QuestionPoint: 24/7 reference services

QuestionPoint installs: TONIGHT Friday 10/1 at 9PM EDT (Sat 1:00 UTC) AND Sunday 10/3 at 2AM EDT (6:00 UTC)

Dear QuestionPoint User:

Please be advised that the QuestionPoint service will be unavailable for the following time periods for brief scheduled maintenance and service.    Please note that there will be 2 separate interruptions, each of 15 minute duration:

The first one is tonight, Friday October 1 at 9PM EDT (Sat 10/2 at 1:00 UTC, Sat 10/2, 11AM Australia Capital Territory Time) for 15 minutes. This is to correct a problem with the “old style” self-hosted patron chat forms which were unfortunately not closing properly if no one was monitoring chat.

The second interruption will be on Sunday morning, October 3, at 2:00 AM EDT ( 6:00 UTC  4PM Australia Capital Territory Time)  again for 15 minutes. This is a necessary server maintenance and upgrade install, no changes to the QuestionPoint program are involved. 

It is very important that you end any in-progress chat sessions at least 2 minutes prior to these scheduled  times to avoid having the “ in session chat” get stuck in the Ask questions list with an IN PROGRESS status. You will unable to click on them thereafter, to get information about the patron in order to try to communicate with them via email.

When service is restored, please check your “New” questions lists for any unanswered chat sessions or email questions. 

If you experience any outage after the projected service period, please contact your Customer Service Provider for further assistance.

We regret any inconvenience.
The QuestionPoint Team

QuestionPoint Qwidget Now Available for Mounting on WorldCat Local

We are pleased to announce that subscribers to Full WorldCat Local can now implement the QuestionPoint Qwidget to provide their users the opportunity to chat directly with a librarian from within WorldCat Local.  This feature has been designed to work with any chat client.  Below are instructions for configuring WCL for the QuestionPoint Qwidget.

How to Configure WorldCat Local for the Qwidget

The steps below document the configuration process from within an institution’s WorldCat Service Configuration account and depict how the chat client will work in the WorldCat Local user interface. Note: The QuestionPoint library must have already configured the Qwidget within the QuestionPoint Administration module. See: http://www.questionpoint.org/crs/html/help/en/admin/ad_forms_qwidget_setup.html

1) Settings are in the User Interface Module of Service Configuration.

2) Chat widget configurations are only available in the Custom Links section on Custom Link 1. When the user selects a link type of Library Contact Info, the Display Chat Widget question displays.

3) After selecting Yes for Display Chat Widget, the user can indicate if they have a QuestionPoint account.

4) If the user has a Questionpoint account, they can insert the institution ID. Upon saving their settings, the ID will be validated and the Qwidget will be automatically placed within their WorldCat Local.

5) If the user wishes the Qwidget to always display to their patrons they can select the ‘Always display chat window’ box.

6) If the user does not select the ‘Always display chat window’ box, the Qwidget will be launched when the user selects the text link you’ve indicated in the Display Text box.

How the Qwidget displays in WorldCat Local

1) If chat is not configured to always display, the Qwidget will be launched when the user clicks on the link in either the toolbar or in the Library Links dropdown.

2)

2) The Qwidget then launches in a separate window so persists as the user navigates throughout the site.

3) If the Qwidget is configured to always display to the user, the chat box will show below the search box and toolbar.

4) When the user clicks in the Chat box, the Qwidget is launched in a separate window so it persists while the user navigates throughout the site.

Negative Wait Time Bug Found and Fixed

A glitch was reported to us in late November, when the library noticed some negative wait times for their chat sessions.  A few others then reported the same problem.

We're happy to report that our QuestionPoint developers found and fixed the problem as soon as they were aware of it. The fix is not retroactive, however, so the negative times you see will remain.  The problem resulted because two of the four servers to which we direct all chat requests and librarian logins for load balancing purposes were set by a different time standard than the other two.  The time difference undoubtedly also caused some wait times to have been logged as slightly longer than they actually were.

We are aware of the wait time discrepancy having begun on November 7 and occurring with greater frequency toward the end of the month.  This is explainable, as we were moving, in phases, to these new servers, one at a time, over a period of 3 or 4 weeks.  Because of the phased move, the various possible scenarios, and the relatively low number of negative times (1800 across the entire system, out of a total 60,664 sessions accepted), we have noted little, if any, affect on averages and trends. Correct times can always be calculated, of course, by looking at the full transcript and noting the timestamps that are displayed.

We are grateful for your reports and regret the inconvenience caused by the bug.

HTML Chat retirement date is upon us

On September 27, 2009,  at 00:00AM EDT (4:00 UTC/GMT)  QuestionPoint will close a chapter in its history by reitiring the original librarian html chat monitor. We have been messaging this upcoming change for several months, and provided links to information and trainings covering  the flash version of the librarian Chat monitor.(http://www.questionpoint.org/education/index.html) 

As you all know, QuestionPoint has grown considerably in the last 4 years, and it is no longer feasible for us to maintain 2 different chat architectures. The flash-based  chat monitor has been a part of QuestionPoint for 3- ½ years, and current and future development is concentrated on that product.  On Sunday Sept 27^th, all links to the html chat monitor will be removed from the program In addition, all options and schedules for setting up chat coverage via self-managed “virtual cooperative coverage groups”  will be removed.    If your library was using such a group to share chat responsibilities, and you have not yet moved to using Queues and Flash Chat,  you need to contact Carol Bonnefil at [email protected] to review your groups structure and arrange for us to set up a Cooperative Group within the Flash structure OCLC .

