Skip to main content

City of Madison

Legislative Resource Center for City of Madison Employees Only

Legistar Tips


Roll Call Votes (09/01/2009)
Roll call votes recorded in your committee minutes do not automatically show up on the Common Council agenda.  If your committee makes a recommendation to the Common Council with anything other than a unanimous vote, please summarize the roll call in the CC Note field of your minutes.  The CC Note field will print on the Common Council agenda along with the legislative file history.

See Legistar file 13981 for an example. If you have any questions, please contact the City Clerk's Office.

Pausing a Fiscal Note Request (Approval Tracking Sequence) (06/27/2008)
Only the individual who initiated a fiscal note request (approval tracking sequence) and the fiscal analyst to whom the legislative file was sent are able to pause the sequence.

If you need to make changes to a legislative file that has a status of ATS Review, and you are the one who initiated the fiscal note request, you will need to do the following:

  • Open the legislative file.
  • Select "Edit Record" under Edit at the top of your screen, or hit Ctrl-E on your keyboard.
  • The top of your screen will still display "Read Only Mode."
  • Under the Approvals tab of your legislative file, click once on the Pause button at the bottom of your screen.
  • The top of your screen will now display "Edit Record Mode."
  • Your fiscal analyst will receive an e-mail message indicating that ATS has been paused.
  • You may make the necessary corrections to the legislative file.
  • When you are ready to reinitiate the fiscal note request, click once on the Start button at the bottom of your screen.

Late Submissions for Common Council Agendas
The Common Council President, has requested that you contact Lisa Veldran if you have any late Common Council agenda items. He will determine whether or not the item needs to placed on the agenda, that an addendum needs to be generated or the item can wait and be placed on a future agenda.

  • Reminder: Common Council agenda items are due to the City Clerk by 12 noon on the Wednesday before a Common Council meeting.

Correcting the Type of Vote that Appears in your Minutes (03/03/2008)
If you inadvertently select Roll Call as the type of vote for an item in your minutes, then select Voice Vote or No Vote, the Roll Call vote still shows up in your minutes. To get rid of the Roll Call, select "Clear All" under the Record Votes tab on the right-hand side of your screen.

Common Council Submittal Form (01/02/2008)
If you have items to be included on the next Council agenda, be sure to enter your legislative file ID numbers on the form found at
/employeenet/legistar/CCItemsSubmittalForm.cfm. The Clerk's Office uses this list to double-check that your items are on the Council agenda. You will receive an e-mail confirmation after clicking the "submit" button at the bottom of the screen.

Accommodation Wording on Agendas (12/18/2007)
Please make sure you are adding your office phone number and email at the end of the accommodation wording that automatically pulls into your agenda.

Searching by Date Ranges (12/11/2007)
Legistar can search for files created within a date range, and files on which a final action was taken within a date range. For example, to see all of the files that you have created since November:

  • Go to the Legislative Files section of Legistar.
  • In the Search mode, type your e-mail address under the Details tab, in the "entered by" field.
  • At the top right-hand side of the screen, type "11/01/2007 to 12/11/2007" in the "file created date" field.
  • Click on "Search" at the top of the screen.
  • Legistar will display all of the files you have created since November.

Deleting Lines from your Minutes (12/10/2007)
To delete extra lines that carry over from your agenda into your minutes:

  • Go to the Minutes sheetab within the Minutes section of Legistar.
  • Highlight the line you wish to delete from your minutes.
  • Click on the Delete button on the lower left-hand side of the screen.

Changing a Meeting Date and Time (12/07/2007)
To change the meeting time on your agenda, go to the Calendar sheetab in the Agendas section of Legistar. With your meeting highlighted, go to Tools at the top of the screen, and select "Change Meeting Date/Time." The date and time are changed from this location.

Deletion of Non-Existent Meetings (12/05/2007)
If you inadvertently create duplicate meetings, or discover that someone else has created a meeting for your committee, send an e-mail message to the Legistar Team to request that the extra meeting be deleted. Or, you can change the incorrect meeting date to an accurate meeting date for your committee.

Approval of Minutes (12/05/2007)
When creating an agenda, you will notice that comment field for Approval of Minutes automatically shows a link to the Legistar Calendar website (http://madison.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx). Please add the date of the meeting for which your committee will be approving the minutes to the comment field, as well.

Once your committee has approved the minutes, remember to change the status of those minutes from Draft to Approved, republish those minutes to the calendar, and add a link to the Minutes to the Meeting Schedule.

Local Settings (11/06/2007)
Here is a list of recommended Local Settings (PDF) for Legistar Users. For those of you creating Resolutions or dealing with more than one committee, commission, or board, you may need to periodically change your Local Settings. Please keep the following points in mind:

  • When creating Resolutions, the "Controlling Body" needs to reflect the agency.
  • When creating files specifically for agendas, the "Controlling Body" needs to reflect the Meeting Body. This allows the file to automatically appear on the agenda after clicking on the "Generate" button

Adding Agendas to Meeting Schedule (11/06/2007, updated 03/30/2021)
The Clerk's Office needs to post the "Approved" agenda. Once your agenda has been finalized, you will need to change its status to "Approved" before adding it to the Meeting Schedule. This can be done from the "Calendar" tab within the Agendas portion of Legistar. After changing the agenda status to Approved, run the agenda as a report, with a destination of "Publish to Calendar." A new window will open to show you the agenda as it is posted on the city website. Please copy the website address and add it to the Meeting Schedule. The Meeting Schedule application will email a link to the agenda to the Clerk's Office. The Clerk's Office will use the link to print off your agenda and post it on the official bulletin board.

File ID (11/02/2007)
Every item on your agenda needs to have a File ID. This allows the public to use the search function on our website to find every item (and its attachments) that your committee discusses. Before generating your agenda, you can change the status of your legislative files to ensure that they pull in to the appropriate section of your agenda.

Status (11/02/2007)
There is no longer a "Final" status for agendas and minutes. Once your committee's agenda has been approved by the chairperson or their designee, you will need to change the status of the agenda from Draft to Approved. Minutes should be in Draft status until approved by the committee at the next meeting, then changed to Approved. Remember to add your Approved Agendas and Minutes to the Meeting Schedule.

Roll Call (11/02/2007)
Your minutes need to include roll calls that reflect all of the comings and goings of committee members. Roll calls are used to indicate that committee members arrived late or left the meeting early.