LibAnswers v 2.2 update now live!

We’re excited to announce the LibAnswers v2.2 update – now live for all LibAnswers v2 sites!

Systems & Status Management Now Available!

The all new Systems & Status Management Tool is now available in the LibAnswers v2 platform! We are very pleased to offer this amazing new module to all LibAnswers Platform clients for free during the 12 months from January to December 2015. If you find this module useful (and we are confident you will – it is the best and the most cost-effective way to keep track of various library systems and inform your community about the status of each) your 2016 renewal will increase marginally (by a few hundred dollars) in order to cover the costs of additional server resources/maintenance of the new functionality. For the exact amount of the price increase (which is based on FTE) head to Systems Status Management > Settings > Module Information & click “See pricing details” for the full breakdown.

If you don’t want to use this new tool, no problem – from that same screen, just set the Module Status to Disabled, and your renewal price remains the same. You’ll miss out on some really useful functionality at the best price you’ll ever find, but we won’t hold it against you. 😉

For more help getting started with this shiny new tool, head over to our Support Guide for extensive configuration instructions.

LibChat Updates

• Waterfall Chat Widgets – aka Fallback widgets, create chat widgets that check for the presence of individual librarians and/or departments, according to the order you define. Just create or edit a chat widget and select Options > Department/Operator Selection, and create the sequence of “Options” you’d like to see. This makes it possible to set up a sequence like: If Sarah is online, connect new chats to Sarah; if not, connect new chats to the Reference Department; if Reference isn’t online, connect to anyone in the library.
• Department + Personal Chat Widget Management Combined – We’ve streamlined the admin UI, so you can manage both personal and department/system chat widgets from one place! To manage all of your chat widgets, head to LibChat > Chat Widgets:
  • Admin level users can create & edit widgets for any department or user
  • Regular level users can create & edit their own widgets
• Streamlined Queue/Chat Department Connections – We’ve made it way easier to associate LibAnswers Queues with LibChat Departments! Admins who create (or edit) a department will see the option to assign this department to a Queue. When a department is assigned to a Queue, all users assigned to that Queue are also assigned to that chat department, and Queue level administrators receive department-level administrative access.
• Department Canned Messages – Create canned messages and share them with everyone assigned to a chat department. Head to Admin > LibChat Set-up > System Canned Messages – add or edit a message, and you’ll see a new option to assign the message to a department.
• New Department Stats – We’ve added a new report to show you the breakdown of chats by department. Head to LibChat > Statistics > Clients/Operators to find the new report.

More Awesomeness

• Copy Widgets – Are your LibAnswers & LibChat widgets highly customized? We’ve made it easier to create new widgets using an existing widget as a base – just head to any widget management screen – in the Actions column, select Copy Widget. This creates a brand new widget based on the old widget, which you can customize to your hearts content!
• Improved Selectors & Menus – This one is especially for sites managing large numbers of “things” – lots of user accounts, or lots of queues, chat departments, etc. We’ve improved the selector options across the admin interface so you no longer have to scroll through endlessly long lists of “things” to find the thing you’re looking for – now, you can search the list’s content and even select multiple list options when appropriate.