Horizon 7.5.4 Bug: Corrupted Prior Circ Info When 'Transit Hold' Item is Checked in as Damaged Twice

If a transit hold item is checked in as damaged twice in a row, the circ_history record is corrupted. That second damaged checkin will change the borrower on the Prior Circ Info to the borrower who requested the item, not the borrower who last checked it out and presumably damaged it.

This is a known bug for the Horizon 7.5.4 upgrade and may be fixed in the next upgrade.


rev. 4/2018

Renewal Options and Limits

When you renew an item for a patron, the following message always appears: 

• Clicking "Yes" (the items are present) is categorized as an "Other Renewal".

• Clicking "No" (the items are not present) is categorized as a "Phone Renewal".

An override message displays if the borrower has reached the renewal limit for the selected item. The wording of this override will be slightly different depending how the previous renewals were counted: "Other" or "Phone".

Either way, you can override the maximum number of renewals under certain situations as permitted by library policy (i.e. no outstanding holds on the item). Note: not all staff have Horizon permissions to override the maximum.

rev. 4/2018

Where does the email address go in a customer record?

In regards to the new Perm/Mailing/Temp address types, if the borrower has more than one address, it does make a difference which type their email address is attached to.

If a customer has:

• Perm Only – Use Perm to set email address & related fields
• Mailing & Perm – Use Mailing to set email address & related fields
• Temp & Mailing/Perm – Use Temp to set email address & related fields. When those dates expire, it will revert to whatever method is set in the Mailing/Perm.

Note: This affects hold and overdue notices. Preoverdue notices don’t care where the email address is listed on the record; they are controlled by a separate program. Lost notices are always printed and mailed to the borrower. If

In case, the email is not put on the proper address type, don’t worry. The notification will still be sent by print or phone (based on other settings in the record). 


rev. 4/2018

Unusual Emails of ValleyCat Records

Recently, a peson from another state called to report they were receiving emails like this for titles/items in ValleyCat. They have never been a borrower. What's going on? Are they being spammed? 

No, someone is not using ValleyCat to spam people. Unless we get more reports, this is most likely one person trying to harass another person by emailing them ValleyCat records.  It only happens once every few years. Actually ValleyCat isn't a very effective way to spam someone, since you can only email from the search results screen, the only thing you can change is the subject line and you can only send one record/email at a time.

Tell the person receiving the annoying emails to add the 'From' email address pictured above to their spam filter to prevent any more of these emails from reaching them. 


rev. 4/2018

Borrower Moves From One SJVLS Jurisdiction to Another

If a patron has moved to Fresno County permanently, but was previously registered at another SJVLS library (Coalinga-Huron, Kern County, Kings County, Madera County, Mariposa County, Merced, Porterville, Tulare County, or Tulare Public), update their borrower record as follows:

i.   Update their address, email and/or phone as appropriate
ii.  Change the Location field to your branch code
iii. Change the BType to the appropriate FCPL code i.e. FAD, FCH, FYA, etc.
iv. Change the Bstat to the appropriate FCPL code i.e. f93705, f93721
v.  Change the Internet access to either Fresno Filtered or Fresno Unfiltered

It is not necessary to issue them a new library card.


rev. 4/2018

Looking Up Prior Borrower Information

Ocassionally an item arrives in the shipment damaged or missing disks. It would be nice to know the name of the prior borrower to charge them for the damage or contact them regarding the missing parts.

The name of the prior borrower is on the item record for 15 days after the item has been returned. That amount of time is typically the most an item might be in the shipment as it travels from one location to another. But once that time has elapsed, there's no way to tell who had it out last. We do not want to retain prior borrower info longer than that as one way to safeguard patrons' privacy in case their library records are subpeonaed.

To find prior borrower:

• F2 - Search by item barcode
• At the bib record - Show Copies
• Highlight the item - click Detail Status at the bottom of the screen.
• A new window opens. Page Down until you reach the Prior Circ Info section. 
• If it's been less than 15 days since the item was returned, the borrower's name will appear here. If this section is blank, it's been more than 15 days. 

rev. 4/2018

New Address type in Horizon

One of the changes in the Horizon 7.5.4 upgrade is the addition of a 3^rd address type: MAILING.  The following are the correct ways to input the 3 different addresses.

ADDRESS – PERM – Borrower's physical address of their permanent residence. REQUIRED for all borrowers.

* Enter address in ALL CAPS, no punctuation, on a single line whenever possible.

