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99.9. 360 Release Notes - September/October 2017

Overview:

The October Release went live on October 10th. There was no September Release based on the scheduling of our yearly Penetration Testing.

This development sprint focused on adding Federal Legislator Ratings to Legislator Page, State Bill & Vote Tracking, and the addition of "My Legislators" page within the Action Center.    

The State Bills and Votes tracking enhancement is one of many further planned. We will, in future development efforts, fully integrate this functionality within Aristotle 360.  This effort is the first of multiple enhancements planned

Bills & Votes Enhancement

A new feature is to provide our clients the ability to track State Bills & Vote in Aristotle 360.  To add greater utility to our customers we have added the ability for your organization to add the organization's position and custom comments to provide better support for the Organization's take on specific Bills and Votes at the Federal and State level. 

In the case of Federal Votes, your custom comments will be published within the My Legislator section on the Action Center.  Federal Vote position and the Legislator's vote will be used to calculate a Lifetime Legislator Rating that will display on the Legislator's Record and The My Legislator section on the Action Center.

• State Bill &Vote Tracking – We have integrated a data call between Aristotle 360 and the OpenStates Project. Open States provides access to State Bills & Votes data under their Creative Commons Attribution License. We have taken their data and integrated within the Aristotle 360 data structure. We provide this data as part of our Bills and Vote service though no additional fees are demanded for the State Bill and Vote data integration.
  • Show Cosponsors and Votes within Bills and Votes Section
  • Future Planned Enhancements
    1. We will add Cosponsors and Votes to Legislator page in future sprint.
    2. Integrate Legislator Lifetime Rating to State Legislator Entity Page
    3. Integrate State Legislators within the My Legislators page in Aristotle Advocacy Center

 

• Bill User Interface Update (Search/Create) - The State Bills integration is dependent on a distinct feed that requires specific data from the user.   We have added a Federal/State toggle and Bills may be retrieved after detailing State, Chamber and Bill ID or Bill Name.
  • Create a New Bill – To create a new State Bill select:
    1. Select "Track Bill From Feed"
    2. Select State From Toggle
    3. Select State
    4. Select Chamber
    5. Select bill ID or Bill Name
    6. Select Search
    7. Check Bill from Result Set and Click Save or Save/Close

 

 

• Bills and Vote Custom Details (Federal & State) - We have added new fields to add relevant context and functionality pertaining to your organization's Bills & Votes data using Custom fields.  We anticipate expanding this functionality in the future within Reports, My Legislator page functions and other expressions.
  • Bills
    1. Bill Name – You may add a custom Bill Name to be associated with your Bill. Example: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act may be entered in Bill Name as "Obamacare or AHA".
    2. Position - Position would reflect your organization's stance on a specific Bill. Importantly, this Position value would carry over into an associated Vote which is used to calculate the Legislator Rating score.  In the future this would drive Bills sponsorship functionality within the My Legislator page.
    3. Comments – This is a brief narrative that describes your Organization's take on a Bill.
  • Votes
    1. Custom Vote Name
    2. Position – Organization Position on specific vote
    3. Key Vote Toggle – Toggle "On" to have vote applied to Legislator's Lifetime Rating
    4. Comment – Narrative to be include on My Legislator page

 

 

 

Legislator Lifetime Rating

Based on Key Vote you track Aristotle 360 will automatically calculate a Legislator Lifetime Rating within the Legislator page. This rating detail may be express to your advocate on a new "My Legislator" page as well.  The rating is calculated on how a legislator votes against your organization's state Position (See above). When "Key Vote" is selected, the vote will be used to calculated  how each legislator voted in alignment to your position.

Calculation:

1. A Vote (Yea/Nay) will be included in the Legislator Lifetime Rating calculation
2. A Missed Vote, Not Voting etc. will not count for our against a Legislator Lifetime rating
3. If not Key Votes have been calculated against a Legislator his/her Lifetime Rating will show "N/A".
4. Custom Lifetime Ratings (calculations) are not currently supported but is currently being discussed as a future enhancement.

 

 

My Legislator Page

A new section that may be published on the Aristotle Action Center is a page called "My Legislator". This is new functionality that will add a new section to the Aristotle Action Center to publish information relating to your advocate's Legislators based on their Home and Business address(es).   

Product Development has a number of future enhancements planned for this section including support for State Legislators, adding Bill Sponsorship support and full Legislative Scorecard by Bill.

The Page will list in card form all Federal legislators associated with the advocates home and business address.  An advocate may click on a card to open a detailed page

My Legislator Page Details:

1. Card
   • Legislator Photo
   • Legislator Name
   • State and District
   • Lifetime Rating – N/A Indicates no Key Vote taken and rating is not available
2. Detailed Record
   • Legislator Photo
   • Title
   • External Social Media Links
   • Committee Assignments
   • Key Votes
     • Date of Vote
     • Custom Vote Name
     • Custom Vote Comments
     • Our Position (Organization's Position)
     • Rep's Position (in relationship to Organization Position)

 

 

3. Enabling My Legislators Page
   • Go to Settings -> Action Center Settings -> Check box for "My Legislators".
   • If My Legislator tab does not appear clear cache