The second 2010 Virtual User Group meeting was held on 31 August and 1 September.
Please visit http://www5.oclc.org/questionpoint/QP_VUG_20100831.wmv to view a recording of the 31 August meeting.
Our first session, timed for the convenience of U.S. users, had between 40 and 50 attendees at any one time. Our second session was attended by 28-30 users at any one time. That session was timed for the convenience of western U.S. and Canada, Mexico, Hawaii, and Australia and Asia. The third session, timed for Europe and the eastern U.S., had 35 attendees.
The meeting was led off with and update to the community on who our members are, where they are from, and how many transactions they have generated over the year and since QuestionPoint’s introduction. After the 24/7 Cooperative update, results of the Qwidget roll-up pilot were presented. We reviewed the last year of QuestionPoint releases, highlighting the evolved Qwidget (customization, Facebook access, mobile version), texting integration via Text a Librarian, Knowledge Base web service, customized Descriptive Codes, and type ahead for chat sessions.
We introduced our new brochure Best Practices for Link Placement (available under the “Promote Your Service” section of the QuestionPoint wiki (http://wiki.questionpoint.org),
QuestionPoint survey results: The 2010 QuestionPoint survey was open from the end of June to the first week of August. 773 librarians responded (22% from non-U.S. countries). We discussed the top 3 priorities for QuestionPoint, as voted on by survey respondents, and the QuestionPoint team will be scheduling these 3 items for further investigation and possible development:
- Search transcripts
- More and customizable wait messages for chat patrons
- Optimize all forms for mobile devices
Finally, we discussed the upcoming September install (currently scheduled for September 19), which will feature:
- Queue management options for group (BME) administrators – this will govern how long local librarians see a question before it rolls up to the next level
- Attachments per answer will be increased to 4, with a maximum size per attachment of 5 MB and a total maximum of 12 MB per answer
- Changes to the Policy Pages template, as approved by the 24/7 Cooperative Advisory Board
- The URL “minimizer” will appear on all Answer pages
- Some optimizations of forms for mobile devices will be implemented (with more planned for future installs)
Following the update, we opened the “floor” to discussion. We went live to a QuestionPoint account and walked through the pages in the Ask module, focusing on the Answer page. There are several buttons on that page, and not all of them are immediately clear to users, so we defined each button and described what happens with each, what the status is after, and what statistics are generated. We did much the same with Offline reviews (Ask > Review Transcripts > Offline), which is how users can get reports on transactions older than 90 days.
Although no further discussion topics were suggested, we did have the following questions:
Q: Will libraries that were in the Qwidget roll-up pilot continue to roll up in the interim between the pilot and the start of the roll-up program?
A: Yes, we will not stop the roll up for those in the pilot if they continue to maintain a 75% answering percentage.
Q: How long does the URL generated by the URL minimizer on the Answer page last?
A: The “minimizer” is currently on the Answer page for text messages and will be on all Answer pages with the September install. The utility we are using for that feature is the bit.ty utility; according to their website, they intend to maintain the shortened URL in perpetuity.
Q: Can we add time zones to the half hour in our profile set up?
A: Some of our users, especially in Australia, are in time zones on the half hour. We realize that having to look at transcripts time-stamped a half hour off from when they really happened is an inconvenience. We have entered a problem ticket to track this request for implementing in the future.
Q: How are answering percentages calculated?
A: We looked at the Reports module in a live account and demonstrated how to find the total chat sessions requested at your institution or group, and the total sessions your librarians accepted. Divide the Accepted sessions by the Requested sessions to get answering percentage. If you are in the 24/7 Cooperative, it does not matter who answered your patrons or whose patrons your librarians helped; simply divide all accepts by all requests for your percentage.
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