Using Email Reminders
The Sierra Tickler program enables you to set up email reminders for important dates associated with specific records. For example, you can set a reminder to contact a vendor regarding the status of a credit for an order, or a reminder of important dates associated with your electronic resources, such as trial dates and contract dates.
You can use two kinds of ticklers in Sierra:
- A record-specific tickler (order, holdings/checkin, license, and resource records only).
- A tickler rule for a group of records that share a common date (license and resource records only).
The tickler program runs as a cron job. It searches for records that match either a tickler rule or a record-specific tickler. When it finds a match, it sends an email to the address indicated on the tickler. It also adds a Tickler Log variable-length field to each record matched, for each match in the record. The tickler program uses the Tickler Log field to confirm that an email was sent for a specific match.
Busied Records
The tickler program cannot send an email for an order record that is busy. For example, if the tickler program finds a match in an order record that is in a session file but has not yet been posted, the system cannot send an email. Once the session is posted and the order record is freed, the email is sent the next time the tickler program runs.
Creating a Tickler for a Specific Record
To create a tickler for a single record:
- Retrieve the desired record.
- Choose Insert and select from the drop-down list either the Resource Managmt. Tickler field for resource and license records or the Tickler field for order and holdings/checkin records.
- Enter the following information:
- Name — The name of the tickler.
- Date (YYYYMMDD) — The date the tickler email should be sent.
- Send to — The email address(es) to which tickler mail is sent. You can enter multiple email addresses by separating each address with a comma and a space.
- Subject — The subject line of the email being sent. If you do not enter a subject, Sierra uses the default subject line Sierra Reminder. Contact Innovative to change the default subject.
- Header — The text inserted at the beginning of the email, above the body of the message. This text is limited to 1,103 characters. You use this field for the specifics of the email reminder. The body of the message is system-generated, and includes either:
- the record number for the record containing the tickler and the title from the bibliographic record (for order and holdings/checkin record ticklers), or
- the record number for the record containing the tickler and the Resource Name field from the resource record.
- Footer — The text inserted at the end of the email, after the body of the message.
You must enter the Date (YYYYMMDD) field in the Year/Month/Day format indicated by the parenthetical note. If you enter the date in a different format, the system does not send email for your tickler. Note that the system does not provide validation of this date field.
- Choose OK. If the Tickler field appears in the compressed format after you have entered it in a record, right-click the field and choose Expand Field. Sierra displays the information in a multi-line variable-length field. Contact Innovative to change the default display format (expanded or compressed).
Tickler Log
When the Sierra Tickler program finds a record that matches either a tickler rule or a record-specific tickler, it adds a Tickler Log variable-length field to each record matched, for each match in the record. The program uses this field to confirm that the system sent the email reminder. This field stores the following information:
- Name — Text from the Name element of the Tickler field or tickler rule.
- Event Date — The date that the email message was sent.
- Fixed Field Date — The date from the DATE element of the Tickler field or the date in the fixed-length field specified in the tickler rule.
- Sent to — The email address (or addresses) from the Send to element of the Tickler field or tickler rule.
- Subject — The text from the Subject element of the Tickler field or tickler rule.
- Header — The text from the Header element of the Tickler field or tickler rule that is inserted at the beginning of the email.
The Tickler Log field cannot be edited in order or holdings/checkin records. You can, however, add a Tickler Log field to resource and license records to override a tickler rule for a specific record.