Allow libraries and collection sites to control what patron registration data shows in the patron profile
For example, patrons see a home branch, a registered branch, and a preferred pickup location. With our Polaris ILS, patrons don't actually have a home branch, so it looks like this just gets populated with their registered branch. Some patrons and staff have expressed confusion over this - it would be nice to be able to choose what fields from the patron registration display to the patron on their profile. Since we're a consortium, it would be especially nice if this could be controlled at the collection site level, rather than the higher level.
Bill Taylor
shared this idea
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Mats Nordstrom
commented
We totally agree with this. Some freedom in choosing what fields to be displayed would be very nice for the reasons you state here.
For us a Sierra-library it would also be nice to be able to disable the add extra email-adresses-option. For notices Sierra can only read from the first e-mail-field. So the added adresses won´t recieve any e-mails anyway.
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Mike McClellan
commented
Background – For Polaris, a patron’s registered branch is based on library service area and is set in their patron account. The Polaris ILS links this registered location to system configurations that control what the patron can edit on their account. One library might allow changing their email address directly while another might require the change request to be submitted for library review. The Polaris PAC supports switching between different branches however the ability to change patron settings is tied to their branch regardless of which branch they are viewing. The consortia maintains a best practices for members by which the registered branch is updated on a regular basis.
For Vega consortia, that could mean a patron accessing their patron account from a variety of collection sites depending on my interests and how I was guided to the collection site url.
Vega currently supports one configuration for all libraries. What is desired is a mechanism by which Vega sees the ILS registered branch and offers the Polaris ILS options for that branch. Not a global setting nor a collection site since a patron might be accessing Vega from a different perspective than their registered library.
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Sarah Cournoyer
commented
The member libraries in our consortia have a variety of settings and desired info. It would be useful to have collection site and Polaris PAC settings in place.
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Alison Hoffman
commented
I will echo Mike's comment. In a consortia of independent member libraries, where each library has different configurations at the branch level, the patron account features, especially the options to edit a patron's account, need to be set at the collection site level and honor the Polaris PAC settings. As the functionality currently stands, the results are confusing for users and essentially unusable.
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Mike McClellan
commented
In addition, Polaris consortia may have different configurations at the library or branch level that are not honored by all libraries. One library might allow PAC editing and another might require the change to be mediated by the library. Thus not only should these features be set at the collection site level, but need to honor the Polaris PAC settings as well.