We are installing a couple of new features, improvements, and fixes to QuestionPoint on Sunday morning, December 12. Attached are the Release Notes for this install.
Please be advised that on Sunday morning, the QuestionPoint service will be unavailable for the following time period: 07:00 UTC (2:00 a.m. EST) to approximately 07:30 UTC (2:30 a.m. EST). It is imperative that you end any in-progress chat sessions at least two minutes prior to the scheduled service interruption to avoid sudden communication interruptions to your patrons and potential "hung" sessions. (You will be unable to click on any in-progress sessions to get information to communicate with the patron.)
When service is restored, please check your “New” questions lists for any interrupted chat sessions or unanswered email questions. If you experience any outage after the projected service period, please contact your Customer Service Provider for further assistance.
Paula Rumbaugh
for the QuestionPoint Team
1. New Features
1.1 Patron Wait Messages for Chat Queues.
Group admins (BME admins) can now configure a series of waiting messages for chat patrons triggered by elapsed wait time, for each Chat Queue in their subscription.
Up to 5 messages can be included (or if desired, omitted) using either default or custom text. Each chosen language can be customized independently. The time periods of the message display are as follows:
Initial Message = Upon patron form submission. This is a required message. It cannot be suppressed, but can be customized.
First Message sent after 50 seconds of waiting.
Second Message sent after 80 seconds of waiting.
Third Message sent after 120 seconds of waiting.
Fourth (last) Message sent after 190 seconds of waiting.
If any message is not included, the subsequent message is not accelerated. It will appear at the designated time interval.
1.2 Patron Waiting messages for Qwidget
Institution Admins can create a similar series of up to 5 Patron waiting messages for their Qwidgets from the Create Qwidget link, in the Forms Manager of the Instituion Admin module.
The Qwidget default messages are shorter, as befits the smaller Qwidget screen, but again, can be selected and customized as desired.
2. Improvements
2.1 Support Link Removed from Patron UI
We have learned that, despite cautions to the contrary, many end users (patrons) are contacting OCLC Support through this link to ask questions about the status of their request with a library. Since our Support desk is not equipped to help them in this way, it has become clear that the link is causing more wasted time and confusion for the patron than help, and the best option is to just delete the link altogether. Without the misleading link, users are more likely to see, once they have logged into their account, that they can confer directly with the library using their original request as the link to a form that is sent to the library.
2.2 Include Library Name in E-mail Sent from Policy Pages
As an aid to quick turnaround for a comment or request for correction or update regarding a library’s policy page, the e-mail sent to the contact from the Policy Pages module includes the institution’s name and ID. This will enable group administrators who are the contact for all libraries in the group to quickly determine who needs to be notified to make changes or to make those changes him or herself in the correct library account.
2.3 View/Hide Option No Longer Available in Policy Pages
All edits to active policy pages will be immediately viewable to a chatting librarian helping one of your patrons. Because a direct link from the chat monitor to a library’s policies is not available until the Policy Pages have been submitted and approved and activated by QuestionPoint staff, information added by new libraries just setting up their Policy Pages cannot be accessed by chatting librarians. However, that information is visible to the Policy Pages editor and to anyone who uses the QuestionPoint Policy Pages search utility to find a library’s policies.
3. Fixes
3.1 Serbian Available in All Modules
When the Serbian language was introduced in September to accommodate our new Serbian members, some modules were not updated. That has now been done, and Serbian appears as a language choice in the knowledge bases, profiling, and the Global Reference Network.
3.2 Patron-is-typing
A bug that displayed the “patron is typing” status to the librarian at inappropriate times has been fixed. This messages appears now only when it should.
3.3 Queue Closing with Qwidget
A bug that caused QuestionPoint to drop a Qwidget patron when a librarian de-selected a queue was fixed in October. At the time of queue de-selection, all in-progress sessions will remain in progress until deliberately ended by librarian or patron.
3.4 Patron Chat History Snaps to Bottom of Transcript
A problem that, in some browsers, caused the transcript to continually display from the beginning has been fixed. Now, in all browsers, every time there is an update to the transcript (the patron or librarian types a message or a transfer is made), the transcript automatically scrolls to the bottom to display the new message(s).
3.5 Referrer Field Now Displaying for New Style Chat Forms
For a short time, a bug caused the referrer information to not display if the patron had used a form built in the QuestionPoint Forms Manager. That bug was fixed in October. Information about what page the patron was on when they requested a chat session displays as it should in the Referrer field under the Info tab in the chat monitor.
3.6 Qwidget Diacritics
A bug that was causing whole phrases to not display in the Qwidget when certain diacritics were used has been fixed. Diacritics should now cause no unusual behavior in Qwidget question submissions.
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