LINKcat News

New (and improved) way to find reports

The new “Reports Calendar” now includes all scheduled reports
You might have noticed there’s a new link on the ILS Reports page called Reports Calendar. We expanded the Daily calendar to include all of the scheduled reports. This should make it much easier to find the reports you’re looking for and let you know when a report is scheduled to be run. No more reading though a list to figure out which one is the most recent!

When to expect reports
Just like the old Daily calendar, daily reports won’t be available until the next day or Monday in the case of the Friday, Saturday and Sunday reports. The rest of the reports should be available the day they’re listed on the calendar. 

Monthly reports linked on the 1st
The monthly reports will appear as a link on the first weekday of the month.  The link will be for the previous month’s reports since those are the reports run at the beginning of the month. We’re posting a link to the monthly reports page since there are more monthly reports than will fit in the calendar format.

The old Daily calendar will be going away 
If you’ve got the Daily calendar bookmarked, you’ll need to update your bookmark to point to the Reports calendar. Since everything in it is duplicated in the Reports calendar, the Daily calendar will be going away at the end of the month.

 

(Guest post by Cindy Weber and Kerri Hilbelink)

News Summary for 5/29/2012 through 6/15/2012

News

For the most current news, see the ILS Support Main page.

• 6/7/12 Libraries can start managing their own receipt templates. Read the blog post "Managing your receipts" for more details and links to documentation.
• 6/1/12 The minutes from the May PACC Meeting Minutes are now available online.
• 6/1/12 Greg Barniskis has been working on a "New Reports Pipline" which has resulted in some new report formats this month. Read the first in a series of blog posts about this exciting breakthrough.
• 6/1/12 Talking Tech is now working as expected! See the Known Problems page for the complete details.
• 6/1/12 We've introduced a new graphic layout on the home page of LINKcat. There are currently four slides (and we will keep the number of slides around five or less) which will automatically scroll. If you hover your mouse over the left or right sides of the slides you will get an arrow on each side and you can also scroll through the slides. We plan to keep rotating new slides with tips, announcements, etc. Most of the slides have clickable links. Thanks to Rose from SCLS for getting the slides all set up!
• 6/1/12 The Library Anywhere Mobile App for LINKcat was launched today. A press release has been issued and Facebook, Twitter and LINKcat have been updated.
• 5/30/12 The Holds Sequence will change as of 6/1/2012. Please read today's link-announce email or blog post for more details.

Known Problems:Recently Added & Updated

• 6/15/2012: New Problem: Barcode scanner on LINKcat Mobile App does not work with the iPod Touch 4th Generation because the camera is not strong enough. (6/15/12) (SCLS Support Ticket 42409)
• 6/7/2012: New Problem: Invalid barcode message when moving item. Sometimes you get an invalid barcode message when you are trying to move an item, even though the barcode is a valid barcode. You can click the Override and Save button to continue moving the item. This has been reported to LibLime. (6/7/12) (SCLS Support Ticket 42441) (Not on Koha Problems and Fixes spreadsheet/4.12)
• 6/5/2012: New Problem: Format drop-down box missing from "Log in to your account" page. This has been reported to LibLime. (6/5/12) (SCLS Support Ticket 42417) (Not on Koha Problems and Fixes spreadsheet/4.12)
• 6/1/2012: Fixed in 4.12: Koha will now check to see if a hold is filled before the call list is sent to the Talking Tech Server. Testing has confirmed that if a patron picks up all holds on the day they are trapped, they will not be called or texted with a hold notice the next day.  If they pick up some, but not all of the holds trapped on the same day, they will receive a notice with the correct number of items remaining on the shelf. There is still a chance that a patron will pick up holds early in the day after they day they were trapped and still get a call later in the day. This is because it takes a long time for Talking Tech to work through the call list which is static once it is sent to Talking Tech. This is less likely to happen with Text messages since they are all sent at 9am. Original Problem We have had reports of patrons getting called for holds that are not actually at the library. Talking Tech receives a file of patrons to call from Koha, but it does not check back to see if the hold was already picked up. A patron could walk in to the library and pick up their hold before they are called. Add an extra step to have Koha check to see if the hold is filled before the call list is sent to the Talking Tech Server. (4/29/11) (SCLS Support Ticket 40862) In Development (Round 1)
• 6/1/2012: Fixed: Cannot place holds in LINKcat Mobile. LibraryThing fixed the problem with placing holds. (SCLS Support Ticket 42390)
• 6/1/2012 Fixed: Place Hold link missing from Brief Display of Cart. LibLime has fixed the problem with the missing Place Hold link in the Cart. (SCLS Support Ticket 42388). (Not on Koha Problems and Fixes spreadsheet/4.12)
• 5/31/2012 Fixed in 4.12: The foreign language limiting is not available in the PAC. We would like it available in a drop-down. (6/20/11) (SCLS Support Ticket 40306)
• 5/31/2012 Fixed in 4.12: There is no option to limit by adult. (8/12/11) (SCLS Support Ticket 40739) In Development (Round 2)
• 5/31/2012 Fixed in 4.12: There is no option to limit just by books. (8/12/11) (SCLS Support Ticket 40737) In Development (Round 2)
• 5/31/2012 Fixed in 4.12: Add Format drop-down box under main Search box to the right of the Advanced Search box in the PAC. Referred from PAC Committee. (6/15/11) (SCLS Support Ticket 40273)

Dewey Discoveries

This is the second in a series of guest reports by Greg Barniskis on important changes to the reporting process for Koha.

