Overdue Reports? Dreams Really Do Come True!

Tip for 01.04.09

Have you ever dreamed of having a perfect assistant who always runs your overdues and distributes them to the teachers without you having to remind that person?  Well, Alexandria version 6 is now that perfect assistant!

One of the wonderful features of v6 is the ability to set up specific reports, schedule them to be run on a specified frequency interval and email them to a certain recipient -- and it is so simple!  The initial setup is going to take a few minutes, but it will be the last time you have to do this for as long as the teachers are with you.

To set up overdue reports to be emailed to the teachers:

• Go to Tools on the menu bar and click on Reports.

• Click on the Circulation tab.

• Click on either the Listings button or the Notices button.  (For this example, I am going to use my favorite, the Circulation Posting List -- Detailed, but just adjust the instructions to fit the your favorite report, so I want to choose the Listings button.)

• Click on the Add (+) icon.

• The Selection tab should be showing.  Set the options to your favorite Report Type, Format (if this drop-down menu is showing) and Sort Type.  From the Select By drop-down menu, choose Homeroom and fill in a particular homeroom in both the Starting With and Ending With fields.

• Click on the Schedule tab and fill in the fields, click on buttons, or make selections from drop-down menus to achieve the desired schedule.  (Notice that I have set it to run the Circulation Posting List -- Detailed report for Ms. Dobbins class weekly on Thursdays at 1 a.m. because I have her class in the library on Wednesdays, so any books not returned on time will show up on Thursday as overdue.)

    

• Next, click on the Location. 

• Set the Output to drop-down menu to Email Attachment and fill in the email address for the teacher.  Set the Output Format to PDF do that she can open the attachment.  Enter a name for the attachment the teacher will receive.  (In this case, I have entered Weekly Overdues.)  Select either Append Output Prefix or Append Output Suffix and make a selection from the drop-down menu.  (I selected to add the Date, so the attachment will be labeled as Weekly Overdues  Date.)

• If you are part of a Central Union system, you will need to click on the Sites tab, highlight your site's name, and click on the > icon.

• Lastly, click on the Overview tab and give information about this report.  I have given it a Name and a Description and checked the Favorites checkbox.  Checking the Favorites checkbox will make it easier to find if I need to edit this report in the future.

• Click on Save.

Just repeat this process for each homeroom.  Since you have set up the first one, you probably will only need to change the homeroom, the teacher's email address and, possibly, the day of the week it is run.  So, the process should be quite quick.

Now, sit back and enjoy.  Your "perfect assistant," Alexandria, will take care of this task for you!