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PALS Support and Training Report August 2006

• Support Specialists are working very hard on preparing training sessions and documentation for the upgrade.
• The upgrade to version 17 is now targeted during the semester and holiday break in late December/early January. Watch for an announcement in November with more specifics regarding the upgrade date.
  
  

• A training calendar for the MnPALS version 17 upgrade is available from the PALS homepage at http://www.pals.msus.edu/aleph/syslibs/home.html. Please review it to make yourselves aware of the training dates. Each session will be offered several times. All of the sessions will be presented as web trainings using Breeze. One connection per campus/site per session will be allowed. You may want to identify a couple of options for each session just in case your first choice is full.
• Course Reserve training was offered August 16th.
• A Circulation Refresher for Eta Libraries will be offered on August 24th.
• XSL workshops will be offered on September 13 & October 12.
• ABC Signup software is being used to manage training, meeting and User Group registrations. The following link will take you to list of events that PALS currently has open for registration http://www.abcsignup.com/view/view_month.asp?as=16&wp=112&aid=PALS
• Announcements regarding training/workshop opportunities are currently sent to the Aleph migration list and the PALS Discussion list.
  
  

• Inventory Service available as of July 27 to MnPALS libraries. PALS, along with some testing assistance from Minnesota State University, Mankato has, assembled all of the pieces needed for libraries to use Aleph for inventory. Documentation and instructions are available from the PALS eDesk http://pals.custhelp.com as Answer number 3043. You can either enter the number into the search box or search "Inventory documentation".
• Collection Management for Blackwells Book Service: Technical staff has written a service to move the file from Blackwell to the libraries scratch directory, PALS has set up all the necessary tables and MSU has been given the go ahead to try testing the service on Lute.
  
  

• Replying between the lines - When you receive a notification from the PALS eDesk that we have responded to your request with additional information you will now see the message below. When you reply to a notification from the PALS eDesk with updated information you need to reply between the lines that are in the email. Your other choice is to update the information in your request by clicking on the link in the email notification and update the information through the PALS eDesk web interface. If you do not reply between the lines your message will bounce back to you and your request will not get updated.

Recently you requested personal assistance from the PALS Customer Support eDesk. Below is a summary of your request and our response.

We will assume your issue has been resolved if we do not hear from you within 28 business days.

Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.

Please update your incident by clicking on the link below. If you choose to reply to this email rather than clicking the link below, you MUST enter your reply in the space below.

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To update your question from our support site, click here.

• Continuing to update ILL links (moving off the header on each page and moving onto the "Your Borrowing Record" page. Status: Ongoing. Approximately 1/2 the libraries pages have been updated.
• The process to update the login pages, adding some hints for the User ID (barcode) and Password (usually their last name) is ongoing. There are 6 different login pages per Web OPAC, and 63 libraries.
  
  

• Web board address for Authorities Task Force http://boards.pals.msus.edu/fusetalk/forum/index.cfm?forumid=17
  
  

• Next meeting planned for August 28
• A follow-up to Aleph indexing requests report was published to the Aleph Migration list on August 21st from Linda Richter. This purpose of the report is to provide additional information and recommendations regarding outstanding indexing requests.
• Web board address for Indexing Task Force http://boards.pals.msus.edu/fusetalk/forum/index.cfm?forumid=15
  
  

• The Validation Work Group wants to meet again in September. They would like to take a look at the table changes from Version 15 to 17.
• Web board address for Validation Work Group http://boards.pals.msus.edu/fusetalk/forum/index.cfm?forumid=19
  
  

• Perry is working to activate the Task Force in order to assist him in working through outstanding issues and new functionality of version 17's Web OPAC.
• Web board address for MATF http://boards.pals.msus.edu/fusetalk/forum/index.cfm?forumid=16
  
  

• Consortium of MnPALS Libraries Fall User Group Meetings are Monday, October 23 & Tuesday, October 24 at Minnesota State University, Mankato, Centennial Student Union.
• "Call for agenda items" was sent the first week of August. Send agenda items to the Convener for the subsystem meetings you wish to attend.
• A draft general agenda for the day has been posted to the PALS homepage www.pals.msus.edu/pals/minutes/main0610.html.
• Watch for an invitation to register the week of September 5th.
  
  

• The budget for MnLINK was approved at the Gateway Operations Meeting. They will continue server site payments which will include any new servers.
  
  

• RightNow - On Tuesday, Aug 15, Gary Langer announced that an agreement was reached between RightNow and the Office of the Chancellor to approve the system-wide contract for MnSCU. They are still discussing a few details that will add more functionality to the application but for all essential purposes it's expected to be signed by Laura King very soon. A meeting is being scheduled at the Office of the Chancellor to discuss a pricing and support models for the new contract.
• FuseTalk Forums - Earlier this month a meeting was held at the Office of the Chancellor to discuss the feasibility of the FuseTalk forums as a support vehicle for MnSCU. It was decided that the forums would be discontinued and that MnSCU individuals could use other resources within the System to meet their synchronous and asynchronous communication needs.
  
  NOTE: PALS will continue to use FuseTalk as the message boards for the various Task Forces for the forseeable future.
  
  

• For a complete schedule of web training, hands on training and workshops available please consult the PALS homepage. Click on Announcements, Training & Workshops, select the link under "Scheduled Workshops and Training Sessions" or click http://www.abcsignup.com/view/view_month.asp?as=16&wp=112&aid=PALS
• Individual invitations will be sent out each time we add a new session to our offerings.
  
  

• MCTC RightNow demo, July 19 - Frank
• Greater Mankato Portal Demo, July 26 & 27 - Kyle & Frank
• MCTC Demo/Discovery, July 27 - Kyle
• RightNow Portals Training, July 28 - Kyle & Frank
• MINITEX/PALS Joint Meeting, August 2 - Becky, Cathy, Mary Ann, Sonja, Susan
• Greater Mankato Economic Development RightNow Training, August 1-3 & 7-8 - Kyle & Frank
• IP Agent Training, August 9 - Kyle & Frank
• Hennepin Tech Demo, August 15 - Kyle
  
  

URL: www.mnpals.org/pals/reports/0608_user.html
Modified: Friday, 22-Sep-2006 10:52:24 CDT
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Author: ck