Emailing Overdue or Fine Notices Using Circulation

• In circulation, select "Library transactions" from the menu. You will see all your current library transactions. You can filter what you want to see on display (loans, holds, fine, etc.). For example, if you click on the drop-down for "loans", you will see the options for "overdue", and if you select it, you will only see "overdue" loans on the screen, then you can even apply more filters to the result display. 

If you applied any filter a "SEND NOTIFICATION" icon will appear, on the screen, If you click on it a pop-up box will come up for you to type a message that will be part of the Email's body (you can edit the message) then if you click "OK", it will send an email to each person on display. The same principle applies to "Fines" or "Due Date Reminders".

For more information, see: Working with Library Transactions

• Important Notes:

  • MAKE SURE your patrons have an email address on their records. The email address is located in field 110#m, otherwise, Mandarin will not be able to deliver the notification.

  • The librarian should see a pop-up verifying that the email was sent, as well as they will receive an email with the summary of emails sent out (the email address receiving the summary is from the record of the librarian who's "signed in" to circulation with a valid barcode on their record). 

• Technical notes:

  • Circulation supports sending emails to addresses in fields 111#m, 112#m, and 113#m as part of the "Send Notification" process. For example, if you add an alternative email to a patron record, such as the parents' email, they will get a copy of the "overdue email" being sent. The feature is on by default, but can be changed by adding the following Global.ini entry: [NOTIFICATION EMAIL]

    • enable email other contacts=0/1

    • other contacts email fields=111#m;112#m;113#m

• Regarding: Text Messages, Most people nowadays receive their emails on their cell phones and they will read them at their convenience. We had a pilot where sending text notifications and most of the patrons did not like the option (they consider it sort of annoying) and librarians opted out, also there will be an additional cost for carrying that service, so we stopped developing that feature.

Just as FYI, on a patron record, you can add more than one email address, the main email address goes to field 110#m,  if you add another email address (field 111#m) using the following format (below), the email notification will be sent as a text message to the patron on their cell

Phone#@carrier.com