You are here: Lender Workflow tasks > Monitoring Incoming Requests

Monitoring Incoming Requests

If you operate as a Lender (Responder) Location to another organisation, or if you operate an inter-branch loans service, you will also need to monitor for incoming requests on a regular basis, and respond to them accordingly. All new requests received for your location are at status In Process.

Searching and Acting on Requests

  1. Click the requests button to load the ILL Requests Search screen.

  2. Retrieve all new incoming requests aimed at your location e.g. filtered by Status = In Process.

  3. Select any request you want to respond to and use the Action button.

  4. Select one of the valid Actions from the list of actions presented to you in the Action window pull down list. Only valid Actions for incoming requests are displayed, such as Answer Conditional, Forward, Answer Will Supply, Shipped. The appropriate Action window is then loaded for you to supply additional information regarding the Action you are performing.

  5. Click action to save the changes.

Unable to Supply

Where you receive an incoming request that you cannot satisfy then you should send a NOT SUPPLIED message. The request is automatically sent on to the next location in the rota .

Change Current Service Type

This is an Action available to lenders (responders) enabling the current Service Type, from the requesting library, to be changed. This allows you to perform a subsequent Action that VDX would not otherwise make available. For example if the request has Service Type1=Locations and Service Type2=Loan then 'Locations' becomes the current Service Type. Shipping the item as a loan would be a satisfactory response but this Action is not available because the current Service Type is 'Locations'.

Therefore you can do the following to change the current Service Type:

  1. Select the request you want to respond to (it must be at status In Process) and use the Action button.

  2. Select Change Current Service Type from the list of Actions.

  3. Click action to save the changes. 

  4. This loads a new screen: Action: Changed Current Service Type. It displays brief details of the request.

  5. In the Current Service Type pull down box, select the preferred Service Type from the list of requested Service Types.

  6. Click the action button.

Repeat in order to obtain the list of actions again, and perform a subsequent new action, e.g. 'Shipped'.

Reports List

A relevant 'book slip' printout can be obtained from the Request details page. A report outputs data about the current Request such as Picklist (for Requests where you are the Lender). The PDF file containing the request details can then be printed.

The reports available depend on permissions for your user and whether or not this feature is enabled on your system in the Windows Admin Client. To run a report:

  1. From the hitlist click the Details link to display full details.
  2. From the Reports Available drop down select which report you would like to run.
  3. Click the Run button.
  4. You can print or save the PDF display.

Other Web Admin Reports are also available.

 

Locking and unlocking Requests

This allows you to assign Requests to yourself or to others for working with later, so that no other VDX user can update them. Unlock allows you to subsequently unlock a Request you had previously assigned. Permissions to allocate requests to yourself and to others is configured in Windows Admin Client.

 

  1. Click the check box next to the item you want to lock.
  2. At the top of the page click the Lock button. The drop down displays your user name by default. Alternatively you can allocate the Request to other users in your Location / Bureau displayed in the drop down - if they have User can be allocated Requests permission.
  3. VDX states the item was locked successfully.
  4. When the results are refreshed, the item appears in red font and a padlock icon displays next to the Title.

To subsequently unlock the Request, click the Unlock button.

Actioning a request successfully will also always automatically unlock a request.

 

Note: the above feature is particularly useful for Bureau users.

 

Automatic Response

The responding process can be automated. This means incoming requests can be processed automatically by VDX against a set of rules defined in the Windows Admin.Client for responses by the home location to requesting locations. This configuration is optional, and can be implemented in a variety of ways. A process called docfind-responder carries out these automatic responses. Check own local information for details of how this might be used at your own location.

Docfind-responder

This is an automatic response process for the benefit of the lender (responder) location, (check with local policy to see how implemented in your organisation). This process checks whether the requested item is held by the Lender (Responder) and is available for the Borrower (Requester). It can validate the request against local profiling rules and service attributes, and be configured to automatically send back suitable ILL messages to the Borrower (Requester) dependent upon the circulation status of the requested item. The process can automatically re-route requests that cannot be directly satisfied by the current lender (responder), but can be satisfied by other ILL departments internal to the current institution or consortium. The process also has the ability to automate the role of intermediary or broker between external borrowers (requesters) and other external suppliers or brokers such as OCLC. The configuration of docfind-responder is done in the Windows Admin.Client but in practice when using the Web Admin.Client it means that many incoming requests can automatically be moved on to the next stage without human intervention at the responding location.

 

Related Topics