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Using the testing scenarios for circulation developed by the USMAI Circulation Subgroup in April, the RSTG assembled a team of expert testers for the first phase of Aleph V18 testing. The group included Jeff Elliott (UB Law), Sharon Payne (SU), Susan Wheatley (SU), Mark de Jong (UC), Christine Cowden (BC), Brandon Mollock (TU), Jamie Edwards (CP), and Chris Winters (CP). Their individual reports on each circulation function are below. Functions tested include reserves, patron registration, cash, items (circulation), task manager, and loans/returns/renewals. We are looking forward to working with the USMAI community on general circulation testing.
Reserves
Testers: Mark de Jong (UC), Susan Wheatley (SU), and Sharon Payne (SU)
What have you found that works in AV16 but not in AV18?
The features that were tested all worked in AV18. Note that EReserves were not tested.
Reserve reports were not tested and an Aleph V18 RX was sent.
1N – See note about the date display format (07/19/04 instead of 20070419)
What have you not been able to test?
Multiple reserve locations (Unable to create this scenario)
Date due slips and receipts – printer not available at testing location
Retaining course reserve lists to reactivate items for subsequent term
EReserves
Reserve reports
What should be addressed before we release to all testers?
Date display needs to be corrected – See 1N on checklist
Remove the request option for reserve items – See 1X on checklist
List any new features or improvements in AV18 that you find helpful:
N/A
Is there any other information that would be helpful in understanding the status of this upgrade?
Aleph V18 Reserves works almost identical to Version 16.
Summary of test:
Overall, Aleph v. 18 course reserves seemed to operate quite well in test. Only three items demonstrated a need for further attention: 1.N (stored due date and time), 1.P (fine rates and display), 1.X (ability to make a hold request on charged item) see associated Course Reserves Checklist for additional details regarding Checklist tests. None of these issues appeared to be too problematic. In fact, Jean Philips of ITD commented that correcting 1.N would be a simple matter. 1.N and 1.P should be fixed before go live. 1.X was not seen as essential by testers, but one or more campuses may want this ability. Also, no loss of functionality is apparent when contrasted to v. 16.
There were several items we were not able to test due to USMAI general practices and testing arrangements. For example, 1.K (multiple reserve locations per sublibrary), 1.Q (printing of due slips/receipts with hours and minutes indicated), 1.U (ability to retain, activate and deactivate course reserves lists), 1.V (individual item v. group activation per course reserves list) and 1.W (ability to place one item on more than one course reserves list) represented functionality that the USMAI libraries – at least to the knowledge of the testers – do not require or use, though the ability to implement is noted in Ex Libris and Harvard documentation. Furthermore, 1.Y (storing copyright, image and other information for reserve items) and 1.A.d – 1.A.f (booking via the OPAC, importing class rosters and creating a course reserve list via the OPAC) were simply not available to us for testing due to the parameters of use within the USMAI for v16 live and v18 test.
The only section outstanding is number two (reports testing). Requests for test reports were sent to v18 Rx per Jean Philips recommendation by tester Sharon Payne, but the reports have not been generated for review prior to this account being prepared for submission.
Patron Registration
Testers: Sharon Payne (SU), Susan Wheatley (SU), and Mark de Jong (UC)
What have you found that works in AV16 but not in AV18?
Everything appear to work
What have you not been able to test?
Patron loader – Are files loaded correctly?
Correct expiration date?
Complete address?
Correct status?
Booking
What should be addressed before we release to all testers?
See the Patron Registration checklist, section on patron notes. Can the Additional Notes field be set to automatically display on the patron’s record? Can “Patron Notes” tab be set as the default instead of “Patron Details”?
List any new features or improvements in AV18 that you find helpful:
Booking feature
Loan tab includes a feature for Open Hours
Patron Activity tab includes a Circulation Log and an option for title requests in addition to hold requests
Is there any other information that would be helpful in understanding the status of this upgrade?
A test patron file is needed to test the functionality of patron loader for those institutions that currently use it. AV 18 is very similar to Version 16.
Cash
Tester: Chrisie Cowden (BC) and Brandon Mollock (TU)
I found no loss of functionality, or errors in functionality, in Cash between Aleph v. 16 and v. 18.
To my knowledge there was no way to test notices, Bursar Extract or Reports. Because Circulation at UMBC uses only levels C3 and C4 access, the other levels (C2.5, C2 and C1) were not tested.
