Archive for Talia

| January 26, 2021
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Are You Measuring User Satisfaction with Your Virtual Service?

Even in a face-to-face environment, it’s not always easy to gauge user satisfaction. They’re smiling and seem to appear satisfied with the service you provided, but are they really? Nowadays, you’re probably doing more virtual reference service than ever and its even harder to know if they’re satisfied. They’ve submitted their question via email or chat, you responded, and maybe you’re lucky enough to get a “thank you” reply. But, were their needs met? Were they satisfied with the service they received? That’s why it’s so important to perform user satisfaction surveys.

ALA’s Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) outlines the need for patrons to have access to satisfaction tools.

Cost, benefit, and quality assessments of reference services provide meaningful and practical feedback for the improvement of services, staff training, and continuing education.

3.2 Reference Service and Program Effectiveness

If you’ve been using LibAnswers, our virtual reference platform, you may have seen a prime opportunity to integrate patron feedback into the tool – truly making it an all-in-one communication platform. We’ve had this on our wish list, too, and these features are in our most recent update!

Quality of Service Features

Our latest LibAnswers release features our new Quality of Service functionality. A brand-new tool designed to help you collect patron feedback on their overall satisfaction with your virtual reference service.

It All Starts with the Survey

Automated Follow-Up Satisifaction Email/Survey

Create a customizable follow-up user satisfaction survey and email to send to patrons. There’s one customizable “rating” question included in the email. When the patrons click on their rating, a browser window opens to allow them to add any comments/feedback via a free-text field. Users will receive this email about 24hours after their LibAnswers ticket has been closed, and even if they reopen the ticket with a reply – they’ll still only receive the survey once.

Quality of Service Metrics

We’ve created three new reports and a new way to access an existing report in our brand-new Quality of Service Dashboard.

Quality of Service Stats Dashboard

Ticket/Chat Turnarounds

Measuring the quality of your service is not limited to just gathering user feedback. Other metrics include how long it takes you to first reply to a patron’s question. Or how long does it take from the moment their question is asked and the ticket is closed. Or, how many staff interactions an average ticket takes before its closed. If it takes you, on average, 48+ hours to first reply to a patron and 12+ staff interactions to close a ticket, then your patrons are waiting 2+ days to get an initial reply back and there’s a lot of back & forth before their question has been satisfactorily closed. A valuable metric for “the  improvement of services, staff training, and continuing education”. (RUSA, 3.2 Reference Service and Program Effectiveness).

Our new ticket and chat turnaround metrics will give you incredible depth of information that will not only help improve your services but ensure that you’re accurately reporting all your hard work! Sure, you might have received 10 new patron questions yesterday – but on average it took 40 staff interactions to close those 10 tickets. If you’re only counting the 10 questions in your reference stats, you’re drastically undercounting your reference volume.

Metrics Viewable within Individual Ticket

With this update, we also wanted to provide valuable metrics when you’re answering a ticket… right at point-of-need. This is especially helpful if you’ve noticed that you’ve sent 10+ replies to this patron and their time to first reply is 2+ days, so chances are… they might be frustrated. A potentially dissatisfied patron might require a different quality of service – and this information helps you pivot accordingly. Additionally, patron info, which was previously hidden inside a pop-up, is now visible in the top right column. So easily view who asked the question, where, and when.

View metrics while answering a ticket

Ticket/Chat Ratings

LibChat has always had a chat rating feature, since it’s evolution back in the day (LibChat > Chat Statistics). We added another entry point for this data in the Quality of Service Dashboard (Stats > Quality of Service) plus, we’ve jazzed it up! In Ticket Ratings, you can view patron responses to your User Satisfaction Survey. Filter by Source (Email, Question Form Submission, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), date range, just weekends or specific days, by Ticketing queue, and more.

Chat rating and feedback

Learn More!

We’re so excited about the Quality of Service dashboard which will not only help you better survey your patrons and their satisfaction with your virtual reference service… but it will also help to inform and empower your staff with data to make actionable decisions.

We’re working on a SpringU course so you can learn more about LibAnswers’ new Quality of Service metrics. If you’re keen to get it setup now, check out our help documentation which walks you through each step.

