Creating Contact Records

To create resource, license, and contact records, you must be assigned permission 232 (Create Contact Records). See Permissions Used by Sierra for more information.

Contact records contain name and address information for resource vendors.

To create a new contact record, do the following:

  1. Choose Contacts from the Function list.
  2. Choose File | New Record | Contact Record.

    Sierra defaults to the record template selected in Admin | Settings | New Records | New Record Templates. If the setting is "Prompt for Template," you are prompted to select one of the templates from the list.

    Preferred Templates

    You can create a customized list of preferred templates in Admin | Settings | Templates. If you use this setting, the list of templates that displays when you create a new record will be limited to those you have specified.


  3. Highlight the row of the template you want to use and choose the Select button. Depending on the settings enabled for your login, the system does one of the following:
    • Displays a blank record template.
    • Offers a "wizard" (a series of dialogs). For each field that appears in the selected template, the system prompts you to enter a value for that field.

      Your system administrator can enable or disable the new record wizard via the Use wizard to create new records option in the Edit tab of the Administration Application.

  4. Enter data for the variable-length fields required by the record template you chose.

    Note the following:

    • To separate lines in variable-length field values, use the $ symbol or semicolons.
    • Do not use vertical bars (|) to separate lines in variable-length field values in contact records.
    • There are no fixed-length fields in the contact record.
    • The CONTACT CODE field enables you to associate a resource record with the contact record.
  5. When you finish entering contact information, choose Save.
  6. (Optional) Associate the contact record with a resource record:
    1. Retrieve or create a resource record.
    2. Enter the CONTACT CODE value from the contact record in the following fixed-length fields:
      • ACCESS PROVIDER
      • PUBLISHER
      • COPYRIGHT HOLDER
      • DATA PROVIDER
      • CONSORTIUM

      When you associate contact information with a resource, the contact information displays in the Contacts tab for the resource record. The resource record fixed-length field appears as the "Role" in the contacts display.