* Put the apartment (APT), suite (STE), mobile home space (SPC), etc. at the end.
* If the street name makes the address too long to put apartment/unit number at the end, put the APT / STE on Line 1 and the street address on Line 2.
* Proper entry of mailing address affects our postal rates and is based on USPS standards.

DO NOT enter PO Boxes here. See MAILING.

ADDRESS – MAILING – Use only if borrower has an address for mail delivery of correspondence / notices that differs from their PERMANENT address.

* Click "New" to create an additional address.
* Click “Mailing” radio button

ADDRESS – TEMP – Use only if borrower has a temporary mailing address, e.g. summer resident or college student

* Click “New” to create an additional address
* Click the “Temp” radio button.
* Enter the begin and end date for which that address will be used, using the format DD/MM/YYYY
* Enter the street address, City St, and postal code following rules
*If a customer had both a PO Box and physical (temporary) address, set the Begin and End dates for the Temp address in the past. Otherwise their temp (physical) address will be used to send them mail instead of their perm (PO Box) address. To make this easier set Begin = yesterday's date (i.e. 5/1/2017) and End = today's date (i.e. 5/2/2017).

The complete SJVLS Borrower Registration Data Entry Standards can be found here.

rev. 2/2018

Horizon 7.5.4 Bug - Wrong Name on Payment Receipt

Update: A temporary fix to the 'crashing' side of the problem was implemented 11/1/16. The name of the borrower on the payment receipt has been replaced with the libary card barcode of the borrower. It only prints the last few digits of the barcode to help protect customers' accounts from being used for other services. But it should be enough to verify the account name and barcode together if they present the receipt later with questions.

Note: placing the barcode on the receipt did not correct the other part of the bug. It could still print the barcode for the borrower that's currently on the item record. But the fine payment is truly credited to the correct borrower.


UPDATE 2/2018:

Another issue is when checking in items and trying to print a return receipt in Horizon is that this will crash Horizon.  This is only when printing a return receipt. 

The only way to 'correct' the issue of wrong name printing on cki or payment receipts is to remove the name from payment or cki receipts altogether.

You can aso avoid the cki receipt issue by checking in and issuing a return receipt through CircIt.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

When we upgraded to Horizon 7.5.4 in October, 2016, a bug was introduced into the system. The payment receipt prints the name and/or barcode number for the borrower that’s currently on the item record (i.e. has the paid for item checked out) - not the borrower who's paid the fine. Don't worry though. It’s only cosmetic. The fine payment is truly credited to the correct borrower.

In this example, Julianne Starner paid fines on her account, but Lupe Vasquez's name appears on the payment receipt. That's because Lupe has the Deadwood item checked out.

Another symptom of this problem was that Horizon would crash during the payment transaction. The payment was still made to the correct account, but staff had to log back into Horizon.

We will probably have to live with this until the next upgrade. Simply cross out the wrong name and write in the correct borrower's name and reassure/show the customer their fines were indeed paid.

rev. 4/2018

Shipment Check In

As of today, shipment should be checked in using regular check in. Previously, it has been standard practice to check in shipment using exempt check in. This change in practice is to remain consistent with Policy 16.6-1, Volunteer Use of Horizon, which does not allow volunteers access to exempt check in status because it could affect the fines/fees posted to a borrower's account. Since many branches use volunteers for shipment check in, this practice is being updated.


rev. 5/2018

Telemessaging Won't Call Numbers With 999 Prefix

Prefixes (not area codes) beginning with 999 are not dialed by Telemessaging.
The Telemessaging software is written to block calls with the prefix “999” (e.g. 559-999-1234). This is related to the fact that the company that developed the Telemessaging software has headquarters in New Zealand and associated offices in Australia and the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom and some other countries, “999” is commonly used as an emergency number, like “911” in the United States.

This affects over 1,770 borrowers at this time. Telemessaging will not work for these phone numbers. These customer should use an alternate phone number of select an alternate notification method. 

Also see "Area Codes and TeleMessaging"

New ATTN block when you need to see customer about their acct

A new ATTN block has been added to Horizon that can be applied to a borrower's account when staff needs to talk to them regarding their account (i.e. DVD case turned in without the DVD; library card left at desk, etc.) It prevents the customer from checking out at self check. The language on the block will say "Problem with account, contact library staff for specifics." Make sure the note you include with the block describes the issue so any staff member can resolve the question/problem.