Category: LibAnswers |
| January 21, 2021
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The University of Liverpool Goes Global

… with their chat, that is.

Let’s start at the beginning. Last summer, the University of Liverpool joined hundreds of other libraries in migrating from OCLC QuestionPoint to the Springshare 24/7 Global Chat Cooperative. If you weren’t aware, Springshare acquired OCLC QuestionPoint in May 2019, which migrated over the QuestionPoint 24/7 Reference Cooperative and all active QuestionPoint subscriptions to Springshare.

Before the migration, the University of Liverpool was a non-contributing member of the Cooperative. Meaning, they received overnight/backup coverage from the Co-Op, but didn’t contribute any hours. All that changed when they migrated to the Springshare 24/7 Co-Op. Like other academic libraries, they joined the Academic Co-Op. Springshare has two others (with more coming!): Public Library Co-Op and the En Español Co-Op.

With the migration came a ton of new exciting features in LibAnswers, including full-text searchable Policy FAQs, live screensharing with Zoom or Microsoft Teams, optional webcam, on-screen annotations, recording capabilities, and more. We added a ton of functionality for librarians to chat with each other and work together – especially in our new remote workplaces – including the ability to screenshare a meeting. We expanded our chat emoji library, added more customizable sounds for new chats, added the ability to automatically create a follow-up ticket from missed chats, and so so so much more.

Choose from over 400 emojis when chatting with patrons

Suffice it to say, all of these features make it so much easier, and dare we say fun, for libraries to contribute to the Global Chat Cooperative. And with the migration, the University of Liverpool changed their status from non-contributing to contributing – giving 15 hours/week to the Global Chat Cooperative. So, not only are their students receiving 24/7/365 chat support from librarians around the world… Liverpool librarians themselves are answering questions from patrons around the world too! Their chat service has truly gone global!

Are they happy with the service?

In a nutshell, yes! Here’s what they said in a recent interview:

“Cooperative librarians do a great job of providing answers for our customers and the customer feedback on the queries they’ve dealt with is overwhelmingly positive. We’ve seen some really excellent answers from the global librarians; we couldn’t have done a better job if we’d picked those up ourselves.“

— University of Liverpool

Learn more at our live webinar!

If you’d like to learn more about the University of Liverpool going Global with Springshare’s 24/7 Chat Cooperative, join us on February 4 at 11:00am U.S. EST. And hear directly from Gwen Jones, Customer Services Online Manager from the University of Liverpool, discuss their experience offering 24/7 library chat to their students, and what it’s like helping other students around the globe.

REGISTER: THU, FEB 4 @11am U.S. EST

If you can’t attend the live webinar, register to receive the recording! It will be available, along with presenter slides/notes, on Buzz. 

Category: Client Stories, LibAnswers, LibChat |
| December 22, 2020
3 comments

Springshare Support Closed for Holidays

It’s been said before, but it is worth repeating – 2020 has been a year. Springshare support is not only excited to say goodbye to this really tough year but also to take some (well-deserved) time off. ICYMI, in our recent newsletter – the Springshare Support team answered 35,000 support questions this year… up 19% from 2019. We also taught training sessions to 8,500 attendees, had 20 major product releases, and more. Phew, we’ve been busy! Therefore, our Springshare Support, Training Team, and our Facebook and Twitter accounts will be closed for a few days over the holidays.

Springshare Support Schedule
(Including Training & Social Media)

Closed

Will be monitoring for emergencies. All non-emergency questions will be answered when we reopen.

  • Thursday, Dec 24
  • Friday, Dec 25
  • Friday, Jan 1

Reduced support hours (9am-5pm U.S. EST):

  • Monday, Dec 28 – Thursday, Dec 31

Springshare 24/7/365 Global Reference Will Be Open!

Our Springshare 24/7 global reference service, which backs up your reference chat service with MLIS-degreed librarians, will be open! When we say 365 days a year, we mean it. 🙂

If you’re interested in adding 24/7/365 chat coverage to your reference outreach, contact us at sales@springshare.com.