There was not enough time to allow one-day locker keys, semester locker keys, or study room and bin keys to go lost by themselves to see if fees registered correctly. When these items are forced “lost” they default to a $51.00 replacement cost (which can be altered because it pops up in a dialog box) and $21.00 processing fee (which does not get a dialog box and so cannot be altered) which is not correct for any of these items. Forcing these lost in v. 16 had the same problem, so there is no apparent indication of a step backward, and since fees on other items (books, Media, reserves) were registering correctly I would assume that these other fees would also end up being correctly assessed as they were in v. 16.
The new “sort” option in cash is a nice new feature. This sort function is set to always default to “date”, right?
The way that returned “lost” items register in cash, with the more concise “cancelled” status, is also a nice feature. It makes the transaction appear much less cumbersome.
Items (Circulation) and Task Manager
Testers: Jamie Edwards (CP) and Chris Winters (CP)
ITEMS
There are two very minor functions that AV16 has that AV18 does not. First, the Loan and Renew Librarians listed in Loan (under Item tab) do not display anything for loans/renewals done prior to test. This may be a function of the new test database. Regardless, if loans or renewals are done in test, only the Aleph username is displayed. AV16 displays the IP address of the computer that completed the transaction (see RX #2871). Secondly, the hold available letter is not regenerated if it has already been generated for a particular location for a particular hold. This occurs even if you reset the hold request and letter statuses. If reset in AV16, the letter would be generated (see RX #2872).
We were not able to test Booking or the Maintenance Profile/Record. Although the screens were accessible with the RSTGTEST username, the forms were not populated to the point where anything could be submitted. This is fine, since we do not use booking in AV16 and do not have the maintenance portion at all.
Unless we want to employ booking right away, we don’t think there is anything that needs to be addressed before being released to all testers.
Circulation Log is a new feature, and may be more useful in tracking where a book has been compared to the History screen. However, the ability to include the patron name and ID (like History) brings up privacy concerns. The only other issue we found with Circulation Log is the description error for regular loans and returns (see RX #2873).
The Item tab in AV18 is largely the same as AV16. Virtually all the functionality in AV16 is present in AV18. We also tested Change/Restore Item Information and Change Item Process Status functions under the Items top menu bar. They appear to function the same as AV16.
TASK MANAGER
There appears to be no missing functionality in AV18 Task Manager. However, we were not able to test the print daemon since UMCP typically does not use one. The only person over here that I know would be able to help is out on medical leave. We also could not test email notices (the “Mail” setup type) since a) we weren’t sure if current email notice files in test were going to actually be emailed live if we configured the test client and b) did not have enough time to set up test files to email anyway.
The only new functionality that we could find was the ability to change the Print Setup to ‘Y’ or ‘N’ (‘Y’ to choose the printer and properties). AV16 has this in Print History—as does AV18—but this appears to be new in Task Manager. This should allow for more flexibility in printing.
Loans/Returns/Renewals
Tester: Jeff Elliott (UB Law)
Problems
Printing receipts is a problem. The test version for 18 is installed on three workstations. Two types of problems were encountered. The first problem was not being able to print at all. A popup window had the message “Unable to run Saxon.” This has been reported by someone else in RX #2765.
I experienced another printing problem. After completing several circulation transactions the user information for the first transaction displayed on the receipt for all subsequent transactions involving numerous other users. Once I shut down the test database and logged back in, the same scenario occurred. I believe that I have all of the correct print options chosen. I reported this in RX #2870.
I was able to loan an item to a patron when someone else had placed a hold on it. A system note did appear saying that the item had holds. I was able to override and charge the item.
The system allowed me to charge an item (that our library owned) to a user when there was a hold placed on a like copy at another library by the same user.
When in the patron’s record, items did not renew automatically. I had to select a new date from the popup window.
Renew all did not work. I did not select a due date when prompted thinking that the appropriate due dates for the various campuses would automatically renew.
Areas not tested:
I was unclear on how to test to see if a recall fine appeared on the patron’s record because I was unable to back date the due date to make the recall overdue. (After charging an item I was unable to back date the due date, although after a return I was able to back date the item.)
I was unable to test whether an item could be renewed after it had reached its renewal limit because I was unclear on how to accomplish this, since the system would not allow me to renew an item multiple times.
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