🔍 How to Use Boolean Filters

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Boolean filters help you fine-tune your keyword alerts by combining terms to include, expand, or exclude results — so you only see what matters.

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You can combine your search terms using three simple buckets:

Bucket	Purpose	Example Terms	Meaning
All of these (AND)	Must appear in every result	`water`, `education`	Shows results that include all of these terms
At least one of these (OR)	Any of these may appear	`school`, `college`, `university`	Shows results that include at least one of these terms
None of these (NOT)	Excludes unwanted results	`infrastructure`, `sewer`, `bridge`	Hides results that include any of these terms

🧩 How the Logic Works

Your control:

Must-have terms (AND) Optional/alternative terms (OR) Exclusions (NOT)

They all work together to shape your results.

Your formula is: AND terms + OR terms − NOT terms

Meaning: Include results that have all AND terms, at least one OR term, and none of the NOT terms.

This is a screenshot of the State Affairs platform → Hearing Alerts → Advanced Search (On)

This is a screenshot of the State Affairs platform → Hearing Alerts → Advanced Search (On)

Setup:

Result:

Shows any content that includes “water” and either “education” or “school”,

but excludes anything mentioning “infrastructure.”

Setup:

Result:

Shows results that mention tax and any one of the related terms.

Setup:

Result:

Shows results about AI regulation, but hides mentions related to federal or European discussions.

Toggle “Advanced Search” on or off — when off, you’ll get a simple keyword alert mode
Clear all button resets all buckets
Save search as keyword alert — this preserves your Boolean setup
Preview results across content types (News, Bills, Hearings, etc.) to catch mismatches
State / jurisdiction filters still apply on top of Boolean filters

Problem	What Happens	Solution
You put two terms in OR but really wanted them both	It turns into “either/or” instead of “both”	Use AND bucket for must-have terms
You forget the NOT bucket and get noisy results	You get unwanted topics included	Add exclusions for sources or terms that often clutter your alerts
Ambiguous phrasing	The system misinterprets your intent	Try rephrasing (“and vs or”) or break into multiple narrower alerts
Overly broad OR list	You get too many loosely related results	Scrub your OR list — only include terms that add meaningful coverage

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Still not sure what to do? Reach out to [email protected] for additional help.

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