If You’re Still Working… We Have Suggestions!

If you’re still working over this holiday season, we have some suggestions for you to help make the most of your time!

SpringyU – is all about self-paced learning via short videos. Choose to learn with Blocks or beef up your skills with Courses. If you’ve got 5 minutes or a lot more than that, you can attend SpringyU right from your chair. 

Pickup Manager Blocks on SpringyU

SpringyNews – Find yourself in the midst of a slow period? Peruse our latest newsletter, which just so happens to be our 50th edition!

Springshare Buzz – Been hearing the buzz about Pickup Manager, and want to check it out? Or perhaps you’ve been hearing a lot about the LibAnswers Co-Op but don’t know what it is? Does a 5-minute LibCal Seats overview video sound exactly like what you’re capable of handling today? Check out the Product Highlights page on the Springshare Buzz Site for quick looks and more.

Catch up on Updates – It’s really helpful to keep up with all the new features and fixes for Springshare tools that are now available to you. Plus, we also released a mini-update for LibCal last week!

Opt In – for the gift that keeps on giving. Or follow us on Facebook and Twitter so you can check out the stories we’re sharing all year long.

We want to thank you for continuing to be our awesome’sauce clients in what was most certainly a difficult and turbulent year. We are so grateful for the opportunity you’ve given us and the trust you have in us to help you and, ultimately, your patrons. Thank you for sharing your feedback, suggestions, and wishlists and for your never-ending example of true dedication. We’ll see you in the New Year and goodbye 2020!

Category: General |
| December 15, 2020
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Springshare Learning Lab: Reopening Libraries Safely

Our December Springshare Learning Lab focused on how the Gwinnett Technical College reopened their library safely using LibCal Seats. Over the summer, as campuses were preparing to open fully or modeling a hybrid approach for the Fall semester, library administrators were tasked with opening the library to students, safely. This meant ensuring access but in a manner that adheres to social distancing protocols and mandated occupancy restrictions.

Deborah George faced this task for the Gwinnett Technical College library and they used LibCal seats just in time for the first day of their Fall semester. Her Springshare Learning Lab covers how they used LibCal seats to provide access to computers/webcams, printers, study rooms, and staff (!!!) to students requests those services.

Springy Michelle then covers the second half of the webinar which includes an overview of the LibCal hierarchy of Locations > Categories > Spaces > Seats, setting up restrictions/limitations, creating accessibility/powered Seats, and more.


In case you missed it, the full recording is available. Watch below and find Deborah’s slides on the Buzz site. LibCal Seats is designed for all libraries, so whether you’re an academic library like Gwinnett Technical College or a public library, or if you’re not a library at all, LibCal seats can help you reopen your buildings safely.

Category: Client Stories, Customer Service, LibCal |
| November 23, 2020
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Springshare Holiday Hours & Support Schedule

It’s that time of year again, the holidays are almost here and we’re seeing an end to 2020 (thank goodness!). To that end, our Springshare Support Team schedule will see some modifications during this holiday season. Have no fear, your support question will be answered. Additionally, we will be monitoring our support queue, Twitter, and Facebook for emergencies.

Support & Social Media

Closed (monitoring for emergencies):

  • Thursday, Nov 26
  • Friday, Nov 27
  • Thursday, Dec 24
  • Friday, Dec 25
  • Friday, Jan 1

Reduced support hours (9am-5pm U.S. EST):

  • Wednesday, Nov 25
  • Monday, Dec 28 – Thursday, Dec 31

Wishing you and yours a happy, healthy, and safe holiday season.

Category: Community, General |
| November 17, 2020
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Promote Contactless Communication

In some parts of the world, lockdowns are taking place again. In others, the trend is heading that way. It’s looking like we’ll all be experiencing another shelter-in-place soon in order to stop the spread of this deadly virus. The good news, we know a lot more now than we did only eight short months ago. We’re not suddenly scrambling to a work-from-home environment or pivoting to online-only services in just a matter of days. To that end, we’d like to share our best tips for promoting contactless communication during yet another COVID-19 lockdown. Your patrons, students, customers might not be able to see you in person… but you can still ‘see’ them online.

