Bulk Change Patron Records

To edit all the patron records in a record set through bulk change:

Important:
You need the system-level permission Access patron record bulk change and the branch-level permission Patron registration: Modify to do this procedure. If the patron records in the record set have various Registered at branches and you do not have permission to modify the records for a specific branch, these records will not be changed and an appropriate error message will be written in the Bulk Change Report. After the records are changed, they cannot be changed back to their original settings automatically.

  1. Display a patron record set in the Record Set workform by one of the following methods:
    • Create a new record set. See Creating and Using Record Sets.
    • Select Patron Services, Record Sets. Use the Find Tool to search for an existing record set, and open it from the results list.
    • Select Links, Existing, Records Sets from an open patron record workform when the record is a member of the record set.

The Record Set workform appears.

  1. Select Tools, Bulk Change or click iBulkChIcon.gif to display the Bulk Change dialog box.
  1. Click Report/Record Set to display the Report/Record Set tabbed page.
  2. If you want to change the default destination for the bulk change report, type the folder and file name in the Save to file box, or click Browse... to locate a destination.
  3. If you want to create an error record set, do these steps:
    1. Select the Error Record Set check box.
    2. Type a name for the error record set in the Name box.
    3. Type your user name or the library name as the owner of the error record set in the Owner box.

Note:
The error record set lists records that were not changed during processing due to errors. See Bulk Change Reporting.

  1. Click the tab for the page that contains the field you want to change. The tabbed pages correspond to areas on the Patron Registration and Patron Status workforms:
    • Registration - Account information such as registered branch, expiration term and date, patron code, and statistical class

Note:
Statistical class codes are branch-specific. If you change the registered branch and a patron’s statistical class code does not exist for the new branch, the statistical class code is changed to null.

  • Address - Address and notification options.
  • General - General information fields such as original registration date; eReceipt options; language; reading history; exclusion from overdue notices, almost overdue and auto-renew reminder notices; exclusion from collection agency reporting; additional text messaging; and do not delete patron record. Staff members with the permission to secure patron records can select the Secure the patron record check box to prevent any library activity for the patrons in the record set. For more information, see Secure a patron record.
  • UDFs - User-defined fields, as set up in Polaris Administration; see Bulk Changes to User-Defined Fields.
  • Blocks/Notes - Library-defined and free text blocks; patron record blocking and non-blocking notes. See Bulk Changes to Blocks and Bulk Changes to Notes.

Note:
If you are changing library-assigned blocks, you must first choose a registration branch on the Registration tabbed page, because library-assigned blocks are branch-specific. If a patron has a library-assigned block that is not valid for the new branch, the block is removed from the patron record.

The appropriate tabbed page appears.

  1. Select the check box for the field you want to change. The companion box becomes available.
  2. Select or type the new values for the fields in their corresponding box.
  3. Click OK to start the bulk change process. The Summary of Changes message box lists the settings you made for the bulk change.
  4. Click Continue to confirm your bulk change settings. The bulk change process applies all your changes to the records wherever the changes can be made. Some records may have a status that prevents certain changes from being performed.

You can do other tasks in Polaris while the bulk changes are being made. A message box appears when the bulk change process is finished.

  1. Click OK on the message box. The Record Set workform appears.

When the bulk change process is complete, review the Bulk Change Report for any errors in the process. See View the Bulk Change Report.