Expire Available Holds Report
| • | Pipe-delimited Output |
The Expire Available Holds (Expshlfholds) report helps staff to manage the Holds shelf efficiently. The report selects ACTIVE available holds that have been on the Holds shelf for at least the number of days specified in the policies, and sets the hold status for each hold to INACTIVE with an inactive hold reason of ”Hold Expired While On Shelf” (EXP_ONSHLF). The report can also generate notices to be sent to users for expired, cancelled holds.
The SirsiDynix Symphony Workstation server needs to be running to schedule and run this report, or the report will fail. Do not halt the SirsiDynix Symphony Workstation server until the report displays on the finished list.
If you use the Purge Inactive Holds report, keep in mind that selected holds are deleted completely from the database, and can only be restored from a current backup. Once the selected holds are removed permanently from the database, statistics reports cannot select and include these holds in the statistics report output. SirsiDynix strongly recommends that you run your statistics reports first. After you have finished compiling all of the statistics you want, run the Purge Inactive Holds report.
This report contains the following tabs.
| • | Basic Tab: Reports |
| • | General Notice Tab |
| • | Hold Selection Tab |
| • | Sorting Tab |
| • | Print Separate Reports for Each Library Tab |
By default, available holds are selected for any day before the report run date as long as the number of days the item has been on the Holds shelf meets or exceeds the number specified in the Days for Avail Holds to Expire attribute in the Library policy, and the user has never been notified previously of a hold cancellation for that material. Selected holds are set to INACTIVE with a hold inactive reason of EXP_ONSHLF. You must run the Clean Holds Shelf (Cleanholdshelf) report to make the next holds on items available, to put the items in transit back to the owning library, or to direct the items to be reshelved.
When the Expire Available Holds report is run with the Count as a Notice Sent check box selected on the General Notice tab, the Date Cancellation Notified field is updated to the date and time the report runs. This field does not display at the workstation; it is managed solely through reports. By using this feature, a user will receive a single cancellation notice for each expired hold.
If you run the Expire Available Holds report with the Count as a Notice Sent check box cleared on the General Notice tab, you may later run the Notice for Cancelled Holds (Holdcancelntc) report to produce notices for expired holds. Then you must run the Clean Holds Shelf (Cleanholdshelf) report to set any cancelled holds on the Holds shelf to INACTIVE.
To remove the inactive, expired holds completely from the system, run the Purge Inactive Holds (Purgeholds) report.
If Generate Pipe Delimited Output is selected on the Charge Notice tab, the report creates a pipe-delimited file and places it in the /Rptprint directory with the naming convention of yyyymmdd_internalrptname.pipe. The report log lists the pipe-delimited report file name. This pipe-delimited file can be opened using a third-party application, such as a spreadsheet application.
Sorting selections made within the report are not applied to pipe-delimited files. For example, if you sort the report by zip code, the zip code sort is not applied to the contents of the pipe-delimited file
The entries listed in the Brief Entries attribute of the User Address Format wizards are used to supply information for the address fields in the pipe-delimited file. The City/State field (if it is used) is evaluated as one field, not as two separate fields for the city and the state. The report will check user records for the fields listed in the Brief Entries attribute and print only the populated fields in the pipe-delimited output.
Pipe-delimited Key File
The pipe-delimited key file defines each field of the pipe-delimited file for a particular notice.
The following pipe-delimited key file defines the fields for an expired available hold notice.
|date|Library name|street|line|city, state|zip|user name|street|line|city, state|zip|salutation|notice text|title|author|call number|hold reason|
The following example shows a pipe-delimited key file for an expired available hold notice, and the notice output that is produced from the file.
|Friday, May 12, 2006|Rockerfeller Public Library|123 Main St.||Huntsville, AL|35801|Tom Patron|1234 Fair Oaks Lane||St Louis, MO|55555|
Dear Tom Patron,|This is to inform you that hold(s) you
placed have been removed. See the details below for an explanation.
|Travelling in Ireland|Joyce, Maureen|MAJ1234|Hold expired while on shelf|
Friday, May 12, 2006
Rockerfeller Public Library
123 Main St.
St. Louis, MO
35801
Tom Patron
1234 Fair Oaks Lane
St Louis, MO
55555
Dear Tom Patron,This is to inform you that hold(s) you placed have been removed.
See the details below for an explanation.
1 Travelling in Ireland
Joyce, Maureen
call number:MAJ1234
Hold Reason:Hold expired while on shelf
Related topics
My Circulation Group Reports (in SirsiDynix Symphony K12)
FAQs: Managing the Holds Shelf