No 24/7 Cooperative libraries are affected by this, nor are any previous 24/7 Reference libraries.  In fact, the majority of QuestionPoint libraries have moved to flash chat over the last 2 years. If you do have any doubts about which version of chat you have been using, here is a screenshot of the My QuestionPoint page with the "Launch html chat" link circled and X’d  in Red. That is going away, and you will need to begin using the "Launch Chat" link that is boxed in Green.

ANNOUNCEMENT: QuestionPoint downtime Saturday 25 July

Dear QuestionPoint subscribers:

Please be advised that QuestionPoint will be unavailable this Saturday, 25 July, for a brief time, while we make adjustments to improve system performance. The system will be down for approximately one half hour, from 6:00 - 6:30 a.m. UTC (7:00 - 7:30 a.m. UK; 2:00 - 2:30 a.m. U.S. EDT; 4:00 - 4:30 p.m. Australia ET).

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.

As always, we regret the inconvenience this may cause you and your users. We appreciate your patience.

The QuestionPoint team

ANNOUNCEMENT: QuestionPoint downtime

Dear QuestionPoint subscribers:

Please be advised that QuestionPoint will be unavailable this Sunday, 19 July, for a brief time, while we make adjustments to improve system performance. The system will be down for approximately one half hour, from 6:00 - 6:30 a.m. UTC (7:00 - 7:30 a.m. UK; 2:00 - 2:30 a.m. U.S. EDT; 4:00 - 4:30 p.m. Australia ET).

It is imperative that you end any in-progress chat sessions at least one minute 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.

As always, we regret the inconvenience this may cause you and your users.  We appreciate your patience.

The QuestionPoint team

ANNOUNCEMENT: Must bring QuestionPoint down

Dear QuestionPoint subscribers:
Please be advised that the QuestionPoint service will be brought down tonight, Thursday, April 23, at midnight Eastern Daylight Time (0400 UTC tomorrow morning). We expect the system to be available again within 15 minutes.

It is imperative that you end any in-progress chat sessions at least one minute 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 sessions left in-progress 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.

We regret any inconvenience.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Scheduled Maintenance for QuestionPoint

Dear QuestionPoint User:

Please be advised that the QuestionPoint service will be unavailable for the following time period for scheduled maintenance and service. Sunday, 19 April 2009, 0700 UTC (3:00 a.m. EDT) to approximately 0730 UTC (3:30 EDT).

It is imperative that you end any in-progress chat sessions at least one minute 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 sessions left in-progress 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.

We regret any inconvenience.
The QuestionPoint Team

Internet Explorer 8, Java and QuestionPoint

As many of you are aware, Microsoft has released Internet Explorer 8 (IE 8)to the public.

During our tests with IE 8 and QuestionPoint, we found that the combination of Internet Explorer 8 and the Microsoft Virtual Machine (MSVM) is not compatible with our cobrowse functionality. If you use chat and want to use cobrowsing in any transactions, and your Virtual Machine is set to use MSVM (as opposed to Sun Java) please do not upgrade to IE 8.

The following combinations of Internet Explorer and Java engine have been successfully tested with our cobrowse functionality.

Browser	Java version
Internet Explorer 6	Microsoft Java Virtual Machine
Internet Explorer 6	Sun Java Version 6 Update 7
Internet Explorer 7	Microsoft Java Virtual Machine
Internet Explorer 7	Sun Java Version 6 Update 7
Internet Explorer 8	Sun Java Version 6 Update 7

Note Sun Java Version 6 is supported up to Update 7.

If you have any questions about setting up Java with IE, please see the QuestionPoint Guide to IE browser setup at http://questionpoint.org/support/documentation/gettingstarted/chatsetup.pdf.

Note that the setting for IE 7 and IE 8 are the same.

If you have any questions about IE 8, you can learn more at http://www.microsoft.com/ie

QuestionPoint webinar: Take a Second Look

QuestionPoint is a unique reference management service that provides tools for libraries to interact with their users (chat and e-mail), enhanced by the global network of QuestionPoint libraries worldwide. Membership in the 24/7 Reference Cooperative is available, which provides libraries with the ability to provide live chat reference services to their users, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

On January 21, come and join us to learn how QuestionPoint helps you and your users:

• Take the library to the user
• Open more doors to your library
• 24/7 help for 24/7 resources
• Integrated management of your reference services
• Provide the best answers from experts around the world, or within your network

We’ll also demo some of the major improvements, including the new look and feel for the flash chat interface.

Plus, find out special offers for new and current QuestionPoint users for a limited time!

Register today! This live webinar is free and open to everyone. Registration is easy, and online at the following webpage:

https://www3.oclc.org/app/request/bin/request.asp?specialCode=QP090121