Talis Forums

Andy Bussey

We're currently having a problem with reservations claiming they are waiting collection when they have already been issued to a borrower (and usually returned as well!) The problem is very intermittent (though one site appears to see it more often than others) and I thought I'd ask on the forums about it before reporting it.

When I look at the reservation (in Alto & in SQL) everything looks OK, apart from it is status Waiting Collection instead of Collected.

Are any other libraries seeing this?
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Andy Bussey, University of Sheffield

JMEDFORTH · Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 2:02 pm Post subject:

This has been on our list of things to investigate further for some months. We had a brief spate of reports that this was happening, but nothing recent.
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John Medforth
Systems Librarian, University of Brighton

Dan Mullineux · Guest

I dont suppose its associated with any Offline incidents?

Andy Bussey · Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2006 6:10 pm Post subject:

Katharine Spellman · Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 107 Location: Talis

Assure has the same functionality with respect to recovering issue and discharge transactions as offline. Where an item has been issued off the reservation shelf (to the reserver) in Assure then the logs from the recovery process will say there is a "Res at waiting collection status for this borrower".

You could check the loan history for the item to see if it was issued off the reservation shelf during the offline period. This would explain why the reservation was still at waiting collection status.

There is a PER for Assure requesting that it change the status of waiting collection reservations to Completed (if issued to the reserver) - A11. I'll add Sheffield to the list.
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Katharine Spellman
Business Specialist
Talis Information Ltd
Email: katharine.spellman@talis.com

sharon_jamieson · Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 9:50 am Post subject:

Could you also add Aberdeenshire to the list. When we use offline it doesn't indicate that the item was waiting collection. The only thing we see is that the item was "Reserved". Branch staff have been told to discharge the reserved item before issuing and that stops the problem. However, if Assure could complete the issue that would be great! Sharon

Katharine Spellman · Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 107 Location: Talis

Hi Sharon,

I've added Aberdeen to the list.

Katharine
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Katharine Spellman
Business Specialist
Talis Information Ltd
Email: katharine.spellman@talis.com

Sandra Sharp · Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 12:20 pm Post subject:

Could you add Leeds too please

thanks

Sandra

Stewart Fisher · Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 20

Further to Sharon's point about Talis Offline. The waiting collection problem has popped up a few times in Aberdeenshire. It is intermittent here too. I have raised a call with the help desk and currently Talis Mobile is being investigated as a possible cause.

Kath Shakespeare

This has always been an issue for Portsmouth when using offline and we used to try to work our way around it.

Please add Portsmouth to the PER in Assure.
Whilst I think the reporting made available in the recovery log in Assure is a vast improvement in alerting staff to the fact that a reserved item may have been collected whilst working offline, automating this would be fantastic.

Thanks
Kath
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Kath Shakespeare
Assistant Librarian (Loans)
Frewen Library
University of Portsmouth

Mary Cox · Joined: 17 May 2006 Posts: 1

I'm not sure if you have resolved this problem yet.

We had the same thing and found that it happened when a reservation was issued at a site other than the one where it had been satisfied.

When an item is sent over to another site AFTER it is satisfied we found, to stop the problem happening, we have to discharge the book from the internal ticket, place the reservation again using the new collection site and then put the item intransit from the reservation screen.

To get rid of the unwanted 'Waiting Collection' message before we discovered this we cancelled the reservation even though the item was satisfied, this seemed to work!

Hope this is useful

mary

Dan Mullineux · Guest

Mary.

Thanks v useful..and apologies for the slow response.

Interestingly you appear to have found a different path to the same problem, and one that will probably be easier to reproduce here than the Assure/Offline condition

It should help our analysts work out what's going on.

Dan

Andy Holmes · Joined: 04 Aug 2004 Posts: 13 Location: East Lothian

Stuart wrote "The waiting collection problem has popped up a few times in Aberdeenshire. It is intermittent here too. I have raised a call with the help desk and currently Talis Mobile is being investigated as a possible cause."
I think in somes instances Talis Mobile may be the problem, especially if synchronisation does not take place daily. I have identified one instance where an item returned to Mobile library on a Thursday, then sent to static library and reservation satsified on Alto on Friday afternoon. The mobile library did the synchronisation later that Friday afternoon, and this may be the cause of the waiting collection problem in this instance.
Andy Holmes
East Lothian Libraries

Denise Sparrowhawk · Joined: 06 Apr 2005 Posts: 10 Location: Hartlepool

We had a similar problem a while ago which i believe we traced to the book being issued in a branch other than the one where the request had been placed. We have also had problems with Talismobile and the synchronisation but it is intermittent and i'm not sure a solution has been found.

Kath Robertshaw · Joined: 01 Sep 2005 Posts: 12 Location: Wirral Libraries

We have instances of this happening too, and they cannot be related to either Talis Assure or Talis Mobile.