« Follow Government Easily, Create an RSS Subscription to Search Terms »

When thinking about increasing opening government through technology, there is one essential tool that makes information easily available to the general public: keyword search. With Granicus, you can enable citizens and staff to search for legislation or topics with powerful tools. We recently released Advanced Search to help you do this with greater precision. I’m going to show you how to use this tool with RSS to receive live notifications when particular ordinances or issues are being discussed by your agency.

Here is a step by step overview of how to subscribe to a particular advanced search query. This will enable you to set-up and receive notifications when specific words or phrases are published in a paricular government agency's legislative process.

First, you need to access your government’s archived meeting page containing all their videos and public records. Let’s use Louisville Metro Council, KY as an example. To subscribe to their advanced search, follow these simple steps:

• Click on the Advanced Search link.Please note, not all of our clients have the advanced search tool, this is currently available to all clients that own the Government Transparency Suite. If you do not currently own this suite, have this feature, or if you are simply interested in receiving a demo, complete this form and let us know! However, subscription to search terms should work for all Granicus search functionality, read this article to find out more: Why RSS is Essential for Government Transparency.
  


• Enter your search term(s) in the Advanced Search field and click the Search button. The real power of this tool is being able to refine your searches by a particular date range, by exact phrases, particular words, or you can exclude certain phrases. Say you were interested in following decisions regarding allocating development funds, simply configure your search and subscribe!
  
• Select the type of RSS feed (Agenda, Minutes, Podcast, or Video Podcast) you would like to subscribe to with your Advanced Search terms. This way, you can be updated whenever new video, audio, or records are available that pertain to your search terms.
• Click the Subscribe to this feed link in the open RSS feed page.
  

• Edit the name for the search. (Optional)
• Select a location for the feed from the dropdown menu.
• Click the Subscribe button.
  
• Confirm you receive a message that you have subscribed to the feed.
• Access your feed by clicking the Favorites button > Feeds > Select the feed.
• Confirm the Feeds page opens.
  

It's that easy to subscribe and follow local government legislation as it's published to the web. Leave us a comment if you are interested in this topic or if you have ever used this functionality. We want to hear how it can be useful!

Next Steps:

• Request a demo to learn more about advanced search capabilities for your organization.
• Learn more about the capabilities of Granicus search here: Why Keyword Search is a Powerful Tool for Public Access