About alerts
Alerting enables OLIB to be configured so that emails or text messages containing your own text are automatically sent to users and/or members of staff for a variety of reasons. Alerting emails are relevant to all operational areas of OLIB and the content of the emails are configured in the Notices domain; text messages are limited currently to the list below but are also configured in Notices. OLIB includes a number of example notices as standard to illustrate how to configure each type of notice. Do a wildcard search in the Notices domain to show both the new sample notices and any existing notices previously created on your system.
Caution: from the Notices hit list in Other Actions, use the Create Close Copy action / method to copy these example notices. Use the copied record as a basis for your own notices. It is advisable to make a copy of the example notices rather than amend them, as the example notices may be overwritten by the next upgrade of OLIB. (Note that your copy is distinguishable by notice number; the numbers of the example notices all start with the letters OP).
Note: each notice has a different layout depending on the notice's Notice Type. Only the fields relevant to that Notice Type are displayed and fields are labelled appropriately.
Configuration
It is possible to apply a global From address for all emails, and also to configure OLIB so that the email address that is entered in the From Address field in the notice record is put in alternative email headers such as On-Behalf-Of and Reply-To. This means for example, hosted systems can all have an oclc.org From Address (by dint of the system being implemented on the managed service) - but also a local library Reply-To, so recipients can actually reply to the email. This is set during alerting configuration.
SMS alerts
You can also send the following list of alerts via SMS text messaging. This can be instead of, or as well as email alerting:
- Overdues
- Recalls
- Reservation Held Notifications
- Loans Due Reminders
The following SMS aggregators can be used for alerts:
- Blackboard ConnexTxt
- Janet txt from PageOne
- firetext
Account discrepancy alerts
OLIB can be configured to send an email to the email address specified in the To List field to alert someone to the fact that there had been a discrepancy in the Committed and/or Spent amounts for the account instances listed in the email which daystart automatically corrected.
Book notices
Notices can be sent to notify on the status of your library’s book orders and book claims.
Broadcast emails
You can configure OLIB to send an email to everyone with an email address in the Users table, for example to announce the introduction of a new service in the library.
Circ issue notice
This notice can be used if the item is issued before the Reservation Held alert has been sent.
Circ issued in transit notice
An alerting email can be sent to the Location where an In Transit copy has been issued.
Circulation transaction alerts
Notices that can be sent when a specific Circulation transaction occurs, e.g. Unseen Renewal.
Enquiry notices
Notices can be sent to notify on the status of Enquiries Received, Enquiries Responded to and Enquiries Allocated.
Link checker failure notice
This feature is used to check that the urls linked as attached objects in OLIB are still valid. The link checking process is included in Daystart and can be configured to send you an alert if any links fail the check.
Loan reminders SMS
OLIB can send an email alert to a user at a pre-determined number of days before an item is due back - to remind the User to return it or renew it. The email can include a URL which will take the user to his/her account details in WebView to facilitate the self-renewal process.
Notification of submission and/ or rejection of purchase suggestion
OLIB can be configured to send an alert to a nominated member of staff to alert them to the fact that a user has just submitted a purchase suggestion in Folio. Purchase Suggestion Notices can be sent to multiple addresses. A Purchase Suggestion Rejection Notice can also be sent.
Notification of submission of enquiry
OLIB can be configured to send an alert to a nominated member of staff to alert them to the fact that a User has just submitted an enquiry in Folio.
Orders
The Example Order notice is used for emailing orders to suppliers.
Order item checked in
Used to send a 'received in the library' notice to a user for whom an order item was ordered - the Ordered For user(s).
Overdues SMS
This important function in Circulation uses Alerting as well as other Circulation reference data, to determine when and which overdue notices are sent to which users. As with other alerts, Overdues Notices are configured in the Notices domain and your SMTP server name is configured in Program Config. SMS alerting enabled.
Password expiry
OLIB can be configured to expire a User's password within a given interval, e.g. 90 days. When this is in place you also need to configure one or more notices to alert the Users that their password is about to expire.
Recall notices SMS
Items that are to be recalled can be identified via an alert for automatic recalls. Recall notices use the same reference data as Overdues.
Reservation notices
OLIB can be configured to send alerts to notify: Reservations Received, Reservations Cancelled, Reservations Confirmed, Reservations HeldSMS, Reservations Soon to be Expired, Reservations To Cancel, Reservations Notifications including a Held Reservation Soon To Be Cancelled and a Held Reservation To Be Cancelled notice.
Serial alerts
OLIB can be configured to send Serial Issue Claim notices, Serial Orders & Serial Orders Claim notices, Circulation List alerts and notification of serial issues deleted. Notices can be set to notify when serial issues are checked In.
Title record update alert
To notify library staff when a title record has been updated
User import process alert
This notice can be set up to notify you if batches of user records being imported by the overnight Daystart process succeed or fail.
User notices
Alerts can be sent to notify you of users who have self-registered via the OPAC and Users who have updated their Account Details.
User account update alert
This alert can notify staff or users when an update has occurred to a User record, for example you may want to send an alerting email to the User when their password has been changed. A list of fields can be 'watched' by OLIB so that an alert is sent when one of these fields has changed.
User list of loans
An alert email can be sent to users a pre-determined number of days before their membership is due to expire to remind them that they have items on loan and that these items should be returned before they leave.