WorldShare Circulation release notes, June 2020

Patron communication

Patrons are notified of their membership status in several ways:

• The new Membership Bill Notification Policy can be used to notify the patron that a membership bills is due.
• The new Membership Confirmation Notification Policy can be used to confirm that the patron's membership is now active and to provide the expiration date for her records.
• Patrons with an unpaid membership bill or an expired/unknown membership status will be prevented from renewing their current loans in My Account.
• Appropriate screen messages have been added for SIP2-enabled self-service kiosks.
  • See SIP2 Custom Messages to make any changes to the default message text.

 Note: You may continue to use Patron Type Policy settings to automatically block patrons while their accounts are delinquent, including when a patron owes too much in fees. You can also use the Blocked flag to manually block a patron because of her status in another campus system or to set the user's expiration date to coincide with the end of the membership period, where appropriate. Patron Type Policy, the blocked flag, and the account expiry date will continue to be managed independently of membership.

Membership & circulation services

The following describes what your patrons can and cannot do while their membership status is expired or unknown:

Getting started

By default, membership will not be required for any of your library patrons.

You can leverage membership policies to automatically determine if a patron owes a membership fee and the terms of the membership period.

If your library is interested in using membership management, you can begin by configuring the following policies and settings.

1. Create membership Notification Policies
   • Keep your patrons informed about their membership status by enabling email notifications.
   • When configured, membership notifications will be sent hourly to any patrons that have had relevant membership activity in the previous hour.
   • There are two notification types for membership:
     • Membership Bill Notification notifies the patron that a membership bill has been created against her account.
       • This email includes your library's configured subject line, start text, and end text as well as the billed amount and the period of membership time this will purchase.

       •  Note: The standard Bill Notification will also include the membership bill details but will not include the membership period information.

     • Membership Confirmation Notification notifies the patron that her membership has been activated.
       • This email includes your library's configured subject line, start text, and end text as well as the original billed amount and the expiration date of the membership.
   • You can configure one or more versions of each notification policy in Service Configuration > WMS Circulation > Notifications and Receipts > Notification Policies. Note that printed notifications are not supported at this time.
2. Create Membership Policies
   • A membership policy is used to define the terms of the membership, including cost and duration.
   • You can configure membership policies in Service Configuration > WMS Circulation > Billing and Suspension > Membership Policies.
   • Set the appropriate fee amount, bill reason, and membership period, i.e. how long the membership should be active after the bill is fully paid or waived.
   • Select any membership notifications created in the previous step.

3. Select a Membership Policy in Patron Type Policy
   • Activate membership requirements by selecting a Membership Policy in a relevant Patron Type Policy.
   • You can select a Membership Policy from Service Configuration > WMS Circulation > Patron Type Policy.
   • By default, no Membership Policy will be selected.
   • You can remove a Membership Policy at any time:
     • Active memberships will continue to display in the patron's account in WorldShare Circulation
     • Patrons with an expired or unknown membership status will be no longer by blocked by the system

     •  Caution: Any pending membership bills will need to be manually canceled by library staff. Use the Outstanding Fees and Bills Report to identify orphaned bills.

 Note: You will be able to set membership policies only for your own, local patrons. If your library participates in group circulation, the patron's membership status will control what she is allowed to do across the entire group. For example, Library A may require membership for its alumni but cannot require membership for alumni of Library B. If the membership of an alumnus of Library A expires, then he will not be able to checkout items owned by any library in the group.

Other considerations

A membership is activated when the associated bill is fully paid or waived OR when library staff set an expiration date in the future when updating the membership status of an existing member.

All memberships will end after 11:59:59 PM in your local institution time on the specified expiration date. The minimum membership period is 1 day; this will expire at 11:59:59 PM on the day after the membership bill is resolved.

Your library's open hours will not be considered when calculating the membership period. For example, a membership of seven days will include Saturday and Sunday even if your library is closed on weekends.

Membership expiration dates cannot be edited or cleared once set by the system. 

You may cancel a membership bill to indicate that a paid membership is no longer required. However, you may need to update either the user's Patron Type or the Patron Type Policy to ensure that the system will not block the patron or recreate the bill later. For example, a bill was created while a user was assigned to a Patron Type requiring membership. The patron has since enrolled at your institution and no longer needs to pay the bill. You should update the patron record to reflect the user's enrollment status and then cancel the bill.

Continue to monitor the release notes for WorldShare Circulation and WorldShare Reports & Report Designer for enhancements to membership management.