Printing Payment Receipts with Print Templates

If your site has enabled the Print Templates feature, you can use customized templates for printing fine payment receipts receipts to an attached receipt printer or to the patron's email address using Sierra Circulation.

With the appropriate editing software (e.g., Jaspersoft Studio), you can specify the data that appears on payment receipts. You can also control font selection and layout, and you can incorporate graphic images into receipt templates. Customized payment receipts can be printed or sent to patrons via email. For more information about customizing payment receipts, see Creating Customized Print Templates.

To set up print templates, you must specify a preferred template family for each login you want to use print templates. The system then selects the appropriate template from the preferred template family each time a fine payment receipt is printed or emailed from the SDA. For more information, see Creating a List of Preferred Template Families.

How the System Chooses a Receipt Template

When Sierra uses print templates to print or email a payment receipt, it selects the appropriate template from the login's preferred template family to send each patron's receipt. (For information about defining a preferred template family, see Print Template Family Settings for Circulation Notices and Receipts.)

To choose the appropriate template for each transaction, Sierra:

  1. Determines which language to use. The system compares the Language attribute of each template to the LANG PREF field in the patron record. If the patron record does not contain a LANG PREF field, the system ignores the Language attribute.
  2. Determines which delivery method to use. If your library allows patrons to choose a delivery method for due slips and the patron selects email delivery, the system uses the template with a Delivery Method attribute of "email." Otherwise, the system uses the template with a Delivery Method attribute of "print."
  3. Determines which template best matches the patron's language and delivery method:
    1. If the system finds a template for which both the language and delivery method match the patron's preferences, the system uses that template.
    2. If a complete match does not exist, the system searches for a partial match:
      • If the system finds templates in which either the language or the delivery method (but not both) matches the patron's preferences, the system uses the template in which the language matches the patron's preference.
      • If the system does not find a template in which the language matches the patron's preference but does find a template in which the delivery method matches, the system uses that template.
    3. If neither a complete nor partial match exists, the system uses the general template.
    4. If none of the above exist (there is no complete match, partial match, or general template), the system uses the first template listed under this template family name.