We would like to inform colleagues that the ability for customers to pay fines and fees online has now been made live. Customers can now pay their outstanding fines and fees by navigating to the payment portal from their library accounts in Explore.

As a reminder, a training guide has been created to act as a refresher for colleagues involved in online payments. It contains a detailed breakdown of the online payment process, as well as the procedures associated with our new way of paying fines and fees.

We would also like to remind all colleagues that, from now on, all testing and training which involves online payments (including any training for new starters) should be completed on the Alma Sandbox rather than the live production version of Alma, in order to ensure that all future financial reporting is accurate.

If you have any questions about the online payment process, please contact Bethan Smith or Jonathan Fowles.

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.

Following on from the recent blog post reminding staff of the existence of the Explore Upgrade SharePoint in relation to online payments, we would like to now advertise the online payments training sessions which will be commencing in the next few weeks.

These training sessions will allow staff to become familiar with the online payment portal, so that they can assist our customers in navigating the platform and answer customer queries where needed.

Training will take place from 26^th July through to 18^th August. The first few sessions outlined below will have an Issue Desk Heads focus, so if you identify as a member of this group, we would particularly encourage you to sign up to one of these sessions.

The training sessions will include the following:

• A demo of the online payment process
• An opportunity for staff to try out the payment platform using test payments
• Troubleshooting, process outlines and FAQs (including refunds and the new lost item procedure)

We would recommend that all interested staff sign up to one live session. Colleagues can sign up to training sessions via the Eventbrite links below:

• Tuesday 26/07/2022 14:00 (Aimed at Issue Desk Heads)
• 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)

Additional training documentation which can be used for reference will be provided and made available on the Explore Upgrade SharePoint once live training sessions are underway.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about Online Payments, please email bethan.smith@ucl.ac.uk.

As we are now well into the summer period, we would like to take the opportunity to update you on the progress on the Online Payments strand of the Explore Upgrade Project, which addresses the online payment of fines and fees by library customers. 

Having set up the testing environment, User Acceptance Testing is now underway to test the basic functionalities of the online payment portal. This period of testing will last the next few weeks; following on a successful period of testing, we will aim to launch the online payments platform for customers in time for the start of the next academic year, by the end of August 2022.

In preparation for go-live, we would like to remind you of the existence of the Explore Upgrade SharePoint, which will continue to be updated with new information regarding online payments in the coming days and weeks. The updates will include training documentation and an outline of processes associated with online payments. Colleagues are advised to periodically check the SharePoint for any updates and information. 

We are also aware that colleagues will want to familiarise themselves with the workings of the platform well in advance of the go-live date. To facilitate this, online payments training sessions for staff will shortly be advertised. Colleagues will be asked to sign up to live, virtual training sessions via an Eventbrite link. Training will cover the following elements: 

• A demo of the online payment process 

• An opportunity for staff to try out the payment platform using test payments

• Troubleshooting and FAQs 

Please do keep an eye out for the training sessions, which will be advertised on the blog next week. In the meantime, if you have any questions about Online Payments, please email bethan.smith@ucl.ac.uk.  

Following on from our previous blogpost regarding the first phase of the Explore upgrade, and the launch of our staff SharePoint, we would like to remind staff that the upgrade to Explore will be happening next week on Tuesday 8th March. We have recently been updating our customers with social media, OneLan messaging and other communications, and will continue to advertise the upgrade in the run up to launch.

In today’s blogpost, we would also like to provide some clarification on how exam papers and will be accessed post go-live, as we know that our customers (and colleagues!) will be particularly interested in ensuring that access to this feature is uninterrupted by the changes.

8th March go-live

As a reminder, we will be going live with the upgrade to the new version of Primo on Tuesday 8th March. This will encompass the upgrade to the way we view digital collections, as well as the Explore interface update.  You can find out more about these elements on their respective pages on the staff SharePoint.  

Please note that online payments will be released at a later date, with more information on the timeline for implementing this feature to be provided soon.  

Exam papers

Once the upgrade is live, Explore will become the default method for accessing exam papers.  To search for exam papers in the new version of Explore, users can type in the relevant search term, using the exam papers search scope to filter results as shown below: 

Alternatively, customers can browse through the UCL Exam Papers collection, and its associated sub collections, via Digital Collections:

Although the upgrade will mean that exam papers are more easily discoverable, we appreciate that it may take some time for our customers to get used to this new way of finding information. We have therefore made the decision to retain a link from our web pages to exam papers in DigiTool for a time, though we will retire this feature after the current exam period. 

Differences between classic Primo and Primo VE

As a reminder, for colleagues who support Explore users as part of their role, there is a dedicated page on the SharePoint which lists the differences between the classic and updated version of Primo, as well as ongoing technical fixes. This page will be updated regularly over the next few days and weeks. 

If you have any questions about the upgrade project, or are unable to access the SharePoint site, please contact Bethan Smith.  

For more general queries regarding Explore, please contact the appropriate Explore functional lead.