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ILS - Sierra

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  1. As a consortium, our system has hundreds of location codes. We appreciate the new functionality to add locations to scopes ourselves, but it is cumbersome to scroll through the list of hundreds of branch entries each time to find the code you need to add. It would be helpful if there was search functionality, where you can type in the code, and it brings up the corresponding entry in the branches list for you to select.

    9 votes

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  2. Staff assisting any customers who cannot pickup all their ready holds at once, would benefit from seeing and sorting the expiry date of holds in the patron's holds list. This will assist with preventing their holds from expiring and being placed again.

    9 votes

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    An item's status and pickup expiration date are displayed in the status bar at the bottom of the Holds page as an item is highlighted/selected. While you can't sort by the expiration date, this information is displayed on screen for staff users.

  3. The Situation: Our library's room checkout suddenly shorted to a hard limit of 6:00pm. I discovered that last year's spring break hours were listed in the Hours Open table and last year spring break occurred earlier in March.

    The Problem: Entries in the Hours Open table do not include the year. If the year was included, hour checkout issue wouldn't have been an issue.

    Solution #1: Add the ability to include the year to Hours Open table. Default to the current year but have the ability to change the year.

    Solution #2: Revamp the Hours Open table. Modifying the Hours…

    9 votes

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  4. The only option for eReceipts is plain text. It would be a fantastic feature to customers to be able to build a nice HTML email for them.

    9 votes

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  5. We'd like to see a date/time stamp on the "Restart a process/terminal" display in the Admin Corner and be able to sort by it. We sometimes run out of licenses because staff don't sign out of their SDA sessions at the end of their shifts, and we have to contact Innovative and request that connections older than the current day be closed. It would be helpful to be able to do this ourselves. Currently, we can preemptively reset all connections early in the morning before staff arrive, but if a problem arises during the day we don't want to cause…

    9 votes

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  6. I just learned that Scheduler Output MARC records can't send an FTP password that includes the characters [{}"/

    It will let me save a task with such a password and spend months trying to figure out what's wrong. If it can't deal with a particular password, it should give an error saying what's wrong with the password.

    9 votes

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  7. The automated tool employed by Clarivate support to update iii and iii-root passwords every 30 days has an 8 character limit, which falls short of PCI requirements (15 characters). The Sierra application server, which hosts the web page connecting to PayPal is in scope for PCI, and therefore login credentials that can edit that web page need passwords of 15 characters or more.

    9 votes

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  8. For libraries with floating collections, the branch where an item is marked Claimed Returned may not be reflected in the item record. This is because none of the three Claimed Returned options update the item's location.

    Example

    An item is checked out from Location A.

    The patron reports returning it to Location B, and staff mark it Claimed Returned at Location B.
    The item record still shows Location A.

    When marking an item Claimed Returned, staff have three options:

    1.Add a Claimed Returned note to both the item and patron records.
    2.Remove the checkout link between the patron and the…

    8 votes

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  9. These two fields can be incorporated into searches performed within create lists but are not available among the fields that can be exported or used for sorting. Best title normalized is particularly helpful for data brought into a spreadsheet as the removal of special characters and diacritics can greatly improving sorts and searching.

    These fields are available via SQL, where I make frequent use of them, but for most of our users Create Lists is the only option for extracting data from the system.

    8 votes

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  10. Our library uses automated lockers to lend laptops to patrons for in-house use. We'd like to block patrons whose cards have expired from borrowing until they come to the desk and renew, while still allowing borrowing for patrons blocked for overdues since these items won't be leaving the library. Our vendor is able to accommodate this for other customers because their ILS sends the patron expiration date in the BW field in the 24 response. Sierra's response only indicates the block in the first position of the patron status element, which includes blocks for all reasons, not just account expiration.…

    8 votes

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  11. Ability to find the most checked out item in a year

    Please add a simple way in Sierra to report the most checked out item for a selected year, including the option to show the top five checked out items.