Create Searchable COVID-19 FAQs in LibAnswers

Not only are we living through an unprecedented pandemic but an infodemic too. Your users are being inundated with conflicting and sometimes downright false “information”. It’s so hard to know where to go, online, to get credible information. Create COVID-19 searchable FAQs highlighting recent research, regional laws/regulations, and how the library’s hours/services are affected. This 35min training video covers how you can keep important information updated in your LibAnswers, including creating a COVOD-19 FAQ group.

Searchable COVID-19 FAQs in LibAnswers

Offer Live Chat with Screensharing/Webcam Functionality

You’ve spent time cultivating relationships with your patrons. They most likely know your face, your smile, and even your ‘funny’ jokes. (What building has the most stories? The Library! – cue the eyeroll). Those special bonds don’t need to end with remote services.  LibChat’s screensharing allows you to engage in back-and-forth chat and you can even conduct ‘live’ sessions with patrons with optional webcam functionality, recording, and more!

And, if you’re thinking you don’t have the bandwidth to offer chat or offer it for the number of hours your patrons would need it – our 24/7 Chat Cooperative is here to back you up with MLIS-degreed librarians. Enable 24/7/365 chat services or custom coverage hours.

What is the Status of Your Buildings & Services?

Is your building open? What about the 3D printer? Is curbside delivery available? Your patrons have questions about the status of your building, services, and more. Create a LibAnswers System & Status Dashboard (with an embeddable widget) and keep them updated 24/7 on your status. Make use of social media integration so if the status of a service changes, broadcast it out on Facebook and Twitter right from the Systems Status Dashboard. 


LibAnswers System & Status Dashboard

Keeping Staff Informed

It’s hard enough keeping staff updated and informed when you see them every day at the workplace. Updates to the manual go unnoticed. Post-it notes at the reference desk are overlooked. In our new work-from-home model, it’s even harder keeping staff informed especially if you’re relying on email and reply-all. We have some tips to help you use LibAnswers to create a powerful staff repository of information that is searchable, easily-updatable, and reduces your inbox clutter.

  • Create a robust internal staff knowledge base: Break out policies, login details, and staff-only information into individual restricted FAQs. It’s easy to search, browse, embed, and link them! This 26min training video covers all the steps.
  • Use LibChat for internal conversations & meetings: LibChat isn’t just for chatting with patrons. Set your chat status to internal and be available for quick chats with coworkers. Use LibChat screensharing to conduct internal meetings with a coworker or a whole department.
  • Create Internal Posts on the Systems & Status Dashboard: Not every post on the Systems & Status Dashboard might be suitable for the public. Create internal posts to update staff on a new process, COVID-19 restrictions, or planned downtime to a product or service.
Internal Posts on the System & Status Management Tool

Pickup Manager for Curbside/Contactless Communication

Our newest tool, Pickup Manager, integrates with multiple ILSes, LibCal, and LibAnswers to create a scheduling and communication platform for holds pickup. This way, your patrons can reserve their library items, schedule a time to pick them up, and communicate with you via chat and SMS/texting when they’ve arrived… all with seamless ILS integration to boot.

Springshare’s Pickup Manager

We’re In This Together

We know that this has been, and continues to be, an incredibly difficult and stressful time. Not only are you a library employee with all that entails but you’re also a friend, caretaker, child, or parent… trying to make sense of all the confusion, fear, and complexities that COVID-19 has brought both into your work-life and your personal life. And whether you’re working at the library or working from home, your work-lives and personal lives are now more intertwined than ever. How do we know this, well – because we’re going through this with you. Our Springy employees work-from-home and are now full-time teachers, caretakers, and more. And supporting loved ones who are working, and who are also dealing with the isolation that comes with the pandemic. So we know what you’re going through, because we’re going through it right alongside you. And we’re here to help. So, don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any questions, feedback, requests, recipes, or tips on keeping a 7 year old engaged in their Zoom class! We’re here to help and we’ll get through this in our typical Springy fashion… together.

Category: 24/7 Chat Cooperative, LibAnswers, LibChat |
| October 14, 2020
4 comments

Pickup Manager is Here!

