Request forms

Request forms define the layout of the forms used to accept new questions, KB entries, and Internal tasks, into RefTracker, and the way that they will be processed on arrival, and on closing. Administrators are responsible for the number of forms provided, and for the layout of each form.

Ideally there should be a Request form for each Request type that you have defined in your system, that will be used for entering questions in full (Request forms are not required for Request types that are only used with DeskStats). A Request form for each different Request type, will ensure that the reference interview performed by that form is appropriate to each individual Request type, and that the questions coming in through that form, are appropriately allocated to staff with the right skills for that type of request.  Another way to think about the number of request forms that you need is to ensure that you have a request form for each different service that your organisation provides.

You can have as many different request forms as are needed for your organisation. The forms distributed in new RefTracker systems are only designed to provide ideas for what your own Request forms might look like. The purpose of this part of this manual is to explain how you can amend existing Request forms, and create new ones, to meet the specific needs of your organisation.

Request forms are used by clients to submit questions through the RefTracker client interface or RefTracker forms inserted at appropriate places in your web pages.
They are also used by staff in the New and Copy screens to enter the details of questions that cannot be answered on the spot, or that were answered on the spot but need to be recorded for billing purposes, or statistical purposes where DeskStats is not able to record enough details.
Request forms are also used for Direct to KB (where the data entered in the form is saved directly to the knowledge based and the statistic is clearly identified as being Direct to KB, as opposed to a Service request.
Also request forms are used for Internal task forms, where the request is placed by a staff member and the response goes back to that staff member.  Internal tasks are very important because they allow tasks required to manage your information request service (such as subscription renewal, project plans, etc.) to be managed through RefTracker, with the statistics being reported separately from Service requests and Direct to KB. 

When creating new Request forms it is important to create the right type of form by copying either a Customer service, Internal task or Direct to KB form, as appropriate to the function of the new form you are creating.

Within a Request form you can have as many or as few data collection lines/fields as are appropriate for the Request type in your library, but you must have a Question field, a Response method field, and contact information to match the Response method chosen. If bibliographic information is to be collected you must have at least a Title.

RefTracker provides a vast range of data collection fields that can be used in Request forms. They are used to describe things about the question, the requester, and any item related to the question. You can use enabled fields from the Question, Client, and Bib tables of the Data dictionary and these fields can be data boxes (one line of text entry), data areas (multiple lines of text entry), or code tables (a drop down box, the entries of which are defined in the associated RefTracker Code table), as well as some date, numeric and money fields.

There are also some special fields for inserting text, lines and adding attachments.

If your organisation is licensed for the optional RefTracker Dynamic Lookups module, you can even design your forms so that information is automatically inserted into fields from external data sources that are accessed dynamically using SQL views or a Web service, and have data entered into fields validated against external databases.

You can have variations of the same Request form, for example:

• one for staff to use from the New screen in follow up mode, one for staff to use with the New screen in Close now mode, and another for clients to use
• or different forms for different locations within your organisation so that the allocation to staff can be different for each different location

You can even define forms to be only available for staff and clients of a specific staff location so that different services can be offered at different locations. Request forms can even be set to only be accessible by staff above a particular permission level so that, for example, the range of Request forms available for DeskStats only users can be restricted to ones they have been trained how to use.

Request forms not only define the layout used to accept the details of questions, but they also define how that form should be processed – who it is allocated to on arrival, whether it should be closed immediately on arrival, what emails should be sent, whether the form can be used in Post dated mode, what options should be presented when closing the question, and a whole lot more!

Exercise:

In the Staff interface main function bar click on New. Familiarise yourself with the forms available there.  They may be organised under headings Service requests, Internal task, and Direct to KB, that designate the type of service being recorded. 
Then look under Actions>Copy, Create linked request, and Create internal task where you will find forms for these special purposes.
In the client interface familiarise yourself with the forms available from the Ask new question link.

All of the forms you see in these places are defined by Request forms that you control using the System>Request forms functions that we are about to investigate here. Note the range of results that have been obtained in the Forms by use of different labels and different types of fields.