    Currently, this is very difficult or impossible to do directly in Sierra because checkout totals are not stored in a way that allows staff to easily rank items by circulation count for a specific year. Create Lists can find items based on fixed fields, item data, and limited transaction-related criteria, but it cannot easily produce a yearly “most checked out”…

    8 votes

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  12. Currently the only way to extend item due dates is to run Rapid Update on a review file of those items. I would like to be able to programmatically update due dates via the API. I see two potential benefits of this feature:

    Benefit 1: Rapid Update prompts for a single absolute date to apply to a group of items in a review file. There have been many times when we have wanted to extend the due dates of a group of items by "n days", regardless of their current due date. It would be straightforward to write a Python…

    8 votes

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  13. Description:
    Sierra’s “Check Reading History During Homebound Checkout” feature is very helpful, but many homebound materials in our workflow are supplied through holds from other branches. At the hold placement stage, no warning is shown if the patron has previously borrowed the same title, which leads to unnecessary requests and inter-branch transfers.

    Requested enhancement:
    Add an option to display a warning when a hold is placed for a homebound patron if their Reading History shows a previous checkout of the same item or another item attached to the same bibliographic record.

    Benefits:
    - Avoids unnecessary item movement
    - Saves staff…

    8 votes

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  14. When using import invoices, Sierra will warn staff if they are about to process an electronic invoice that shares an invoice number with one already in the system. This can be quite helpful as it's very easy to accidentally download an invoice multiple times if you're not careful.

    However, recently one of our libraries has found that two different vendors have been producing invoices for them using the same numerical range and these are leading to false duplicate warnings.

    It would be helpful if the duplicate check compared both the invoice number and the vendor code, instead of just the…

    8 votes

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  15. Considerable time would be saved if bib records suppressed from public display (by way of a suppression code) were not included in the Headings Report. These bib records are typically from electronic sets or batches that amount to hundreds of records, some with several headings for each record.

    8 votes

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  16. When pulling Low Circulation (or High) reports (Collection Tools > Maintenance), would like to include the Series Title (if applicable) in the displayed (and exported) report. We run into titles that have low circs, but if we see it's in a series, we normally don't weed it, because the series should remain complete. Thus we are stuck using Create Lists for this type of information (either exporting the report as a review file and then exporting fields THAT way or simply starting with Create Lists from the get-go). It would be more convenient if it was included in Decision Center.

    8 votes

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  17. Sierra uses a particular Load Table to determine how bibliographic records are overlaid when new records loaded via Remote Search (i.e., downloaded from another library catalogue using Z39.50)

    According to Sierra's documentation the default Load Table is "m2btab.b", but Innovative can configure Sierra to use another one if desired.

    We have found that certain projects call for different Load Tables because different sets of fields should be retained, discarded, or inserted. It is possible to change to a different Load Table for remote search temporarily (or modify the current Load Table), but that would affect all cataloguers for the duration…

    8 votes

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  18. For volume records, it would be helpful to have 'volume' listed as an option in Admin - Settings - New Record Templates (see attachment). When adding volume records, it would be helpful to have the desired 'volume' template appear in the same way our item record template appears. Currently we have to always select the volume template we want to use. All the other options are listed and it would be nice to have 'volume' listed as well.

    8 votes

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  19. Because our library does not use fines, having the "Failed to acquire fines payment lock. If not cleared, fines payments cannot be processed" message is of no utility for us. We'd love multiple users to be able to view a patron record without this message showing up.

    8 votes

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  20. We'd like to be able to limit access to the Login Names & Parameters section of the Admin Corner (especially the Limit Network Access tables) via permissions. Certain functions, such as load tables, require certain staff members to have access to the Admin app, but having the login names and parameters unrestricted leaves an unnecessary hole in security. There are other functions in Admin Corner that require separate permissions and prompt users to enter their credentials, but not this one.

    8 votes

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