Maintenance install Sunday

A scheduled QuestionPoint maintenance installation is planned for this Sunday, September 23.  The system will be brought down at 0700 GMT and will remain down for approximately 15 minutes.  Please make sure to end any in-progress chat sessions prior to 0700 GMT to avoid sudden communication interruptions to your patrons. When service is restored, please check your “New” questions lists for any interrupted chat sessions or unanswered email questions. 

The information below describes the user-apparent changes you will see after the system is brought back up.  We will post the expected down time in the Announcements area of the My QuestionPoint home page.  Please check there for any last-minute changes.  Please let us know if you have any questions.

1. Features

1.1. Exclude transcripts of sessions with others’ patrons from your question lists.

Institutions that participate in the QuestionPoint 24/7 Reference Cooperative are required to review transcripts of chat sessions with their patrons, to ensure that quality is being maintained within the cooperative. Many institutions choose to do this review using the Active Questions list in the Ask module, where they can close or forward transcripts as they review them. Since that list also contains transcripts of sessions the reviewing library had with other libraries’ patrons, the review process can be cumbersome as the reviewer picks her/his way through many transcripts s/he does not need to review.

With the new feature, institution administrators can select a setting in the Administration module that will exclude transcripts with other libraries’ patrons from their Active Questions list. If this option is selected, only those transcripts with the library’s own patrons will display. The setting is at Administration/Institution/Settings/Chat Transcripts.

The Exclude feature is available to any library that uses Flash-based chat and picks up chat sessions for other libraries’ patrons. In order for the exclusion to work reliably, however, chat librarians must select a resolution code at the end of the chat session; accepting the default resolution code will not work.

The default Exclude/Include setting includes transcripts with others’ patrons, as is the case today. If the administrator elects to exclude these transcripts, the change affects only transcripts from that point forward. The change is not retroactive.

In the illustration below, the two transcripts circled in red would not appear in the Active Questions list if the Exclude setting had been selected.

1.2. Cooperative Resources available from the My QuestionPoint home page.

For 24/7 Reference Cooperative participants, the 24/7 Info components have been added to the My QuestionPoint home page, Cooperative Resources (top red bar and in the right-margin quick links, 5^th section).

Cooperative Resources includes a link to FirstSearch and to Credo Reference (formerly Xrefer). Participants can also see: 

· A list of all institutions in the Cooperative

· A Ready Reference wiki, which was compiled by the QuestionPoint back-up librarians and provides quick, authoritative starting points that librarians can use during live chat sessions. 

· A list of subject experts to whom participants can forward questions

· A list of administrators of the groups that make up the Cooperative

1.3. Notes in transcripts appear in a different color.

Anyone using the Flash-based chat monitor will appreciate seeing notes appear in a different color (reddish brown) from the discussion text. This enables you to see instantly what does and does not appear in the patron’s monitor and e-mailed transcript: anything in reddish brown will not appear for the patron; however, it will appear for librarians in the question history in the Ask module.

1.4. Patron Support Form available in patron interface.

Now patrons can get help directly from the OCLC support desk (Customer Services Department) with a minimum delay. The new form is specifically for patrons to ask help and cautions them to not ask reference questions on this form.

2. Fixes

2.1. Upper/lower-case alphabetization in policy page searches

Policy Page searches now display results in alphabetical order regardless of upper- or lower-case letters. This search option is accessible from My QuestionPoint home page or via the Profile module, Search Profiles tab.

Comments

[caleb]

I think these look really great - thanks! I think it says a lot that you're finding the time to work on the small stuff.