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ILS - Sierra

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  1. I recently learned that the fields included in the Expanded Display for patron records (when you rollover/click the i next to the record) are hard coded.

    I found this unfortunate, because what's shown in the Expanded Display differs depending on where you're viewing it, which in the case of patron records is either going to be in the Search/Find a Patron view or the Check Out mode view.

    Examples of where I see room for improvement here:

    1) When I search for a patron by name & come up with dozens of people with the same name, an identifier like…

    7 votes

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  2. Right now NCIP for Symphony, Voyager, Polaris, Koha and Evergreen all accept ISBNs, but Sierra's does not.

    7 votes

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  3. Ability for patron to add money to their Sierra patron account (via self-check) to pay for future fines, fees, and printing. We are looking to go mostly cashless, but some patrons aren't able to get credit cards (like our young patrons here after school). Our self-check machine takes cash, which would allow patrons to print and pay fees/fines with cash, even if the staff doesn't have a cash register.

    7 votes

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  4. When matching on an ISBN for record loading, it should be possible to limit the match to the first 13 (or 10) digits. There are often extraneous data in 020 subfield |a. There are now other subfields where that is supposed to go, but it frequently ends up in |a anyway, and then your record loading won't match.

    7 votes

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  5. We're currently dealing with a known issue in Sierra 6.2, where volume holds aren't being added to paging lists. Having discovered it on our end fairly recently, we've asked staff to continue running their paging lists for other items, but use the Manage Holds function to find & fill volume requests.

    The problem is that the current search retrieves such a high number of items. And while the search results display counts of the title number of holds, & the total number of bib, volume, & item level holds, you cannot currently limit them & make the Manage Holds report…

    7 votes

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  6. Currently, the ability to override a hold block is governed by permission 92.

    A hold might be blocked for a number of reasons. Staff might attempt to place more than the max number of holds allowed for a customer. They might place a hold for a customer on an item they already have checked out, etc.

    One scenario especially has been problematic for as long as I can remember:

    A patron finds an item on the shelf & takes it to a service point to check out. It turns out that this item can satisfy a hold placed by another…

    7 votes

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  7. By default in the SDA, items are blocked from renewal if a hold is placed on the associated title or volume.

    If the Renew Title Holds feature is enabled, the system gives you the option to OVERRIDE the block on renewing held titles and volumes. The system does not consider frozen holds when blocking items from renewal.

    Staff will always select "yes" to a renewal if there is an available item. They do not want to continually select "override" when they are renewing multiple holds.

    Can there be an option to always renew if there is an available item (without…

    7 votes

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  8. Have the results of Manage Holds automatically on a regular schedule (ie. each morning).

    This would let staff pick holds even if they don't have Sierra open or available. The automated emails could be set up within the Manage Holds function itself, or could be accomplished if Scheduler worked with Manage Holds (right now Scheduler only works with Create Lists and Data Exchange).

    6 votes

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  9. It would be nice to be able to choose location agency and leave location blank in the determiner table for some situations. In our case we have 4 partner library systems and one has 7 branches. Each of these branches has the exact same loan rules to allow certain items to circ to the whole consortium, and others to limit to only their system. If we could use agency, we would only have to create one set of those rules instead of one for each branch location prefix (in this case their branches are pri, max, bar,

    6 votes

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  10. We'd like the ability to attach a volume record directly from the Serials Check-in module. Currently, because this functionality is not available within Serials Check-in, staff must rely on workarounds and switch to other functions to complete the task. Adding this capability would streamline workflows, save time, and make the Serials module more efficient and useful.

    6 votes

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  11. The Sierra Patron Record is able to be communicated to Vega Discover in such a way that differentiates the following fields:

    Street Address Line 1
    Street Address Line 2
    City
    State
    Postal Code
    Country


    Discover does not parse Sierra addresses correctly.

    1) New Discover registrations do not parse correctly in Sierra.
    2) Existing registrations in Sierra do not parse correctly in Discover.

    This was the comment by Innovative Staff on this topic:
    Discover does have difficulty with parsing Sierra patron addresses, and this is not changing in the July release. For libraries who do allow patrons to edit their own…

    6 votes

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  12. Some time ago, an idea was submitted to enhance the Sierra API to provide statistical group information, so that circulation transactions in third party applications could be credited to a statistical group other than 0 None.

    The idea won the "Let's Connect Sierra API Challenge."

    With the release of Sierra 6.0, it then became possible to include a new optional data parameter to specify the statistical group that should be used when recording a transaction performed using the APIs.

    My library was excited to hear this, as we'd recently begun using the self-checkout feature in the Bibliocommons' app not long…

    6 votes

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  13. When AACP is turned on and we've loaded new / changed authorities, there are some bib records impacted by the authorities' headings which do not get automatically updated and require staff edits. Sometimes it is terminal punctuation that needs to be added for certain entries perhaps tied to a new closed death date; or sometimes it's an indicator in a bib MARC field that should get added because it's in the authority record that's new or changed. We think just a little bit of development here would help save staff time.

    6 votes

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  14. ILL items- In Transit status and print transit slips
    We have three branches and our ILL department is located at one of the branches. We would like the ILL module to change the status to "In-Transit" instead of "Ready for Pickup" and print a transit slip when the items are being sent to two other branches.

    6 votes

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  15. Currently, it's possible to have item status and OPAC message codes displayed in the summary view. However, we'd like the option to display the full names of these statuses/messages rather than the codes to make things clearer for staff who don't have them memorized.

    6 votes

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  16. Additional options for patron blocks would be amazing and allow additional control for libraries to select what integrated systems or circulation services are available. e.g. Block self-service options in the library (SIP2 or API), however, allow holds to be placed through discovery layers.

    The controls don't have to be limited to this. Adding the functions and options to select how these are applied from Sierra, rather than relying on integrated systems to control this would be great.

    6 votes

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  17. It would be great if the logic & momentum that introduced Send To - Rapid or Global Update in Sierra 6.3 & will soon allow the same shortcut to Delete Items could also be applied to the Notices function.

    I had submitted a similar request that the shortcut be added to Globally Purge Charges & am wondering if this might be combined into one request or if it's easier to introduce them one at a time?

    Use case: each week, Cincinnati generates a list of customers sent a statement of charges (bill notice) via Create Lists. This list is then…

    6 votes

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  18. The form endpoint is used to identify cases in which a patron must place a volume level hold or is restricted to an item's home library as a pickup location. Both of those involve item level specifics and yet the endpoint only works with bib records. This is an issue in particular with multi-location libraries/consortia who use the home pickup feature.

    As an example, a sample bib record has two attached items, one which uses the home pickup feature such that it may only be picked up at library A, and one that does not restrict pickup locations so may…

    6 votes

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  19. Problem: The text of emails sent when using the Approval and Denial notifications in Recommends cannot be currently altered. We would like to be able to provide more customer friendly email templates to patrons that allow us to explain why an item was denied or what the process is for items that are approved.

    Impact: Being able to communicate with our patrons at the outset of the process will save staff time by not having to have go back and forth with customers over email to explain processes and reasons for purchase requests. Additionally it will improve the customer's experience…

    6 votes

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  20. In the PIN reset workflow, when a user enters a new PIN and confirms it with a different value, the message “New PINs do not match” is displayed. Currently, this string does not appear to be configurable via the messages.conf or messages_lang.conf files, and cannot be localized.

    This limits our ability to fully support non-English users and ensure a consistent and accessible user experience across the system.

    Suggested improvement:
    Allow the “New PINs do not match” message to be configured through messages.conf, using a key such as RESETPINSDONTMATCH, or by extending the functionality of the existing REQ

    6 votes

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