The LibAnswers 2.6 Update went live earlier today, and we have several big time-saving collaborative features to share!
Answer new SMS Messages in LibChat
We’re introducing a big +1 for librarians who staff your real time patron communication channels, aka Chat and SMS – you can now monitor and reply to SMS messages directly from within the LibChat Operator Pane!
In LibChat, SMS messages will appear in blue – claim the SMS just like you’d claim a normal chat message, and you’ll see the new SMS answer pane:
This new interface makes it much easier to keep up with the fast and furious pace of SMS/text conversations. You’ll still have access to all of the tools we offer to help answer SMS questions, including previous message history and canned messages.
Ticket Page Updates
Speaking of fast and furious, we’re making it much easier to keep up with high velocity conversations happening on the LibAnswers ticket answer page, thanks to several key features:
- Auto-updating Answer Page – Now, when you view the ticket answer page, new patron replies, replies from other librarians, and internal notes will appear without your needing to refresh the page.
- “[username] is also viewing this ticket” – You’ll now see a live on-screen alert when another LibAnswers user is viewing the same ticket you’re working on! This is especially helpful in larger organizations trying to prevent duplicate work – just keep an eye out for the small blue alert message to see who else is interested in the ticket you’re working on!
- Forward Question into LibAnswers – Let’s say a patron emails your personal email, but the message really belongs in your LibAnswers system. Just forward that email to your LibAnswers email address without additional comment – now, LA will be able to identify the original sender’s name/email address & will create a ticket based on that contact info.
Additional Updates
- Sound On for LibChat Widgets – You can now create LibChat widgets with sound alerts set to “on”, so your patrons will receive audio alerts for new messages you send.
- API Filtering based on Keyword – You can now filter API calls based on the internal keywords added to FAQs.
- Next Button for Chat Transcripts – Reading through many transcripts? We’ve added a “Next” button in the transcript viewer to help you read through faster.
- Ticket Filtering Updates – We’ve added several new filtering options to the Knowledge Base Explorer.
- Filters for Canned Messages – We’ve added a quick typing filter to the Canned Message area in LibChat, so you can quickly find the canned message you need.
As always, thanks to the awesome LibAnswers community for your continued ideas and feedback – we love hearing your ideas!