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SpringyNews - A New Spring Outlook

March 2021

Recent Updates - February

The LibCal team has been hard at work on new Appointments features and has a few other improvements to share!

Appointments

Booking limits for Appointments have arrived. We’ve added the ability to set daily, weekly, monthly, and/or yearly limits on the number of appointments that can be booked by each patron/student.

  • Default limits are available to set on the system level, and individual users can either use the system limits or define their own if needed.

In February, we also added the ability to list Appointments by location on the LibCal homepage, Hours page, and individual event pages. This means, students and patrons can easily jump to the type of appointment they'd like to book, especially if they are not sure of the name of the appropriate person to meet. 

Other features & improvements:

  • API support to return availability for period-based locations when retrieving seat/space bookings.
  • A warning on the admin side “Booking Grid & Availability” tab when hours for a Spaces & Equipment location, category, space, or item will expire soon or has no hours assigned.

Looking for more LibCal features and fixes? Check out the LibCal release notes on the Springshare Lounge!

February's release included an exciting update for the E-Reserves item request form.

E-Reserves

We’ve made the E-Reserves request form more user-friendly by getting rid of the accordion collapsible sections, indicating required fields with a red asterisk, and changing how the “Type” choices work.

Additionally, you can indicate whether these fields should be required or hidden.

Lastly, don’t miss additional LibGuides release goodness in the release notes over on the Springshare Lounge!

The LibAnswers team has been hard at work refreshing the Reference Analytics codebase! The February release also includes a mobile chat improvement.

Reference Analytics 

We’ve refreshed the entire Ref. Analytics code base, with the goal of updating code and improving response times.

  • Most folks using the Add or View/Edit Transactions screens won’t notice many UI changes.
  • Admins can see this refresh reflected in the edit Reference Analytics dataset screen.

LibChat

In this release, we improved how chat widgets open on mobile devices. Now, most chat widgets (everything except for embedded chat widgets) will pop open in a new tab/window when viewed and accessed on handheld mobile devices.

  • Proactive floating and slide-out chat widgets also will not pop out and take up valuable space on the smaller window.
  • To see this new behavior in action, open a webpage with a button, floating, or slide-out widget on a mobile device (less than 700px).

Also included in the February release:

  • New site-level email and SMS block list in Admin > System Settings > Access Rules. Getting spammed? Now LibAnswers admins have the ability to block the email address, domain, or phone number (and optionally reverse it).
  • The ability to easily see the number of patron replies to tickets in Quality of Service statistics.

Also, check out the LibAnswers release notes on the Springshare Lounge for more complete information on past and future updates.

The LibStaffer team has released exciting enhancements to the regular and recurring shift assignment process!

Schedules

  • You can now set a frequency when scheduling users to a recurring shift. This means schedule admins can easily assign staff members who work alternating weeks!
  • We've added “Select All” / “Deselect All” buttons to shift assignment screens when there are more than eight users assigned to a schedule.

Check out the LibStaffer release notes on the Springshare Lounge!

The LibInsight team had a few things to share in February!

Accounts

The “New Account” and “Import LibApps Accounts” functions were moved to their own pages for easier use. In Admin > Manage Accounts, admins will find three tabs - Existing accounts, New Account, Import LibApps Accounts.

Dataset Uploads

As a processing and performance improvement, the following dataset types now only accept uploads in .csv (Comma-Separated Values) format:

  • Finance
  • Reference
  • Calendaring
  • Custom/Shared

This means fewer issues as a result of extraneous data hidden within the file you're uploading! To save any Excel file as a .csv file, go to File > Save As.. and choose Comma-Delimited file. 

Check out more from this release in the LibInsight release notes on the Springshare Lounge!

The LibWizard team recently added a popular request  - folders for form, survey, quiz, and tutorial organization!

Folders

  • Anyone (Admin and Regular level users) can create new folders to contain forms, surveys, quizzes, or tutorials.
  • Admins will have access to create, delete, or rename all folders. Regular users will be able to create new folders, but will only be able to rename and delete their own folders.
  • Deleting a folder will not delete the folder contents but will move any existing contents outside of the folder to the main level list.

Read the rest of the LibWizard release notes over on the Springshare Lounge!

Upcoming Updates

The LibCal team has a few exciting things lined up for this spring!

  • Interactive mapping is almost here! Check out a sneak peek on the LibCal Mapping page and fill out our Mapping Interest form!
  • We're working on streamlining Appointment Booking Forms and settings on the admin-side for better management of appointment categories, location and groups.
  • Stay tuned for Cisco WebEx integration for Appointments and Calendar Events!

Here's what's on the way for LibAnswers!

  • We're working on overhauling the indexing we use when searching for chat transcripts and tickets. In the coming months, you can expect a faster and more intuitive search interface, along with a wealth of next-generation stats reporting and content searching. This means more in-depth, comprehensive insights into answering activity!
  • Soon you'll have the ability to send a test feedback survey, which can be used prior to enabling the follow-up user satisfaction email and survey feature.