2020 has been a difficult year. COVID-19 has not only impacted health, but also family life, and work life. Here at Springshare, when the pandemic hit, we quickly pivoted all our development plans to release training, products, and features that you needed right now. First, we rolled out our tips for a remote first world followed shortly after with tips for staying motivated, transitioning to online teaching, and using LibCal to increase online engagement. On the product development side, we released functionality and tools designed to help you better service your users in this ‘new normal’. We released online appointments and events in LibCal with Zoom and MS Teams integration and launched the LibCal Seats module helping building managers reopen their building safely. But we’re not done yet!

In keeping with our commitment to release products, features, and services that help you during this difficult time – we’re proud to announce that Pickup Manager is now available. Pickup Manager helps you streamline the holds pickup process while adhering to your COVID-19 safety guidelines. Patrons can easily request their holds via their ILS, schedule a pickup, and enjoy 2-way SMS/text and chat communication when they’ve arrived. Pickup Manager has so many features to not only make your current day-to-day easier but when COVID-19 is a thing of the past, you’ll wonder how you ever did holds pickup ‘the old way’.

Patrons use LibCal to schedule their pickup which connects to your ILS to sync to their holds information

Want to learn more? Attend a webinar!

We’ve setup four webinars so you can learn more about Pickup Manager. All times are in U.S. Eastern Time. With our recent LibCal update, just click on the change option on the calendar to match your timezone!

Can’t attend?

Register for any session and select ‘Watch Recording’ on the sign-up form. We’ll send you the links to view the recordings as soon as they’re available.

Webinar schedule


How does Pickup Manager work?

  • Patron requests a hold in your ILS. When items are ready, your ILS sends an email with the link to our pickup scheduler.
  • Patron receives email from ILS system with LibCal booking link, they “log in” with their ILS barcode/pin to verify they are who they say they are and then book a spot.
    • Don’t want to integrate your ILS? No worries, we’ll have this covered in a future release.
  • Patron reserves their preferred time & location using LibCal’s easy-to-use booking interface.
    • Don’t want to allow patrons to reserve a spot? No worries, the scheduling component is optional.
  • ‘Today’s Scheduled Pickups’ on the Dashboard helps you prepare today’s items. 
  • When the patron arrives, they SMS/text you (LibChat coming soon!) with a customized keyword. The Pickup Manager recognizes the patron and alerts you of their hold details so you can easily grab and deliver their items. 
  • If needed, you can communicate back-and-forth with the patron about their pickup via SMS/text (LibChat coming soon!) – all from the Pickup Manager dashboard.
  • When the items are picked up, the Pickup Manager marks them as received by the patron in their ILS record, too.
  • Send automated reminder and follow-up satisfaction survey emails.

View patron information

Click to view patron details

Send and view messages

View today’s scheduled pickups and send messages to the patron

View detailed statistics

View detailed statistics of scheduled vs. picked up holds broken down by month, day, and hourly

…And there’s more!

We don’t want to give too much away in this blog post, but we think you’ll be really excited to see Pickup Manager in action! Be sure to sign-up for a webinar, even to receive the recording, to learn more!

Category: Pickup Manager |
| September 24, 2020
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Introducing the New (and Improved!) Springshare Lounge

In case you missed the big announcement in our July SpringyNews edition, we launched a new and improved Springshare Lounge! In this ‘new normal’, we wanted to improve opportunities for Springy users to communicate with each other, share how they’re using Springshare tools, and leverage localized expertise.

Since its official launch nine weeks ago on July 27, the Lounge now has over 950 users posting a total of 123 discussions and 257 comments! Posts cover a variety of Springy Tools and topics ranging from how-to type posts to best practices and advice sharing. So if you haven’t yet, join the new Springshare Lounge and get ready for some virtual networking.

Earn Points & Level Up!

Helping your fellow Springy users deserves a reward right? We thought so too! So we added a points system to the new Springshare Lounge.

Earn points when you:

  • Make and comment on posts 
  • Have other users react to your posts 
  • Earn badges 

As you earn points, your level will increase, and the number of stars on your profile will increase.

