MnLINK VDX Blog

Question: I know this has been covered many times before, but I don’t remember the answer to the question. A request comes back as non-supplied. How long is that information accessible on MnLINK so the patron can check their account and see that the item is not available anywhere?

Response: Once the last possible lender in the rota responds ANSWER NONSUPPLY the request moves into the Borrower’s Not Supplied work queue. In ZPortal they do not see Not Supplied, the user sees the status Currently unavailable through MnLINK. 30 days after the request moves into the Borrower Not Supplied queue the system will automatically Complete the request. Your library has the option of Completing the request sooner. Once the request is marked Complete, either manually by your library or with the 30 day default Complete, the request is no longer viewable by your user in their ZPortal account.

Just an added note, 30 days after any request has been marked Complete the Client Name and Client Barcode are removed from the Borrower Details of the request.

Posted by Nick at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We don't want to penalize our users for problems on our end. They don't always understand all of the intricacies that go on behind the scenes to make their material appear at their library.

This situation arose the other day. A request is Shipped by the Lender to the Borrower. The material subsequently is lost while in transit to the Borrower. This request will continue to count against the user's request limit until the request is removed from your patron's account.

An option would be to remove the patron name from the request. You can not delete the patron name from a request, but you can replace it. To do this you would need to have a valid library card. Most likely you would use a dummy or test card. You need to choose Local Change Request Details as the Action. Select the Borrower tab and enter the new card number in the Client Barcode box and click on the Validate button. This should change the Client Name and in turn remove the item from the previous patron when you click on the Submit button.

Another option would be for the Borrower to manually Complete the request. It is usually not a good idea to Complete an active request. Completing the request will remove the request from the user's account, but it will still be open for the Lender. You may want to add a Local Note with an explanation about why the request is Complete. If the Lender sends a Message, the request will reopen for the Borrower even though it has been Completed.

Posted by Nick at 4:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What happens to a request when it is Completed? Why do we need to complete requests?

When you Complete a request it is suppressed and it starts a 30 day countdown to the removal of the requester's name. The patron information is removed to comply with the Minnesota Data Practices Act.

What are the automatic or manual completed requests?

A request that has been Checked In has run it's course and by choosing that action it is automatically Complete for both parties, the Lender and the Borrower. There are also some actions which will auto-Complete for the Lender while leaving the request open for the Borrower. When you choose to Not Supply a request you are Completing the request as a lender, or if you choose the response Conditional Reply-No you are Completing the request for the Lender. Responding Cancel Reply-Yes is another auto-Complete action for the Lender. There are no actions by the Borrower which will auto-Complete a request.

Any time you manually Complete a request it may still be open for the other party in the transaction. As a Lender and a Borrower there are several instances where you will need to manually Complete requests. You manually Complete requests when you select the Complete button from the brief results display. A few examples are as follows, both parties in a transaction will need to manually Complete a request which is Lost. This is an action you will both need to communicate that the time is right to Complete the request. The Borrower's Not Supplied requests are probably the most common reason you will manually Complete requests. And there are many more times you will manually Complete a request.

Very soon we will be instituting a new functionality which will Complete Not Supplied requests for the Borrower. 30 days after the Borrower's request has taken the status of Not Supplied an automatic nightly update will Complete the request. You will still be able to manually Complete the Not Supplied requests if you would like to remove them before the 30 days is up.

Posted by Nick at 4:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Has anyone else notice the rise in Cancelled requests since the introduction of the Cancel option on the ZPortal? These requests need to be manually completed out of the Borrower Work Queue. Unless you are planning on sending a notification about these Cancelled requests, the process is very easy. The vast majority of these Cancelled requests had the process initiated by the requester.

To start, click on the corresponding number for Cancelled in the Borrower Work Queue. The patron initiated cancellations are usually the ones which have the red note "Request No Longer Required". Select the Bulk Action option of Select all at the top of the page. On the right hand side of the screen you can uncheck any Bulk box that you do not want to Bulk Action. If you have more than one page of results, go to the next page and repeat these steps. You can easily Complete more than a hundred requests at once. When you have selected all of the requests you want to Complete, click Submit. When the Bulk Action screen appears, select the Complete button on the lower left side of the screen. Completing requests does not take as long to process as performing an Action on more that 100 requests. If you do this every couple of days, it should only take you a couple of minutes.

Posted by Nick at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the Lender’s Work Queue you may occasionally see a file for Checked In. You may be wondering, “how can there be a Checked In file because aren’t requests automatically completed when they are Checked In?” You would be correct that Checked In is an action which will automatically Complete a request. So what causes this file to appear?

A valid Action will reopen a Completed request. After a request has been auto-completed by Check In, if the Borrowing party in the transaction performs an action of Returned the request will reopen in the Lender’s work queue as well as in the Borrower’s Work Queue. Since the request has already been Checked In it can not be Checked In a second time by the Lender. The proper thing to do with these requests is to manually Complete them.

When you click on the Lender Work Queue Checked In number the requests will take a very long time to appear and sometimes you will even get an error page from it taking so long. An alternative that seems to work better is on the Advanced Request Search page change the radio button on Your Library’s Role to Lender. Then select Checked In from the Status options directly to the right. Then click Submit.

These requests from the Borrower side are not very obvious. The key to recognizing these reopened requests from the Borrower side is to look closely at the Audit Details. I have not figured out a way to isolate the requests through a single search. Look at the Date column and the associated Action. When an Action has been performed after Checked In this is possibly a mistake and can be manually Completed.

One valid possibility to watch for would be if someone reopened a Checked In request with the Action of Message. If someone is sending you a Message they are probably expecting a response.

Posted by Nick at 4:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)