If you operate as a Lender (Responder) Location to another organisation, or if you operate an inter-branch loans service, you will also need to monitor for incoming requests on a regular basis, and respond to them accordingly. All new requests received for your location are at status In Process.
Click the requests button to load the ILL Requests Search screen.
Retrieve all new incoming requests aimed at your location e.g. by searching with your library’s role as Lender (Responder), filtered by Status = In Process.
Select any request you want to respond to and use the Action button.
Select one of the valid Actions from the list of actions presented to you in the Action window pull down list. Only valid Actions for incoming requests are displayed, such as Answer Conditional, Forward, Answer Will Supply, Shipped. The appropriate Action window is then loaded for you to supply additional information regarding the Action you are performing.
Click action to save the changes.
Where you receive an incoming request that you cannot satisfy then you should send a NOT SUPPLIED message. The request is automatically sent on to the next location in the rota .
This is an Action available to lenders (responders) enabling the current Service Type, from the requesting library, to be changed. This allows you to perform a subsequent Action that VDX would not otherwise make available. For example if the request has Service Type1=Locations and Service Type2=Loan then 'Locations' becomes the current Service Type. Shipping the item as a loan would be a satisfactory response but this Action is not available because the current Service Type is 'Locations'.
Therefore you can do the following to change the current Service Type:
Select the request you want to respond to (it must be at status In Process) and use the Action button.
Select Change Current Service Type from the list of Actions.
Click action to save the changes.
This loads a new screen: Action: Changed Current Service Type. It displays brief details of the request.
In the Current Service Type pull down box, select the preferred Service Type from the list of requestedService Types.
Click the action button.
Repeat in order to obtain the list of actions again, and perform a subsequent new action, e.g. 'Shipped'.
Process Statuses are defined by system administrators when setting up a system and are unique to your own VDX installation. They are used as a ‘flag’ on an incoming or outgoing ILL record, to inform ILL staff of the current state of a request. A change of process status, either on its own or with a change in ILL status, can be used to trigger an e-mail alert. From the ILL Request Search screen you can search by process status in order to find all requests at a particular point.
To change a process status:
Click the requests button to load the ILL Requests Search screen.
Retrieve the requests to be updated.
In the hit list, click in the bulk boxes of the requests to be updated.
Click on the bulk action button at the top of the page.
Select a value from the process status pull down box.
Click action.
A message will indicate if the update was successful.
As an alternative to updating a process status, a locally defined action may be chosen.
Note: if you operate in a bureau system your location needs to be configured in, otherwise process status does not display.
The responding process can be automated. This means incoming requests can be processed automatically by VDX against a set of rules defined in the Windows Admin.Client for responses by the home location to requesting locations. This configuration is optional, and can be implemented in a variety of ways. A process called docfind-responder carries out these automatic responses. Check own local information for details of how this might be used at your own location.
This is an automatic response process for the benefit of the lender (responder) location, (check with local policy to see how implemented in your organisation). This process checks whether the requested item is held by the Lender (Responder) and is available for the Borrower (Requester). It can validate the request against local profiling rules and service attributes, and be configured to automatically send back suitable ILL messages to the Borrower (Requester) dependent upon the circulation status of the requested item. The process can automatically re-route requests that cannot be directly satisfied by the current lender (responder), but can be satisfied by other ILL departments internal to the current institution or consortium. The process also has the ability to automate the role of intermediary or broker between external borrowers (requesters) and other external suppliers or brokers such as OCLC. The configuration of docfind-responder is done in the Windows Admin.Client but in practice when using the Web Admin.Client it means that many incoming requests can automatically be moved on to the next stage without human intervention at the responding location.