Here are the levels and the point totals to reach them: 

  1. Springy Initiate: Everyone starts here! 
  2. Springy Novice: 75 points 
  3. Solid Springy: 200 points 
  4. Springy Expert: 750 points 
  5. Springy Hero: 1750 points 

If you’re wondering, big deal – earning virtual points gets me what? Well, you’re wrong! Earning points actually translates to both virtual and real-world perks!

Not only will achieving higher levels unlock extra lounge features, but the highest levels also opens access to some extra discussion categories as well.

Leveling Up Perks:

  1. Springy Initiate: Start discussions, comment on discussions. Everyone’s got this!
  2. Springy Novice (75 points): You can create polls in your discussions now. Let other lounge users vote on your polls. 
  3. Solid Springy (200 points): Add a signature to your posts if you’d like. Edit your own posts for up to a day for convenience. 
  4. Springy Expert (750 points): Gain the ability to use the “promote” reaction to a post or comment! Doing this will add the comment to “best of”. You also get access to submit posts to the Lounge Help Wanted category to advertise openings at your library.
    • If you come by our booth at a conference, (* offer not valid in 2020, of course) we’ll give you some special Springy merch. 
  5. Springy Hero (1750 points): We are in awe of your contributions and helpful deeds in this community. You’ll get access to Springy Labs to see sneak peeks of things we’re working on, as well as the chance to offer feedback on new designs and development. We’ll also send a thank you card to you, hand-signed by one of the Springy crew to show our appreciation. 

What types of posts will I see in the Lounge?

The Lounge is designed for you, plain & simple! You’ll see posts related to Springy products and topics but that otherwise run the gamut – users asking for help, others posting their ideas and best practices, and even some others putting out a call for research volunteers. Plus, you have the ability to post something as a question, and mark it as answered! This helps future users who search too, because they can see “oh, I have the same question too and it’s got an answer!”

Below are just some of our most favorite posts to date:

So, How Do I Sign-Up?

Good news, you can sign-up to join the Springshare Lounge today! Right now even! Go ahead, we’ll wait. 🙂 Okay, are you back? Let’s continue. 🙂

Joining the Lounge is super-easy! And if you were a member of our old Lounge, you will have to rejoin the new Lounge. It’s really fast and easy, just follow these instructions.

Plus, if you mention that you were a member of the old Lounge when you rejoin, we’ll give you a special badge. Or click here to claim your Original Forum Survivor Badge.

Creating a Profile & Community Guidelines

Once you’ve joined and created your profile, you’ll want to review the Community Guidelines. Like all good online communities, there are some “dos and don’ts”. While we believe that our community of users has a good understanding of online etiquette, reviewing these guidelines is important to get an understanding of the behavior expected in the Springshare Lounge.

… And You’re Off & Running

Once you’ve done the aforementioned items, you’re off and running! Search the Lounge and read some existing posts. Write a comment to an existing post if you have any feedback or an answer you’d like to share. Feel free to post a new discussion or ask a question. If you post a question, don’t forget to mark the post as answered once those comments start rolling in. Customize your notification preferences so you’ll get an email alert when people comment on your discussions or when someone else posts a discussion to a category you’re keeping an eye on. To customize your notifications, go to the Bell Icon > Notification Preferences.

Category: Community, General, Tips and Tricks |
| September 17, 2020
4 comments

Pickup Manager: Coming Early October!

We’ve been hinting, alluding, and finally we officially announced yesterday that we’re releasing the Pickup Manager for scheduling and communicating holds pickup!

This newest tool is coming early October, and is designed to streamline your holds pickup workflows and empower patrons to pick up their library items quickly and safely at their convenience – per COVID-19 guidelines and beyond, too!


Key Points about the Pickup Manager:

  1. Fully integrates with your ILS for streamlined hold workflows.
  2. Works great with LibCal’s Equipment Booking Module for equipment or museum/zoo pass lending.
  3. Provides great statistics and analytics helping you increase user satisfaction and improve your holds service.
  4. Just like all other Springy tools – it is affordable.

