PolicyNote is most useful when it's configured around how you actually work. This guide walks you through the one-time setup steps that make the platform feel like yours and introduces the ongoing habits that keep it useful over time.
Step 1: Set Up Your Profile and Notifications
Before you start building projects and alerts, take a few minutes to configure how PolicyNote communicates with you.
Email notification frequency
For each project you're part of, you can set how often you receive legislative update emails and alert emails independently: Hourly, 4-Hourly, Daily, Weekly, or Never. Start with Daily for most projects and adjust from there. → See Projects for how to set these.
Custom Alert Location Settings
If your work is focused on specific states or jurisdictions, set your location preferences in Account > Settings. PolicyNote will use these as default filters throughout the platform like on your dashboard, in alerts, and in project views, so you're not manually reapplying them every session.
Organization Profile (Admins) If you're an admin, update your organization's profile in Settings. This powers the AI-generated Bill Impact summaries that show how specific legislation could affect your organization. The more accurate the profile, the more relevant the analysis. → See What Can the AI Assistant Do?
Step 2: Customize Your Dashboard
Your dashboard should surface the information you check first every morning. Spend a few minutes on this now, it pays off every day after.
Click Configure Dashboard to add, remove, and rearrange widgets. For most new users, a good starting layout includes:
- New Alerts: Jump straight into your inbox of new policy matches
- Recent Updates: See what's changed on bills you're already tracking
- Committee Hearings: Upcoming hearings for bills in your projects
- Upcoming Actions: Scheduled meetings, calls, and engagements in the next 5 days
Filter your dashboard by project or by location preferences to keep it focused on what's relevant to you, then save your layout.
→ See Your Dashboard for the full widget list and Dashboard Widgets by Role for role-specific recommendations.
Step 3: Build Your First Lines of Focus
With your profile and dashboard set, it's time to start tracking.
Create your first Project
Projects are the containers for everything you're working on. Create one for each major issue area, client, or workstream. You need at least one project before you can save alerts. → See Projects
Set up Alerts Alerts are how new legislation finds you. Start with your two or three highest-priority topics as you can always add more. → See Creating an Alert and Building Effective Alerts
Create Tags Tags let you categorize policies, stakeholders, and content across the platform. Set up your core tag structure now (issue areas, priority tiers, action statuses), so you're applying them consistently from the start. → See Managing Tags
Set up Workflows If your team uses a structured review process, configure your workflow swimlanes now. These are the stages you move policies through as you work them. → [See Workflows]
Step 4: Schedule Your First Reports
Reports turn your tracked legislation into deliverables for stakeholders, leadership, or clients. A few reports worth setting up early:
- High-priority policies: Everything flagged as high priority across your projects
- Policies you're monitoring: Your full tracked list with current status
- Recently passed legislation: Bills enacted in the current session
- Policies updated in the past 7 days: Recent movement on anything you're watching
Schedule these for automatic delivery so they run without any effort on your end. → See Generating & Sharing Policy Reports
Workspace Templates by Role
Not sure where to start? Here's a suggested setup based on how you spend your time.
Solo Practitioner Focus: personal productivity
- Widgets: New Alerts, Recent Updates, Committee Hearings, Upcoming Actions
- Notifications: Daily digest for most projects
Team Lead Focus: oversight and personal work
- Widgets: Recent Updates, Bills by Priority, Actions Breakdown
- Notifications: 4-Hourly for alerts, Daily for project updates
Executive / Read-Only Focus: high-level awareness
- Widgets: Bills by Priority, Policy Map, Actions Breakdown
- Notifications: Weekly digest
Keeping Your Workspace Useful
PolicyNote works best when it's maintained. Here's a rhythm that keeps things from getting stale.
Daily
- Review new alert matches, mark Relevant or Irrelevant, add to projects
- Move policies through Workflow swimlanes as work progresses
Weekly
- Clear your review queue
- Archive saved searches you're no longer using
Monthly
- Review and adjust dashboard widgets
- Audit alerts, remove or tighten anything generating too much noise
- Review scheduled reports and update tags as needed
Quarterly
- Audit Workflow swimlanes and clean up stale policies
- Review scheduled report recipients due to role changes
- Clean up saved searches and consolidate overlapping alerts
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