The Web Enhancement Forums

Gabriele Popp,

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

EUUG, University of Bath, September 2003

Why this presentation?

Libraries changeOur demands on Unicorn changeSystem needs to change with us/for usSirsi constantly develops system

How can we influence this change and make sure that our voices are heard as part of the system development process?

What am I going to talk about

Sirsi Perspective (from Unicorn Enhancement Process by Berit Nelson &

Karen Albright, Sirsi Super Conference, March 2003)

Web Forums as part of enhancement process

How the Forums workHow to use themLive demo session

What drives development of Unicorn

Prospective customers, i.e. Sales

Industry-identified needs, e.g. standards organizations, advances in technology

Custom programs

and Web Enhancement Forums.

Interaction between Sirsi and Customers

1 - 1: Individual customers and Sirsi Sales and other meetings Helpdesk calls

more to 1: Customer groups and Sirsi User Groups Webforums

Forum cycle

Sirsi Corp: Site and software managementUser groups: Decide what forums they wantCustomer volunteers: Moderate forums, i.e.

coordinate discussions and turn suggestions into enhancement requests

Sirsi & Moderators: Discuss enhancement requests

Sirsi: Implement or reject enhancements

The Forums

16 Specific Discussion Groups on:

Functionality, e.g. Acquisitions, Reports, orSoftware components, e.g. iLink, Hyperion

Each group has 2 forums: a General Discussion Forum and an Enhancement Forum

Forum Moderators

Acquisitions: Su Cleyle, Memorial University Cataloging: Gary Charbonneau, Indiana University Circulation: Sylvie Szafranski, Martin County Library

System iBistro/iLink: Janet Young, Hurst Public Library Reports: Spencer Anspach, Indiana University Serials: Mark McCallon, Abilene Christian University System Administration: Holly Gordon, Texas State

Library Z39.50: Slavko Manojlovich, Memorial University

Discussions

Customer enters suggestion and starts discussion, which may reveal what you want to do is achievable available in later version of Unicorn has already been done by somebody else can be done in another way is a unique problem specific to your own site!

If it is something many other users support, it will be moved to enhancement forum

Polling

Moderator reformulates the suggestion (sometimes with clarifications)

Turns it into an enhancement requestPuts it up for a voteYou can vote

Yes (with weighting of high, medium or low importance)

No and add comments

Review process

Sirsi review requests on a periodic basis (currently ca. once a year)

Requests are ranked by the number of ‘Yes’ votesSirsi posts response back to forum saying which

features will be added and for which release an item is scheduled

Sirsi update existing suggestions when the feature has been implemented

or explain why an enhancement request has been rejected.

Why some don’t make it

Enhancements get refused by Sirsi, ifthere is an easier way to accomplish requested

capabilitychange that is requested would “undo” previously

balloted changeforum comments indicate as many negative

ramifications as positive there are several “no” votesthe request isn’t possible in the current

development platform, but may still become available in the future.

Example from System Admin list (Holly Gordon, List Moderator)

To turn a suggestion into an enhancement, it should have about 5 support messages

Once it reaches clear consensus, it is put to vote

Message sent to the list that an enhancement is up for vote

Once or twice a year Sirsi and her go over status of enhancement requests

Then...

Sirsi say how many new enhancements they can take

Holly picks most popular ones and posts shortlist to the list for comment

Shortlist sent to SirsiSirsi respond on what they can and cannot do,

and by whenResults and status gets reported at UUGI

Forum success stories

Acquisitions ISBN validation (2004)

Circulation Sort checkout displays by due date or title

(2004)

OPAC Save items to iBistro/iLink “shopping cart” for

entire session (2003)

More Successes ...

Reports Delete reports as a group (2004) Schedule reports on a yearly basis (2002)

Serials Sort checkins on “expected” and “received”

tabs in ascending/descending order (2004)

System Administration ALLTools toolbar (2002)

How to take part

Sirsi assigns one root user id and password for each new customer, usually to the System administrator = Super User

Root login can Create, edit and remove users, and change their password

Super User signs up staff at their own site

NB Super User needs to create own personalized user id to participate in forums

Access control

User logins controlAccess to customer pages or “Client Care”,

for release notes, etc.Subscriptions to SirsiTalk listsRegistration to participate in Web Forums

Passwords

System automatically creates temporary password as part of user registration

On first login user will be prompted to change password

Password must be at least 6 characters long and can’t be a dictionary word

Password will automatically expire every three months

Who to contact

If you are System administrator for your site, contact

Sirsi Corp: email forummaster@sirsi.comSirsi UK: Steve Fletcher at

stevef@sirsi.co.uk

If you are not the root user yourselfSpeak to your System Administrator

Sirsi communities

Once registered you can participate in

Sirsi Talk lists

Special Interest Groups (SIGs)

Web forums

Specific discussion groups

Sirsi Talk lists (currently 20) based around

Functionality, e.g. Acquisitions, Cataloguing, System Administration, or

Special Interest Groups, e.g. Law, Public or Special Libraries

Where to go for what

Urgent questions or need for immediate response to a problem => Go to lists

New features and improvements => Relevant General Discussion Forum

Requests for enhancements => Relevant Enhancement Forum

How to use the forums

Create a new postReply to a postView a threadVoteView polling resultsSearch through previous discussions

User features

Edit your profile, e.g. create signature, change display

Subscribe to receive forum summaries by email

How to find them

Forums can be found under Client Care at Sirsi Corp website

http://www.sirsi.com/uhtbin/custinfo

When you get back

Find out or renew your root passwordGet your Super User to create your loginSet-up email noticesLook at the enhancements and VOTE!!!