Bottomline, you and your patrons are going to love the awesome functionality that Pickup Manager offers and you’ll never want to do holds pickups “the old way” again. 😊

Communicate with ‘Arrived’ patrons via SMS/Texting (Coming: LibChat)

How Does it Work?

  • Patron requests a hold in your ILS.
  • When items are ready, your ILS sends an email with the link to our pickup scheduler in LibCal. (customized emails from Pickup Manager coming soon). 
    • Already a LibCal user? You’ll be able to designate locations in the Admin > Spaces area to connect to the Pickup Manager.
    • Not a LibCal user? No worries, just contact us!
  • Patron reserves their preferred time & location using our easy-to-use booking interface in LibCal.
  • ‘Today’s Scheduled Pickups’ on the Dashboard helps you prepare today’s items. 
  • When the patron arrives, they SMS/Text you with a customized keyword using your LibAnswers SMS number. The Pickup Manager recognizes the patron and alerts you of their hold details so you can easily grab and deliver their items.
    • Already a LibAnswers user? You’ll designate which SMS number should be connected to the Pickup Manager. You can designate multiple SMS numbers with your Pickup Manager!
    • Not a LibAnswers user? No worries, just contact us!
  • If needed, you can communicate back-and-forth with the patron about their pickup via SMS/Text – all from the Pickup Manager dashboard.
  • Coming Soon: When items are picked up, the Pickup Manager marks the item as picked up in the patron’s ILS record, too.
  • If patrons text that they’ve arrived outside of your hours of operation, Pickup Manager automatically texts them back with a customizable message letting them know that your service is closed for the day.

Want the Communication but Not Scheduling Part?

Like with all our Springshare Tools, we like to brainstorm all the potential possible implementations and come up with solutions for everyone. Our Pickup Manager is no different. So if you’re interested in the Communication side, but not the Scheduling component, we’ve got you covered.

Pickup Manager Streamlines Your Workflows, Too!

  • At-a-glance view of holds activity – what is being picked up today, tomorrow, and in the future.
  • Statistics on completed pickups and analytics on popular day/time pickups, late arrivals, etc.
  • Send reminders to patrons who haven’t picked up their items.
  • (Coming soon) customize the hold notification emails sent to patrons.

Manage Pickups for Everything You Circulate

Pickup Manager also integrates with LibCal’s Equipment Booking Module. Whether your patrons are picking up a book hold or a laptop, camera, museum/zoo pass or really anything from your library-of-things inventory via the Equipment Booking module, the Pickup Manager has you covered.

What More Information?

Early next month, we’ll announce sneak-peek webinars on Pickup Manager on our Sneak-Peek Calendar.

Want to be contacted when Pickup Manager is released? Email sales@springshare.com to be placed on the Early Access list. 

Category: LibAnswers, LibCal, New Features |
| September 9, 2020
No comments

[UPDATED] Important Browser Notices & Updates

In today’s post, we’re bringing you some important notices about your Internet browsers… specifically Internet Explorer 11 and Chrome. Since Springshare tools are hosted in the cloud and are accessed by web browsers, if you or your patrons are using either of the above browsers… it will affect your day-to-day usage of these tools.

Updated Sep 10, 2020 – we updated the section below on LibAnswers and IE11 compatibility.

Updated Oct 9, 2020 – we updated this post with a section on LibGuides and IE11 compatibility and updated the LibAnswers section to reflect the fact that the October 2020 code release is out.

Updated Oct 19, 2020 – we updated the LibGuides list after more extensive testing within IE11.

Internet Explorer 11 Will No Longer Be Supported as of November 20, 2020

Starting in November through till next year, Microsoft will stop supporting IE11 within their own applications.

Microsoft has since labeled Internet Explorer a “compatibility solution” rather than a browser and encouraged businesses to stop using the aging browser.

Tom Warren, TheVerge.com

To that end, Springshare will stop supporting IE11 for all Springshare Tools (LibGuides, LibCal, LibAnswers, LibInsight, LibCRM, LibWizard, and LibStaffer) during the week of November 16 across all regions.

This does *not* mean every webpage of your whole Springshare tool will suddenly stop working when using IE11. It *does* mean that you and your users may experience additional issues of non-compatibility when using IE11 after the November 16 code release.

