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  1. Prior to Sierra 5.3, when placing a series of holds for a patron in the Sierra Desktop App, the search terms would be retained from one title to the next. For example, if a patron wants holds placed for all seasons of the TV show How I Met Your Mother, a staff member with the patron's record open will click Add Holds, type the search terms "how i met your mother" in the Browse dialog and click Search. A suitable title is located and a hold is placed on it. All good so far.

    The undesirable behavior is observed when…

    18 votes

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  2. This proposal suggests enhancing the Patron API key creation process by incorporating a Stat Group field, allowing staff to categorize API keys by vendor and track their usage using existing reporting tools. The proposed enhancement would modify the API key creation window to include an optional Stat Group field towards the bottom. If left blank, the default stat group (zero) would be assigned, maintaining current functionality. This change addresses a common issue where vendors do not implement the stat group provided by the library, often resulting in API-driven transactions being categorized under stat group 0. This leads to inaccurate or…

    17 votes

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  3. The problem that's prompting this suggestion:
    I work at Gondor Library. An item arrives from Rohan Library (outside of scope) to fulfill a hold for my Gondor patron. But staff notices it has damage that has NOT been noted in the record (or on the physical object).

    Gondor staff have two choices.
    a) the damage is extensive enough that we decide to not fulfill the hold and send it back to the owning library, Rohan.
    b) we use our judgement to decide whether the Rohan book's damage is minor enough to fulfill the hold.
    For example, only light stains on…

    17 votes

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  4. Many libraries are creating individual logins for each staff member. Staff needs the ability to change their password in case they forget it. At this point, they need to be logged into the SDA to change their password which doesn't help if they can't remember it.

    17 votes

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  5. There is currently a setting allowing us to prevent logins from editing records with a location code outside of their current scope. However, users are able to edit records in their scope to have location codes outside of their scope, which then blocks them from being able to edit the records again. This happens accidentally sometimes, and is particularly a problem in Rapid Update. It would be great if item location dropdowns in Rapid Update, and possibly the item record as well, only showed locations in the user's scope in order to prevent this problem. Alternately, the system could prevent…

    17 votes

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  6. Spine Label Queues are only available in the current session and do not save. We are able to print spine labels (sheet or continuous) from Create Lists, but cannot apply print templates with this function. Can we either have the option to apply print templates when wanting to print batches of labels via Create Lists and/or have the option to hold on to our spine label queues for more than just the current session?

    17 votes

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  7. Sierra has a mechanism for parsing the free text entered into patron address fields in the client into separate fields for elements such as city/state/postal code that exist in the patronrecordaddress table. Those distinct fields may then be searched in create lists or utilized in SQL queries. However, the algorithm used to parse out those data points is extremely rigid in terms of the data it expects to see and is quite prone to mapping data incorrectly if an address entered into a patron record does not conform to those guidelines.

    For one common example in our system…

    16 votes

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  8. Add the ability to suppress subfield 1 in the 1xx field so it will not show in Sierra. This way it can be unsuppressed when the library starts using linked data.

    16 votes

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  9. The ability to log into admin corner, view all users and with one click disable them (not delete, but deny them log in access) would be helpful for those with revolving part time employees.

    We have student employees that change out regularly, but sometimes they come back as graduate student help, etc within a short time.

    Being able to simply turn off an employees access and review it within a year or less to determine if it should be deleted or held would be helpful for keeping our staff accounts cleaned up.

    16 votes

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  10. We require certain information to create a library card, however Sierra does not enforce this requirement at the system level. Since it isn't mandatory, some data simply never gets captured and creates more work on the backend.

    Beyond that, having certain information in the record would allow us to build a better understanding of our usership so that we can make better decisions as an organization.

    I especially would love the ability to require any and all of the fixed-length fields; especially patron category, birthdate, home library, and notice preference.

    16 votes

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  11. So as we've seen repeatedly despite training & periodic reminders to exercise caution, the putrid corpse of liberty can really do a number on the Clear Holdshelf Report. We see disturbingly frequent scenarios where someone at one of our locations is not careful & winds up wiping out the holdshelf report for all 40 other branches. While we're fortunate to have someone here who has created a sort of recovery tool, we'd like to see the potential for such chaos somehow eliminated.

    16 votes

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  12. It would be very helpful to be able to print a Statement of Charges directly from a patron record (and have it formatted for 8-1/2 x 11 paper and mail-ready).

    For context, we are a 138-library consortium, all notices are Auto Notices, and we do not run Statement of Charges for the consortium. Yes, you can run a statement for 1 patron in the Notices function, but this requires consortium staff intervention since that permission is locked down to consortium staff. It would be much simpler for our member libraries to be able to print such a statement on an…

    16 votes

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  13. When working in a Sierra bib record, I would like to click on the author, series and subject fields so I can see a list of records that have those same authors, series, and subjects. Encore has this capability. I would like to see it in Sierra.

    16 votes

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  14. When going through various Headings Reports, we'll end up reviewing the same bib record that has multiple first-time-use entries throughout the report. It would be nice if they could be sorted by the bib record to reduce staff time and stay in the same record as long as needed.

    Perhaps the bib record could be pulled from the Entry column and inserted into a new column in the display that could then be sorted like the other available columns.

    16 votes

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  15. Notify user when a patron linked to the current patron has holds available for pickup. This would eliminate the need to check individual accounts. The also eliminates having a patron leave without all the available holds for that family.

    16 votes

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  16. In Rapid Update, if a value is selected by first typing in the value field and then clicking on a result in the dropdown menu, the wrong value shows up in the Current Command list. According to Innovative, this is because the expected workflow is to use either just the keyboard or just the mouse. The functionality should be adjusted to allow the mixed use of keyboard and mouse.

    Idea Value
    Library staff don't always notice when they follow this workflow and then end up with the wrong value selected. In our consortium, this sometimes happens with location codes, and…

    16 votes

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  17. Our library wants to provide the patron validate role to our vendors.
    But, we do not want to give the vendors any read or write roles.

    We do this now with several vendors, but the authentication does not update the "last circ activity" field in the patron record.

    Is it possible to add a new permission that would only allow authentication but update the "last circ activity" field in the patron record.

    Why add this feature?
    Our library purges patron that don't circulate for X number of years. We don't want to delete patrons that are actively using our eVendor…

    15 votes

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  18. It would be helpful for us to have access to the history of item and volume records, including details of their creation and any subsequent edits. This would improve our ability to track changes and ensure accountability if any issues come up.

    15 votes

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  19. In our library, all in-transit items are put into a single bin at the check-in location to be picked up and run through a central sorter which separates them by destination. This workflow doesn't require the use of transit slips, so our staff are trained to choose not to print one when prompted at check-in.

    Having to choose "no" at check-in for each item can become onerous when staff are checking in many items, but currently the only alternative is to have the system automatically print a transit slip for every item — which would simply be a waste of…

    15 votes

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  20. In Sierra, on Windows 11, when you click "Tile Vertically" so you can see multiple records at the same time, it makes the windows too long, so that the bottom of the windows get hidden behind the taskbar if it is locked. It does not do this if you maximize a record window, or if you use snap. It only seems to be the "Tile Vertically" function.

    We use this function a lot to compare records for deduplication, and it is really annoying to have to manually resize windows so you can see the whole thing.

    15 votes

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