Customer Online Payments Update

Following on from the previous blogpost regarding online training sessions, we would like to remind you of the Online Payments Training sessions which will be taking place throughout late July and early August. The first of these sessions took place yesterday – you can sign up to any of the remaining sessions.

There are training slots still available for the following times:

• Thursday 28/07/2022 10:00 (Aimed at Issue Desk Heads)
• Friday 29/07/2022 14:00 (Aimed at Issue Desk Heads)
• Monday 01/08/2022 15:00 (Aimed at Issue Desk Heads)
• Tuesday 02/08/2022 10:00 (Aimed at Issue Desk Heads)
• Thursday 04/08/2022 11:00 (All staff)
• Monday 08/08/2022 14:00 (All staff)
• Wednesday 10/08/2022 14:00  (All staff)
• Thursday 11/08/2022 11:00 (All staff)
• Tuesday 16/08/2022, 11:00 (All staff)
• Wednesday 17/08/2022 15:00 (All staff)
• Thursday 18/08/2022 10:00 (All staff)

Furthermore, we would like to inform colleagues of the recent change to the lost item procedure. As of Monday 25^th July, we have made changes to the process for significantly overdue books. Impacted colleagues were informed of this last week.

The changes are:

• We no longer automatically apply a lost status and lost fee in Alma when an item becomes significantly overdue.
• We automatically apply a block on borrowing as soon as the item becomes overdue.
• When the item becomes significantly overdue, we will also apply a block for renewals and requests. All blocks will be removed when the items are returned.

As a result:

• There is no longer any need to add prices to items from an Alma report.
• There is no need to manually block users for overdue items, or to send a second invoice email. Colleagues can still follow their local procedures to chase significantly overdue items, based on due date rather than lost status.
• Alma will no longer produce the following reports: Items Requiring Prices; Items Requiring a 2nd Invoice; Lost Loans Returned Yesterday; Invoice Letters Generated Yesterday. We will also remove the invoicing dashboard.
• If a customer reports that a book is lost, we will have to add the price to the item record and mark the item as lost manually. When online payment is live, this will allow the customer to pay the fee remotely, at which point it will be removed from their record automatically.

For further information on these changes, please consult the accompanying documentation.

We are still reviewing historic Alma lost fees and blocks, and will make a decision regarding these before online payment is operational. This will be communicated to colleagues.

We will also conduct a review in 2023 to assess whether these changes have had any impact on the number of books returned to the Library.

If you have any questions about training or the new lost item procedure, please contact Bethan Smith.