Update the "canned reports" in Reports -> Notices and SSRS
There are multiple reports in the "canned reports" available through the Staff Client and through SSRS that deliver incomplete and/or absolutely wrong data.
For instance, the Patron Register report only looks at extant patrons in the Polaris database right now. That means that, if a library had a patron purge, those patrons are gone. If one runs a Patron Register report after the purge for a time before the purge, the registration numbers will absolutely be wrong. This would also be true where patron merges or general cleanups have taken place.
Another report, Circulation by Postal Code has a logic error where the calculation depends on an variable describing the upper limit of an iterator. This variable is selected by taking the first TransactionID of a 6001 TransactionTypeID of the start date and simply adding 500,000 to it. While that may work for smaller libraries and/or shorter periods of time, running this as a yearly report at a large consortium will produce incomplete results. (For reference the difference between TransactionIDs for 6001 transaction types at the Inland Library Network for the year 2022 is well over 15 million.)
I've gotten to the point that I no longer trust these reports, and I rarely recommend them to staff. If two reports can be this wrong, I have to believe that more of them are broken too. So far as I know, they've not seen an update in years, and they're badly in need of one.
We have staff who rely on reports like these for their governing bodies, for digital resources, and for statistical history. And depending on which reports they're using, they're likely getting the wrong data as answers to important questions.
Daniel Messer
shared this idea
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Pam Wills
commented
I agree with several others that an ability to share reports with other Polaris users would be great. I also agree that accurate statistics are super relevant important to state aid and annual reports
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Daniel Messer
commented
@Eric Young
I really should do a quick audit of some of these reports, and see what the libraries use on the regular to check and see how accurate those reports are. This is literally a "no data is better than wrong data" situation.
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Eric Young
commented
Our trust in the reports has always been low due to these very reasons. Improving these resources is a must. We end up writing our own with slight modification to fix the output based on testing for accuracy. Please fix these resources.
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Daniel Messer
commented
@Laina Kelly
At the very least, someone could write the query or create the report in Report Builder and then send that to everyone. We did that a few times back at a former library for the same exact reason. Everyone was using Polaris, so here's how we all get the same numbers, apples to apples.
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Laina Kelly
commented
In my province there are 6 regions total on Polaris and we all have to turn in the same report to our provincial funder. Would be great if one of us could make this report and share it across those outside of our regional consortium.
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Lynn Reynish
commented
I agree with Eleanor and Jason that an ability to share reports more easily between systems is essential on Polaris. Back when my library was on Horizon, we participated heavily in the SQL Bloodbank that shared reports and client / PAC customizations.
It wasn't simply plug-and-play due to variations on each system, but it was a much simpler process. It also didn't rely on Dynix (or SirsiDynix) to maintain reports - though they did push out changes that customers made that were useful to other customers.
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Daniel Messer
commented
Eleanor is on to something right there with that timed challenge comment. It'd be great if there were, for lack of a better term, a Report Store - like an app store. I can kind of see something like the Software Boutique in Ubuntu MATE where someone can go look for a report, check out the code, vote on it, view comments, and if they like it they just click a couple things and add it to their system.
That'd be fantastic, and such a powerful way to share information between libraries!
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We use our own custom reports almost exclusively. In some cases to correct issues, in others to make the reports match what we want (e.g. changing transaction location from item branch to transaction branch) or even to create totally new reports. We also add descriptions and definitions, so you can see what you are getting.
In a timed challenge about reporting options, my co-worker suggested there should be away for libraries that can create custom reports to share them, and for libraries that can't create them, to vote for what should be added as canned reports. It got some support, even some interest from the Polaris team, but it is hard to implement from their end.
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Kathy McKinney
commented
I agree completely! We have to report our statistics annually for state aid funding. These need to be accurate or else what are we reporting? I ran a report 4 different ways today only to have 4 different answers. Which is the correct report to run? The reports needs help ASAP!
