Modifying Notice Delivery Preferences
You can view and modify the preferred delivery method (also known as "notification preference") for each patron's circulation notices.
Viewing and Modifying Delivery Preferences
The NOTICE PREF field in patron records displays the notification preferences (email, phone, or printed statement), if any, that the patron set using the Patron Information screen in the WebPAC. When you make changes to the NOTICE PREF field in patron records, your changes are displayed in the WebPAC, and any changes patrons make to their notification preferences in the WebPAC are displayed in the NOTICE PREF field of their patron records.
To add, modify, or delete notification preference options, use the Fixed-length Codes table.
How the System Uses Delivery Preferences to Send Notices
If a patron has opted to receive notices as text messages from Sierra SMS, Sierra might override the NOTICE PREF setting for those notice types. See Using Sierra SMS for more information.
When notices are generated, the system uses each patron's notification preference, if any, to determine the delivery method for each notice. If the system is unable to send a notice using the preferred delivery method, the system does the following:
- If the system is unable to accommodate a patron's notification preference, the notice is sent by another method. For example, if the patron prefers to receive notices by phone, but the notice type to be sent is not enabled for telephone notification, the system attempts to send the notice by email. If an email address does not exist in the patron record, the system prints the notice.
- If a patron has not set a notification preference, the NOTICE PREF field displays a '-'. The system attempts to send notices to patrons with no specified notification preference in the following order of delivery method:
- Telephone
- Printer
If the system is unable to send a notice to a patron via email (for example, the patron record has no email address or the email address does not contain the '@' symbol), the system attempts to send notices via telephone notification. If the system is unable to send the notice to the patron via telephone notification (for example, the patron record has no telephone number or the telephone number field contains the ## [<pound><pound>] symbol), the system sends the notice to the printer.