Jennifer Schmidt

A new help sheet has been added to the Sierra Training > Mobile Worklists Libguides.  It covers how to update the Inventory Date field in the item record using the Mobile Worklists app. You’ll see other training content on this same Libguides page.  Don’t forget that the password is mcfls4u.

We wanted to share some exciting changes about how Sierra’s future features will be chosen by users in conjunction with Innovative, the company behind Sierra! In the past, decisions about which features to include in new releases were made solely by Innovative. But now, they’ve entered into an agreement (the Member Exclusive Enhancement Process or MEEP) with the Innovative Users Group that gives library staff more say in what features get prioritized. In this new process, ~20 ideas from the Ideas Exchange will be selected by user run working groups. Innovative will then estimate the amount of software work needed for each idea. After that, all IUG site contacts will vote on which of these ideas they’d like to see prioritized. The ideas with the most votes will be worked on by Innovative and delivered within 12 months. The first Sierra working group met in February and here are the first round of MEEP winners that will be included in Sierra 6.3 (to be released near the end of 2024). Below is a quick list of ideas staff may be interested in voting on, but there are plenty more! Remove duplicate items on paging lists Add “back” option during record creation Open and edit the patron record from the item record Always allow patrons to freeze holds Add a filter to search unsuppressed records only Staff are highly encouraged to explore the Ideas Exchange, create an account to submit new ideas, and vote on the ideas that they believe will provide the most value for themselves and patrons. Find more information about the MEEP agreement on the IUG website.

Automatic card renewal (via Patron Point) is now live!  This is only available to patrons 18+ with a valid email address in their account. Patrons with residence in Brown Deer, Greendale, Franklin, Hales Corners, and North Shore must have fines paid in full before automatic renewal can occur. Patrons with residence in Whitefish Bay must have fines $10.00 or less before automatic renewal can occur (updated 5/29/24). Here is an overview of the process:

• eligible patrons receive an email saying we will attempt auto renewal 35 days before expiration and giving them an option to opt-out
• ~30 days before expiration, patrons will receive an email indicating the success or failure of the address verification process
• Successful verifications will extend the expiration date by 2 years in Sierra (no note or message will be added)
• Unsuccessful verifications or ineligible patrons will receive standard renewal emails with online/in-person renewal instructions, including a reminder email 7 days post-expiration.

Patrons can opt out or opt back in within their 5-day window using this form: https://mcfls.org/optout/ Feel free to direct patrons to the FAQ page here: https://mcfls.org/automatic-card-renewal/ As of 2/28, ~3k emails have been sent to eligible patrons!

• “Print” functionality from My account > Checkouts and My account > Holds in countycat.mcfls.org is currently broken in chromium browsers (Innovative has the ticket in software development for a fix) – please use or direct patrons to use Firefox and Safari in the meantime if they want to print!

• Automatic card renewal emails via Verify will be going out starting Feb 23 (patrons whose cards expiring March 31 are the first up) – this is only for patrons 18+ with emails in their account (for more info, see the FAQ page here)
• MCFLS will implement changes so that phone call notices will only be sent to those with a phone number in the TELEPHONE field and NOTICE PREF of ‘p’ (phone) – they will no longer go to patrons with NOTICE PREF ‘t’ (text) who have a phone number but no email on the account