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Patron notifications

There are several types of patron email notifications that staff can configure in ReShare. The following different types of email notifications are supported:

  • Request confirmation

  • Cancellation

  • Unfilled

  • Request over limit

  • Article/book chapter delivered

  • Digital loan delivered (CDL)

Note: ReShare does not send an email notification to a patron when the item is received at the requesting library. This is because an item may often go in transit to its pickup location and not be available immediately upon receipt for pick-up. That email notification that indicates that an item is available for pick-up is sent from the library’s integrated library system (ILS).

 

Configuring patron email notifications is divided into two parts; notice templates and notice policies.

Notice templates

The first step when configuring email notifications is to set up notice templates. Templates contain the text of the notice that will be sent to the patron. A template should be set up for each different type of email notification you wish to send to your patrons.

To create a notice template:

  1. Navigate to Settings>Resource sharing>Notice templates

  2. Click the “New” button.

  3. Populate the template fields and click “Save and close.”

 

Tokens

Notice templates allow the use of tokens or variables that stand for a piece of information that will be inserted based on the value in the request to which the actual notice relates. To insert tokens, click on the icon that looks like a set of curly brackets {} and select one or more tokens. Tokens can be moved around in your template just like regular text – just be sure to keep the formatting intact. They can also be used in the subject line.

Once a token is added to the template the field will display with double curly brackets around the field, e..g. {{item.title}}

Links

In addition to the request information that will be configured as part of the body of the notice, notice templates can be configured to contain links to library help pages etc. To create a link to direct a patron to a local library page highlight the text you wish to be hyper-linked and click the icon. An enter link: box will appear at the bottom of the body of the template to allow you to enter the URL to direct the patron to. If you wish to provide a link to an email address, precede the email address with mailto: e.g., mailto:name@library.edu

Example templates

Notice policies

Once you have created one or more notice templates, you will define when each template is sent using a notice policy.

  1. Navigate to Settings>Resource sharing>Notice policies

  2. Click the “New” button.

  3. Populate the notice policy name and description.

  4. The “Active” box is checked by default. To inactivate a notice policy in the future, edit the policy and uncheck the “Active” box.

  1. Click “Add notice” to configure the following:

    1. Template: The notice template that will be used for this notice policy.

    2. Format: The method of sending. Note that only email is supported at this time.

    3. Trigger: The action in the system that will cause the notice to be sent.

    4. Send in real time: If is this selected, the notice will be sent when the trigger occurs. If unchecked, it will be batched and sent overnight.

Triggers

The following triggers are associated with the following different email notification types:

Email notification type

Trigger

Request confirmation

New request

Cancellation

Request cancelled

Unfilled

End of rota

Request over limit

Over limit

Article/book chapter delivered

Document delivered

Digital loan delivered (CDL)

Loaned digitally

Example policies

Tips and tricks

  • To edit either a notice policy or template, select the policy or template from the list and choose the option:

  • To duplicate either a notice policy or template, select the policy or template from the list and choose the option. Duplicating a notice template can be advantageous when adding several notice templates at once to minimize having to recreate the body of the template from scratch.

  • To delete a notice policy or template, select the policy or template from the list and choose the Delete option.

Note: A notice template cannot be deleted if it is associated with a notice policy. First remove it from the notice policy and then delete the template.

 

Demo

Operated as a Community Resource by the Open Library Foundation