LibGuides Users & IE11 [Updated Oct 19, 2020]

There are a few areas in LibGuides that do not fully function in IE11. Additionally, future updates will also affect page display issues in IE11.

  • Guide lists on system and group homepages;
  • Some LibGuides widgets intermittently do not display;
  • Gallery boxes;
  • Search results;
  • System blog and public discussion boards; and
  • A-Z Database pages.

LibAnswers Users & IE11 [Updated Oct 12, 2020]

There are already a few areas of LibAnswers admin interface (not public-facing pages) that don’t fully function in IE11. Additionally, future updates will also affect page display issues in IE11.

  • Currently not working in  IE11: the ability to view chat transcripts; Queue settings tabs and ticket browse page will not work.
  • Upcoming November 2020 release: Current LibChat Operator Console will *not* be able to load in IE11 by the end of the Nov 16 week. We’re launching some awesome new functionality to LibChat, including a new emoji-picker (:wow emoji:), that is not compatible with IE11.

Chrome 86 Security Update

The upcoming Chrome 86 update, slated for release in October, will offer more secure protections for users submitting data on insecure forms. More on this in a moment. First, a reminder!

All Springshare Tools are HTTPS-Required

As a refresher, all Springshare Tools are required to load over HTTPS. If your Springshare Tool ends in a .libguides.com, .libcal.com, .libanswers.com, .libcrm.com, .libinsight.com, libwizard.com, or .libstaffer.com – the ‘S’ in HTTPS is covered by our security certificates.

If your Springshare Tool ends in a custom domain, like .bookings.edu or guides.org, you can use our ‘Let’s Encrypt’ service where we obtain a security certificate for you or obtain your own security certificate.

Bottom line, your Springshare Tools will always load an HTTPS secure connection…. which is great for your staff and end-users because HTTPS helps to thwart intruders from tampering with the communications between your websites and your users’ browsers.

Embedding Unsecure (HTTP) Forms into Your Secure (HTTPS) Springshare Tools

So now that you know that all Springshare Tools are loaded as HTTPS, you’re probably thinking – “Heck, we’re all set… our sites are secure!“. And you’re right, for the basic tool itself. But it depends on what you’ve added to your systems, too! We give you a lot of flexibility in your Springshare tools… especially in ways we encourage you to embed widgets/content from other websites. In LibGuides, you can embed a widget into your guide. In LibCal, you can add a widget to a countdown timer in Calendar Events. In LibAnswers, embed media right into your FAQs.

These options give you awesome flexibility in adding multimedia resources to your Springshare Tools! But it is also possible to embed HTTP (unsecure) content inside your HTTPS (secure) Springshare Tool.

Chrome 86 Update Will Display Warning for Mixed Forms

So now we come back to the Chrome 86 update! If you embed an HTTP (unsecure) form in your HTTPS (secure) webpages, your patrons using Chrome 86 will see a full-page warning about submitting content to an unsecure form.

Chrome Version 86 Will Display Warning of Unsecure Forms

Identifying & Resolving Mixed Content

We recommend that you review your LibGuides, LibCal, LibAnswers, and LibWizard systems to identify widgets/forms that you’ve embedded that could be HTTP insecure. This FAQ outlines some helpful instructions, including how to find HTTP content in LibGuides, as well as a video explaining why HTTPS is important.

As a reminder, Springshare Tools themselves are HTTPS secure. So if you’ve created a LibGuides widget, a LibAnswers/LibChat widget, a LibCal widget, a LibInsight widget, or a LibWizard widget, these widgets are already HTTPS secure. It is better to focus your time and energies on widgets/forms from other vendors.

If you’ve identified forms/widgets that are HTTP unsecure, it is recommended that you contact that vendor directly to obtain an HTTPS secure form/widget. While we’d love to help, we cannot create HTTPS secure widgets/forms for other vendors.

Category: LibAnswers, LibCal, LibChat, LibChat, LibCRM, LibGuides, LibGuides CMS, LibInsight, LibStaffer, LibWizard |
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