Automatic forwarding (Auto re-direct) unfilled request: Background information, Questions and answers

Steering Team discussion after Summit Borrowing Day (from Minutes 7/28/06)

Innovative’s forthcoming “Auto-Redirect” enhancement

The Steering Team discussed Innovative’s forthcoming “Auto-Redirect” enhancement, which transfers INN-Reach requests to the next potential lender if a request has been paged without response for a specified number of days. Because of the limited amount of information available on the enhancement, the Team was unable to provide a strong endorsement or rejection of the product.

Decision: Despite the lack of all details on this product, the Team tentatively endorsed “Auto-Redirect”, pending further product details. If the Summit Borrowing Committee ultimately agrees to use “Auto-Redirect”, all members must upgrade to Release 2006 prior to ‘turning it on’ for Summit borrowing.

From Innovative manual:

The Automatic Forwarding of INN-Reach Requests feature enables the system to automatically forward INN-Reach requests when the requested items have been paged at a Local Server for a specific length of time. When requests are automatically forwarded, the system cancels the item holds at the Local Server and submits the requests to the INN-Reach Central Server for re-request. ... The system automatically forwards requests during the night after they become eligible for forwarding. Hold cancellations made using this feature are associated with Cancellation Reason 7 ("other") in the INN-Reach Patron Cancellations report.

Automatic Forwarding Feature v. Paged Too Long Report

When forwarding requests, the Automatic Forwarding of INN-Reach Requests feature uses the exact hours specified by the Central System Administrator at setup. In contrast, the "Paged Too Long" report displays hours rounded up to days. As a result, items that are not yet paged longer than the number of hours set in the Automatic Forwarding of INN-Reach Requests feature may appear on the "Paged Too Long" report.
For example, the Automatic Forwarding of INN-Reach Request feature may be set to forward requests if items have been paged more than 48 hours. If the "Paged Too Long" report is run for items paged more than two days, the report displays items that have been paged for 36 hours or more. Items may appear on this report that have been paged for more than 36 hours but less than the actual hours set in the Automatic Forwarding of INN-Reach Requests feature.

More information

Central and local servers must be on Rel.2006 (or later). This feature is set system-wide, and based on number of hours (not days)

Relationship to other procedures and settings

If this feature were implemented, which, if any, existing agreements and procedures should be modified? For example,

Items with Due Date: Since implementing "Smart holds" the system does not allow requests for items with a Due Date greater than 14 days. Best advice: set aside the paging slip and wait for the item to come back. Then it's available to check out to the requesting institution. (see

Cancel the request: The system expects that within 3 days you should have paged the book and checked it out to off-campus, or canceled the request. To cancel: remember to use the regular, local Circulation "Display and alter hold Queue" function, Cancel Hold which will Re-Request the item from another Alliance library. Unless you have direct confirmation from the patron that the item is no longer needed, do not use the INN-Reach method " DISPLAY and alter a hold queue--Cancel, no re-request"). See complete instructions for canceling a request.

Smart holds settings (Max days until item DUE: 14, Max days item is OVERDUE: 5)

Other?

Questions to III and answers:

1. Does it apply only to items that had a status <-> and NOT checked out with IR hold? Or include items that have a hold?

ANSWER: Since the Auto Forwarding functionality is initiated when an item has been paged for "x" number of hours, the item must be at status Paged <status code: ( > before the setting would apply.

2. Does it first look to see if there's another available copy before forwarding?

ANSWER: No, once a paged INN-Reach item has reached the threshold for the automatic request forwarding, the program automatically forwards the request by canceling the item hold at the owning location and forwarding the request to the INN-Reach Central Server for re-request.

Or, simply cancel the first hold, try to forward, and if not successful -- no other available copy -- it's just a canceled hold?

ANSWER: Yes, if there is no other items in the system eligible for re-request, the it will become a cancelled hold.

3. Is it removed from the Too Long list?

- at Patron Site: Is it removed from the Requested Too Long list?

ANSWER: Yes

-Does it re-set the date and display to the patron as a re-request?

ANSWER: Yes

- at Owning Site: is it removed from Paged Too Long list?

ANSWER: Yes

More questions for III

Does implementing this feature assume the member is unwilling or unable to fill request, stalling, etc.? The library may have paging slip queued for 2nd or 3rd search before giving up on locating the item, waiting for it to return from prior checkout or from binding or repair, etc. And, what about the dozens or hundreds of requests that will be "too old" over a long holiday weekend, when a site is understaffed, closed, or system down for a couple of days?

4. Does the system fill in standard text for reason #7, or is it "blank"?

ANSWER: The system does not fill in a reason. The manual states: "Hold cancellations made using this feature are associated with Cancellation Reason 7 in the INN-Reach Patron Cancellations report." This means they are counted statistically with Reason 7, but there is not cancellation reason inserted.

5. Is a notice queued for staff so that they know to find and destroy the paging slip and not continue to work on it (for example, they've got it in a folder for a 3rd and final search, or they were waiting for a book to be returned from binding/repair, or had called it in as overdue from previous request and it will be coming back within a day)

ANSWER: No, staff should be aware that this is set-up on their system and know that paging slips will expire x hours after they have been generated.

6. Can the central system administrator easily change the setting for #hours, for example during holiday period, to avoid hundreds of requests bouncing from one site to another?

ANSWER: No, this is something that is configured by Innovative. So if it needs to be modified for a holiday period, a call would need to be opened.

updated: January 11, 2008