes section in the bottom right corner > Click “Edit” > copy and paste the note contents and title into the description boxes > click “Save”

Learn more about Notes here.

💡 You can add attachments to individual bills using Notes too! Just create a new note and click “Attach File”

Calendar Reports

You may have a report in CT that looks like this:

To replicate this, you can create a Calendar Report in Abstract to keep track of your hearings. Simply select “Set for Hearing” (to see all upcoming hearings), or “Committee Hearing” and/or “Floor Session” to be more specific.

You can apply calendar filters on top of keyword searches (i.e. all “Energy” bills set for Committee Hearing) or filters (i.e. all bills tagged for Clients set for hearing).
To see bills that are relevant to your search but are not yet set for hearing, simply select “Show Unscheduled Bills."

Note: CapitolTrack images are sourced from this document