Time to Holdshelf Delay Period Not Reflected in SDA Holds Status
The Time to Holdshelf feature in Sierra is useful in keeping patrons from showing up too early to pick up their holds. As seen in the attachment "Discovery Layer View" – which in our case happens to be BiblioCore – the availability status correctly reflects that the recently checked-in item "Easter Mice!" is not ready for pickup because the item is en route to the pickup location (which in this case is a set of freestanding pickup lockers in a remote area of the county).
However, the holds status as displayed in the SDA incorrectly reports the item as being READY FOR PICKUP as seen in the "SDA Holds View" attachment, even though the specified Time to Holdshelf delay is still in effect. If a patron were to, say, call the library to inquire on the status of this item during the delay period, a Public Services staff member would tell the patron the item is ready for pickup when in fact it may not be ready. This runs counter to the intended purpose of the Time to Holdshelf table.
Bob Gaydos
shared this idea
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Elizabeth Wright
commented
We support any enhancements that provide more information to our customers about the status of their holds. This manages expectations. Especially for customers that use lockers (they may need to schedule special visits to that site).
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Jennifer Welsh
commented
Situations where the discovery layer is providing different information to the patron than the ILS is providing to staff are particularly challenging. Since we still have a large number of patrons who access account information over the phone with us, this also puts those patrons at a disadvantage and significantly increases the likelihood that they'll have a frustrating experience of traveling to pick up holds that are not ready.
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Bob Gaydos
commented
Despite being a longtime Innovative shop, we only started using Time to Holdshelf recently with the installation of freestanding hold pickup lockers which are located in a remote area of the county. Our Mobile Services department is managing circ for these lockers, checking holds in at the office and then loading the lockers hours later while out on a route with several stops. So the time to holdshelf is of significant duration, currently set at 6 hours.
Long story short, for six hours each weekday, the SDA is displaying premature status information for those holds.