Several weeks ago I was asked to look at the problem of ILS reports using Dewey item call numbers as a facet. The difficulty with this facet is normalization, as the items for each library can differ substantially. At the same time, Dewey report output is desired as a hierarchy in which depth varies arbitrarily across several orders of magnitude. This combination of requirements is quite resistant to SQL query methods.

I am happy to report that normalizing data for a Dewey facet is basically solved, using Perl in combination with SQL. We can report for a Dewey hierarchy of any arbitrary depth. For now we are using the same hierarchy as was used for Dynix reports. To adopt a revised hierarchy, we can easily edit the simple text file that defines it.  The first version of this report is available for May from the Monthly Reports page.  It is called Total Checkout by Dewey.  This report will be fine-tuned to reflect even more granularity of the data.

This is good news, but there's more. In the course of dealing with several problems of efficiency with respect to Dewey report generation, a new generalized reporting architecture has emerged. This new framework allows SCLS to run multiple similar reports in parallel. It's fast, flexible, extensible, and ready for production now. More details will be provide soon in the next installment of this series.

LINKcat slideshow - we need your help!

In June we launched a new "slideshow" for the home page of LINKcat. The slides will change monthly and will include information about new features, databases, Don't Miss Lists, search tips, planned downtime, and other useful LINKcat information.

Now we are asking for your help! We've created a Google document where you can share your ideas for useful LINKcat tips to be included in the slideshow. You can add your ideas to the document and we'll use them as slides for future slideshows. Please keep in mind that the tips have to be communicated in a short sentence and should include a visual representation. Complex ideas could be broken down into separate parts so each part could be communicated on a separate slide. When we get through all of the tips that we have, we'll recycle them so the slideshow continues to change each month. We anticipate that we'll have a lot to communicate so it will be a while before we need to recycle slides.

Managing your receipts

The interface for customizing your own library's receipts is available for staff logins. If you want this changed for your library's staff login account, please send an email to Heidi Oliversen at hjo@scls.lib.wi.us.

Library staff will be able to:

•  Modify existing templates
• Create new templates
• Assign receipt templates to specific triggering events
• Delete templates

Once your login account has been changed, two new hyperlinks will display on your Tools page; Receipt Template Manager and Assign Receipt Templates.  The Receipt Template Manager page contains a hyperlink to LibLime documentation; our documentation is posted in the Circulation Manual, Section 14 Managing Receipts.

Please read the documentation before starting to make changes.   Libraries have staff with different levels of knowledge about and expertise with javascript and html tags.  We can create a Receipts Category in the blog for sharing any "best practices" or "don't do this" information with staff at other libraries. 

Searching for Last Patron information

When filling out the orange form, to find last patron information in Koha:

1. Search the catalog using the item barcode.
2. Click on the “Checkout history” tab toward the upper left corner of the screen.
3. Activate the search feature (Ctrl F).
4. Scan the item barcode into the “Find” window in the lower left corner.
5. Click on “Highlight all” to see all the times the item has been checked out.

Start at the bottom of the list and work your way up.  If the item was checked out less than 30 days ago, or the last patron has their reading history activated, the name of the last patron should be available.   If it has been more than 30 days, the “Name” field may be blank, in which case there is no last patron information available

Submitted by J. Kauffeld, Madison Public Library

Turning ON barcode validation

Barcode validation will be turned on today, June 4.  Barcode validation is now working, with the exception of Fast Adds.  If you try to enter a barcode on an item or a patron record that is less than 14 digits or is not a valid barcode, you will receive an error message similar to the message displayed in the screen below.  This will help prevent problems when barcodes are scanned or typed incorrectly at the time that items and patrons are created.  For example, there was an item circulating with barcode 39078000000035.  This barcode was clearly a mis-scan that happened when the item was created.

 

Turning ON barcode validation will not retrospectively fix any invalide barcodes that had been previously entered in the system.  Please report any problems you encounter.

The New Reports Pipeline

This is the first in a series of guest reports by Greg Barniskis on important changes to the reporting process for Koha.

Beginning June 1st for the May 2012 reports cycle, SCLS is implementing a new ILS reports pipeline. The pipeline will efficiently publish reports of total circulation by these facets: library, Dewey class, item type, patron type, PSTAT, collection code, interagency item lending and time of day.

The pipeline produces all of those reports in thirty minutes or so, roughly the same time as any one report previously required. Adding new reports to this architecture is fairly straightforward, and as we've been doing that the pipeline has scaled nicely. Each facet that we've added so far has increased total run time by only seconds.

These reports are a step up in value as well. You will notice immediately that they are complete system matrix reports, not lists of values. Each matrix is "fully registered", which is to say that its rows show every possible value of the facet being reported, even those categories for which there are no stats in the current reporting period.

This format will make it much easier for libraries to compile summary-over-time reports using copy/paste on entire columns. The reports for each time period will always align with the reports of previous time periods, unless/until codes are added to or deleted from the ILS facet in question.

Reports on the 201205 Reports Page in the new format this month include:

Circulation
Total CKO by Collection Code
Total CKO by ITYPE
Total CKO by PSTAT
Total CKO by PTYPE
Total Loaned and Borrowed

The following are brand new reports and should be considered prototypes for more detailed reports that can be developed:

CKO by Time (circulation by hour accross all libraries)
Total CKO by Dewey (circulation by Dewey range for all materials for each library)

 

Change in PDS library name

Effective June 1, 2012, the "Prairie du Sac Library" will now display as the "Ruth Culver Community Library" in pull-down menus, item ownership fields and circulation pop-up messages.  Their delivery code, PDS, will remain the same.  Please inform all of your staff about this change.