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Horizon Notices List of Categories
- Because all notices come from the home library, if it is non-automated, patrons often don't get notices on time and holds have expired when they come to pick them up.
- I am from an automated library and would like to generate overdue notices for borrowers from non-automated libraries. How do I do this?
- Our billing notices are sometimes being sent via email. We only want them to print.
- All notices are printed by the borrower's home library, not the library where the item was checked out or the library where a hold is waiting for the borrower. It's very confusing for the patron and we have been told by some customers that their home libraries are not notifying them if the item isn't being picked up there.
- We have started seeing a block that reads LTN Billing and it has nothing in it when you do a detail. What are these? Can we delete them, as there is nothing attached?
- When printing reminder notices, when we create a new batch, how do we determine which are new reminders and which are old so we don't waste postage? Do we have to keep running list and compare it each day?
- Our library has an LTLS email account that we use for sending Horizon notices. Can our library use this email account for other general purpose email?
- We send Horizon email notices to users with email addresses. How can we be sure they are receiving them?
- E-mail notices are showing up with gaps in-between words.
- What is the best procedure for assessing a fee/fine for a damaged item? Damaged checkin doesn't assess a fine and when we tried assessing a fee, it didn't put an amount on the notice. The amount does show on the patron's blocks but not on the notice that printed.
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Because all notices come from the home library, if it is non-automated, patrons often don't get notices on time and holds have expired when they come to pick them up.
This is true because notices in Horizon follow the location that 'owns' the borrower and the non-automated libraries don't generate notices. In a previous LINC Update, LTLS recommended that automated libraries change the 'owning' location of those borrowers (1000 borrowers from places like Melvin and Potomac, etc.) to their own library. The recommendation was to leave the btype as belonging to the non-automated library but change the owning agency to the automated library. This would enable those patrons to receive notices.
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I am from an automated library and would like to generate overdue notices for borrowers from non-automated libraries. How do I do this?
In Horizon, notices are generated by the home location of the borrower. In the case of the 1000 patrons (public library patrons from nonautomated libraries), the notices for these patrons cannot be generated because their home library is not automated. In an effort to solve this problem, we are recommending that automated libraries change the 'owning location' of these patrons to your library when you register or modify these patron records. Retain the borrower type (btype) for the nonautomated library but change the location.
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Our billing notices are sometimes being sent via email. We only want them to print.
This is a known Horizon bug and we do not know a date for when it will be fixed. It is possible to raise a ceiling on the amount that is used to create a billing notice and/or to use reminder notices instead of billing notices. If you want to discuss these options, contact the LINC automation department.
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All notices are printed by the borrower's home library, not the library where the item was checked out or the library where a hold is waiting for the borrower. It's very confusing for the patron and we have been told by some customers that their home libraries are not notifying them if the item isn't being picked up there.
There is no alternative to this setup in Horizon at this time.
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We have started seeing a block that reads LTN Billing and it has nothing in it when you do a detail. What are these? Can we delete them, as there is nothing attached?
A billing notice is generated in Day End Processing (which is run at LTN) when the amount a patron owes goes above a certain level. This appears in the patron's block file to indicate that a billing notice was generated because they reached this level. You can delete it from their active block file and save it to the patron's block history file.
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When printing reminder notices, when we create a new batch, how do we determine which are new reminders and which are old so we don't waste postage? Do we have to keep running list and compare it each day?
Reminder notices are something that aren't really intended to be run each day (that's what the auto notices are intended to be). The reminder notice is something that you might run a couple times a year to catch folks who owe you more than $10 or have more than 10 books overdue. These notices are in addition to regular set of notices (first overdue, second, final and billing) However, if you do want to run them on a more regular basis you can control the interval between reminder notices in the location record via Reminder Invoice Delay. (Contact the LTLS automation department to change this). You could set this to be higher so that they don't get the same set of reminders each day.
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Our library has an LTLS email account that we use for sending Horizon notices. Can our library use this email account for other general purpose email?
Yes. The email account LTLS has established for LINC libraries to use for Horizon notices can also be used as a contact address for general questions to the library. The form of address would be xxxlib@lincolntrail.info, where xxx is replaced by the library's agency code.
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We send Horizon email notices to users with email addresses. How can we be sure they are receiving them?
LTLS has established an email account for LINC libraries, which is used as the vehicle for sending Horizon email notices. The username for this account is xxxlib, where xxx is replaced by the library's agency code. Email notices use this account as the "Sender", and any email that cannot be delivered to the patron is bounced back to this address. Checking this account on a regular basis will allow you to identify which patrons did not receive their notices and the reason for the bounced email.
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E-mail notices are showing up with gaps in-between words.
E-mail notices are hard coded to line wrap at 80 characters. When that line wrap occurs in the notice language this can cut words in half, force half of the word onto the next line, or lead to spaces in the middle of words. This issue has been reported to Horizon Engineering as a software bug in Horizon.
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What is the best procedure for assessing a fee/fine for a damaged item? Damaged checkin doesn't assess a fine and when we tried assessing a fee, it didn't put an amount on the notice. The amount does show on the patron's blocks but not on the notice that printed.
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