Creating Overdues Reports

If your library has acquired the Overdues Report product, you can generate reports that list, by home library, patrons that have overdue items. For more information about the content and format of these reports, see Overdues Reports.

This page describes:

Setting Up Overdues Reports
Generating an Overdues Report
Exporting an Overdues report
Printing an Overdues Report

Setting Up Overdues Reports

Innovative enables this product for you. Before Innovative can do so, you must:

  1. Add an entry to the Text of Circulation Notices table to be used as the Text Message element of the Overdues Report.
  2. Tell Innovative the number of the message you created.
  3. Tell Innovative which variable-length field patron records must contain to be included in the Overdues Report (for example, DEPT).

Generating an Overdues Report

You must be assigned permission 364 (Overdues Report) to access the Overdues Report function. For more information, see Permissions Used By Sierra.

To generate an Overdues Report:

  1. Choose Overdues Report from the Function list. Every night the system generates a list of all the overdue items in the system. If you have not prepared an Overdues Report since yesterday, the system indicates the date on which you last generated the Overdues Report. For example:

The current Overdues Report is dated 12-11-2001.

  1. Choose one of the following options:
    Create New Report
    Creates and displays a new Overdues Report.
    Use Current Report
    Displays the current Overdues Report
  2. Specify your report criteria, as follows:
    CriteriaAction
    Home Library ListSelect which location(s) you want to include in the Overdues Report.
    Possible Values ListSelect a subset of the patrons from the home library.
    Possible Values List

    Sierra alters the label of the Possible Values List to match the name of the variable-length field that your library specified as a prerequisite for inclusion in the Overdues Report. For example, your library might have specified that the DEPT field be used for this report; as a result, the Possible Values List is labelled "DEPT".

The following rules apply when specifying criteria:

  • If you set the Home Library List to a specific library (for example, Main), the Possible Values List contains all of the different specified field (for example, DEPT) values found in the patron records that have overdue items and that belong to Main. For example, if there are two patron records from Main that have overdue items and they each belong to a different department (for example, Biology and Psychology), the following values appear in the Possible Values List:
    • ALL
    • Biology
    • Psychology
    In this example, if you choose "ALL", the system includes both patrons in the Overdues Report. If you choose a specific department, the system includes only the patron who belongs to that department in the Overdues Report.
  • If all of the patrons from the selected home library share the same value in the specified variable-length field, the Possible Values List can be set only to that value.
  • If you set the Home Library List to "ALL", Sierra disables the Possible Values List. For example, if you set the Home Library List to "ALL," the system includes all patrons who have overdue items and whose patron records' contain the DEPT variable-length field in the Overdues Report.
  1. Choose the Prepare Reports button. Sierra displays the contents of the Overdues Report. There are three ways to view the generated Overdues Report:
  • View the data on the Sierra on-screen display.
  • Export the data to Excel or another application.
  • Print the data using the Sierra Desktop app.

Exporting an Overdues Report

To export a generated Overdues Report to a different application, such as Excel, choose the Export button or Tools | Export from the top left of the Prepare Overdues Report window. Choose an export option:

Open in Excel
If Excel is installed on your computer, Excel automatically launches and displays the table as an overdue_report<#####>.xls file. (The appended <#####>is the timestamp of the export down to the second, used to distinguish the current exported file from previously exported files.)
Print to a file
Save as comma separated values (csv) text
Save as tabbed text
The Export dialog box enables you to choose a folder and enter a name in which to save the exported Overdues Report. The table is saved as a "File" type of file. To view the file, select a program with which to open the file. Print to a file table entries are separated by spaces. Save as comma separated values (csv) text table entries are separated by commas. Save as tabbed text table entries are separated by tabs.

Printing an Overdues Report

To print an Overdues Report directly from the Sierra Desktop, choose the Print icon.

If you have not already selected a standard printer, the system prompts you to choose one. If the patrons at a location share the same specified field value, the system generates one report for that location. If the patrons at a location have different specified field values, the system generates a separate report for the patrons with each value.

See also:
Possible Messages (Overdues Reports)