Many branches have been using the Address Correction Request (ACR) block for this purpose. Bad idea. Using the ACR block stops any future printed or email notices from being generated for that customer for holds, overdues and lost items, and therefore should not be used for anything other than an address correction.  Click here for more information. 

Proper Use of Address Correction Request Block

The Address Correction Request block should only be used when the customer's address is incorrect and needs to be updated. 

Do NOT use the 'acr' block for any other reason. 

Why? Because this block stops any future printed or email notices from being generated for that customer for holds, overdues and lost items. Any unreturned items will go into Lost status 60 days after they were due and the customer’s account will be charged accordingly. But they won't ever get a notice telling them that. 

If the customer has phone notices, they will still receive notices for holds and overdue items. But if those overdue items go to lost, they will not receive the final overdue or lost notices because those are always sent by US Mail regardless of the customer's notice setting.

No L in Front of Lost Library Card Barcode

Do NOT put an 'L' in the front of a lost library card Barcode field. This may have been the practice at one time, but it's not any longer. Continuing to do so will negatively affect other Horizon processes.

Note: Normally, the Barcode and Barcode ID fields should always match. However in the rare case when a borrower declares their card lost, but does not want another one issued, it is okay to edit the Barcode ID field to have an L in front. This will prevent the lost card from being used as a secondary look-up point for some processes. 

Rev. 5/2018

Data Entry Standard for Borrower's with No Phone#

If the borrower does not have a phone number, enter 000-000-0000 in the phone field of the borrower's record. Set the phone type to h-no (Home-No Telephone Notices). This is part of the Borrower Registration Data Entry Standards set by the San Joaquin Valley Library System.

Phone Notice Customer Is Mailed a Notice

Scenario: your customer's account is set to receive their notices by phone. So why did receive a notice in the mail?

Reason 1: The automated telephone messaging service (TM3) calls the customer to deliver the hold or overdue notice. If it is unsuccessful after 3 tries (no answer, line disconnected, fax machine, not ringing, etc.), that notice will be printed and mailed via USPS the next business day. Look at the notification block on the customer's account to see whether it was complete or incomplete.

What can you do? Verify the customer's phone number. Do they have an answering machine? There are a few types of answering machines that do not work with TM3.  TM3 only recognizes these area codes. Do they have an alternate number? Would they like to try email notification instead?

Complete - the notice was delivered by phone

Phone Notice Incomplete - TM3 could not deliver the notice so it will be mailed the next business day.

Reason 2: Final overdue notices (we've told you before, but you'll be charged if you don't return the item) and lost notices (the item is now lost and you owe this much) are always printed and mailed - regardless of what notice type the customer has selected. Click here to see how much time elapses between the first overdue and lost notice.

Dos and Don’ts of Changing the Hold Pickup Location

You can change the pickup location of a customer's hold, but only in certain circumstances...otherwise the hold will never be filled.

Scenario: your customer has moved and wants to pick up all their outstanding requests at the branch closest to their new home. It is okay to change the hold pickup location for a customer’s hold as follows:

• The old and new pickup location must be within the same library jurisdiction. So you can change it from Clovis to Fig Garden. But never Beale Library (Kern County) to Fig Garden (Fresno County).*
•  You can change the pickup location anytime before an item is attached to the request or if the status of the request / item = transit hold / transit request. If it's already on the hold shelf or expired, no dice. 

*Do NOT Change Pickup Locations from One Jurisdiction to Another Jurisdiction

Why? Because this method circumvents the holds rules in place for each jurisdiction so there's a good chance the hold will never be filled because the item will never appear on the pull list of an owning library. 

Yes, Horizon will let you change the pickup location from Beale Library (Kern County) to Fig Garden (Fresno County), but the request will never be filled. Even your customer is #1 in the queue, all the other requests will just jump over it as they are filled first. 

Some staff have tried to 'help' their customers who have been blocked from placing a hold on a title by making the request through say Kern County’s ValleyCat page (or in Horizon under a Kern County Location). After the request is made with a Kern County pickup location, they manually change it to one of Fresno's pick up locations. This 'work around' does not help the customer. In fact, it pretty much ensures they will never get the item - even if Fresno buys their own copies. 

The customer should wait and place a hold on that title when there are requestable copies available. Chances are that will occur shortly if it's a new popular title. If not, staff or the customer can make a Request for Purchase or an ILL as appropriate. 


rev. 5/2018